County Durham defence firm taps into Cold War documents as part of deal to support Ukrainian Army

Tracks for an armoured fighting vehicle being assembled at Cook Defence Sytems. Picture Bruce Rollinson

A County Durham defence company has revealed how it is consulting Cold War documents to reverse engineer parts for the Ukrainian Army.

Cook Defence Systems, based in Stanhope, Bishop Auckland, is having to reverse-engineer new tracks that can be compatible with Soviet-era vehicles – a challenge that has seen it enlist technical experts on armoured vehicles as well as study museum pieces. The research work has been needed as part of several contracts the firm has secured, as part of a £100m-plus international package announced at the end of last year to send support to the Ukrainian Army.

Cook Defence Systems has been hired for its “manufacturing excellence and ingenuity” to supply spares for up to 500 Ukrainian armoured vehicles, and it has been awarded multiple contracts on behalf of the UK and the UK-administered International Fund for Ukraine (IFU), Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S). As well as supplying tracks for vehicles donated by the UK to Ukraine, including Challenger 2 main battle tanks, the company is manufacturing tracks for the Soviet-era vehicles used by a large part of the Ukrainian Army.

The business, which can trace its roots back to the 1840s, has been a defence supplier since the Second World War. However, managing director William Cook said the contract has served up unusual challenges.

Mr Cook said: “We have a long history of supplying tracks for all the armoured vehicles of the British Army and many allied militaries, but delivering these contracts for Ukraine has been a very different challenge. We have had to reverse-engineer Soviet-era equipment using limited reference material and a lot of our own know-how, while working with the manufacturing processes and materials available to us rather than the original Russian ones.

“We are doing all this with an urgency unknown in peacetime. We know there are Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline whose lives depend on what we do.”

Mr Cook told how, to reverse-engineer new tracks compatible with the Soviet-era vehicles, the team at Cook Defence Systems have had to rely on museum pieces, Cold War reference documents and technical experts. Although some of the vehicles supported by Cook Defence Systems are Soviet designed, the manufacturing techniques used by the company are way more advanced and include laser scanning and digital x-ray inspection, and a lot of the physical production work is performed by robots.

As a result of the contract award Cook Defence Systems has already recruited 15 new people and is currently hiring for more.

Mr Cook added: “One of the biggest challenges has been almost doubling our output. We have reconfigured production lines and recruited new people wherever possible. Everyone is working exceptionally hard, but we are incredibly proud to be making a difference.”

Maj Gen Anna-Lee Reilly, director of the operations directorate at DE&S, said: “What Cook Defence has achieved is a perfect example of British manufacturing excellence and ingenuity combined with a ‘can do’ approach to problem solving. The company has applied their proven manufacturing expertise and combined it with creativity to find a solution which delivers a huge benefit to Ukraine.”

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