The company can trace its roots back to the beginning of the Second World War, when the Food Machinery Corporation (FMC) helped to design a light amphibious tracked vehicle for its agricultural machine business.
The design soon attracted the attention of military planners and soon a military version was being developed. This became known as the Landing Vehicle, Tracked (LVT) and an immediate order for 1,000 LVTs was placed by the United States Marine Corps. Production lines were established in Florida and in Riverside, California. By the end of the war, FMC had built 11,251 LVT vehicles, receiving in 1945 the Army-Navy ‘E’ award for outstanding war production.
Meanwhile, Bowen-McLaughlin York (BMY) a division of the Harsco Corporation began developing and building tanks for the US Armed Forces. For the next fifty years, both companies produced more than 100,000 vehicles for the military.
The Food Machinery Corporation was renamed FMC Corporation in 1961, and launched several new products, including the M.113 armoured personnel carrier, the M.109 self-propelled howitzer and the M.2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle.
Following a massive decline in orders for tracked combat vehicles between 1983 and 1994, FMC Corporation and the Harsco Corporation agreed to combine their defence businesses and formed the United Defense Limited Partnership in January 1994. FMC’s Defence Systems Group formed 60% of the new company and Harsco’s BMY Combat Systems Division held the remaining 40%. This merger reduced the number of combat vehicle manufacturers in the United States of America to just two, United Defense and General Dynamics.
In May 1997, both FMC and Harsco began looking for exit strategies from their defence businesses. By the summer, General Dynamics and The Carlyle Group were vying to purchase United Defense. General Dynamics made the largest bid of $1 billion, but this raised anti-trust concerns, the Pentagon preferred to have at least two sources for military equipment, to ensure supplies during wartime. United Defense was ultimately sold to The Carlyle Group, who through their Iron Horse subsidiary purchased the company for $880 million.
United Defense Industries (UDI), as it became known, went public on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2001. UDI started to expand its business portfolio by acquiring Bofors Weapons Systems AB of Sweden in September 2000; United States Marine Repair in July 2002, Cercom Inc. and Kaiser Compositek in 2004.
On the 7th March 2005, BAE Systems announced it was acquiring UDI. The bid was referred to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to ensure there were no national security implications of the sale. On 24th June BAE Systems completed the purchase of UDI for $4.192 billion, and formed BAE Systems Land and Armaments, grouping together all the company’s land systems businesses.
