Army equipment on a government tender: sizing, protection rating and what cannot be substituted

Almost everything in this division is bought on a government tender against a written schedule. The schedule sets the protection level, the material specification, the test standard and the sizing breakdown, and none of those are ours to improve on. That sounds obvious; it is the single most common failure in this trade.

Protection ratings are not approximate

On bulletproof vests and body armour, the rating stated in the contract is the rating supplied. A supplier offering a plate "equivalent to" a cited level is offering something else. If we cannot meet a stated rating we say so at quotation, because the alternative is a consignment that fails acceptance testing after it has been paid for and shipped.

The same discipline applies to bomb detection equipment, where sensitivity, substance library and operating environment are all set by the schedule, and to riot and drill materials.

Sizing is where uniform contracts go wrong

Army uniform and boots are the items most often ordered in quantity against a size breakdown that was estimated rather than measured. Two things are worth doing before the order:

• Send the actual breakdown by size, not a total. A contract for ten thousand uniforms distributed on the wrong curve leaves the buyer short in the middle sizes and long at the ends, and reorders are slow.
• Confirm the sizing system the schedule uses. The same nominal size differs between systems by enough to matter.

Military tents are specified on frame, fabric weight and wind loading rather than floor area alone, and the relief and disaster versions in our relief tents range are built to a different brief again.

Choosing a supplier for defence and security goods

The supplier questions here are about evidence, not price:

• Will they put compliance against each schedule line in writing before the order?
• Can they produce test reports from a named laboratory for anything with a protection rating?
• Will they confirm, in writing, what they will not substitute?
• Do they understand that acceptance testing happens at your end and plan for it?

On export of this category

Defence and security equipment carries its own export and import controls, which differ by destination and by item, and they are resolved before an order rather than during one. We supply against a government schedule and the documentation the contract requires, and we will tell you where an item is not something we can ship to a given destination.

Send the schedule, the quantities by size and the test standard. Request a quotation, or see the army equipment range.