State Department OKs Bahrain’s $2.2B FMS Request for Abrams Main Battle Tank

The State Department has approved the government of Bahrain’s request to procure M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks and related equipment from the U.S. government under a potential $2.2 billion foreign military sales agreement.

Bahrain has asked to procure 50 M1A2 System Enhancement Program version 3 vehicles, four M88A2 Hercules combat recovery vehicles, eight M1110 joint assault bridges, eight M1150 assault breacher vehicles and eight heavy assault scissor bridges, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said Tuesday.

The potential FMS deal also includes M240C 7.62mm machine guns; AGT1500 gas turbine engines; 120mm M1147 High Explosive Multipurpose Tracer cartridges and 120mm M1002 Target Practice Multipurpose Tracer projectiles.

General Dynamics‘ (NYSE: GD) land systems division, BAE Systems, Leonardo DRS (Nasdaq: DRS), Honeywell Aerospace, RTX (NYSE: RTX) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) will serve as the principal contractors on the deal.

Bahrain has requested the deployment of one government and 30 contractor representatives for five years to support equipment fielding and training.