WORK to fit the Army's Challenger II tanks with a controversial - and desperately needed - battlefield communications system will safeguard jobs at Alvis Vickers' North-East manufacturing plant.

The company has been awarded a £16m contract to integrate the £2bn Bowman communications system into the Army's fleet of main battle tanks and recovery vehicles.

The work forms part of a larger order - worth £26.8m - that will also see the company retrospectively fitting Challengers with an electronic engine control system.

Delighted management said the order would safeguard about 50 jobs at the manufacturing plant in Newcastle.

Trevor Harrison, managing director of Alvis Vickers, said "These contracts illustrate the strength of Alvis Vickers in the area of electronic systems technology and the integration of sophisticated software and subsystems into the Challenger II family of vehicles."

Work will start this year and run through to the end of 2007.

Bowman is the name given to the Army's much criticised new battlefield communications hardware that is years behind schedule.

For top brass, the Bowman system cannot arrive soon enough.

For years, the military have been forced to rely on its ancient Clansman system based on technology from the 1950s.

During recent conflicts soldiers preferred to use their own private mobile phones for battlefield communications rather than the heavy and unreliable Clansman equipment.

Bowman was already eight years behind schedule when the Government withdrew the contract from Archer Communications Systems in 2000 following concerns over delays and increasing costs.

After years of delays and cost over-runs, in September 2001 a contract was awarded to General Dynamics with an approved "in service" date of December this year.

Although Alvis Vickers had nothing to do with the creation of Bowman, the group's tank expertise made it the natural choice for installing the equipment into the Army's Challenger 2s.

Bowman is a component of the Land Digitization system, which will include future battlefield information systems such as Makefast, a system supporting battlefield engineers.

A company spokeswoman said: "This contract will affect 386 Challenger II main battle tanks and 81 Challenger Repair and Recovery Vehicles (CRARRV). Alvis Vickers will share the conversion work with its strategic partner ABRO. The work will be carried out at sites in the UK, Germany and Canada."

Separately, the MoD awarded a £9.2m contract to supply 492 electronic engine, together with installation kits and spares, for the Challenger II, CRARRV and Driver Training Tank fleet."

The company also won a six-month extension to a maintenance contract for the tank training fleet worth about £1.6m.