FN Browning signs 10-year contract with British army
FN Browning will modernise and maintain heavy machine guns for the British armed forces under a new ten-year contract worth more than 23 million euros. The Liège-based arms manufacturer announced the news on Thursday.
The deal concerns the FN M2HB-QCB, the latest version of the Browning M2 machine gun originally designed after the First World War. In the British Army, the weapon is designated the L111A1 HMG. Through its subsidiary FN UK, the group will take on the modernisation and long-term maintenance of the machine guns used by both the British Army and Navy.
All work will be carried out in the United Kingdom, it said. FN operates a factory in Kent, the country’s only machine gun manufacturer. According to the company, the new contract will “help secure existing employment and create new jobs” at the site.
FN Browning Group is wholly owned by the Walloon Region since 1997. It changed its name from Herstal Group last year. Next to the UK, it has production sites in Belgium, Portugal, Finland and the United States, employing over 3,000 people.
© BELGA PHOTO NATACHA FREISEN
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