The Vickers reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Vickers

The British Vickers corporation is primarily a manufacturer of military equipment. The Vickers company was founded in 1828. 1955 saw the separation of the company, then Vickers-Armstrong, into three groups, Vickers aircraft, Vickers Shipbuilding and engineering.

Vickers produced one of the first aircraft designed from the beginning to carry a machine gun, the Vickers Gunbus. It also built the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic Ocean non-stop, a converted World War I RAF Vickers Vimy bomber. It was a pioneer in producing airliners, early examples being converted from Vimy bombers, and went on to manufacture the piston-engined Viking and Varsity, the Viscount and Vanguard turboprop airliners, and the stylish though noisy VC-10 jet airliner. The Valiant V bomber was another Vickers design. The corporation is currently focused on military vehicles and weapons. The VC-10 remains in RAF service as a troop transporter and aerial refueling tanker. The plane-building parts of Vickers were absorbed into the British Aircraft Corporation during the production of that type.

It was also known for its tank design, starting with the widespread in the world Vickers 6-Ton. Other famous design was Valentine in World War II. In recent years the main product of Vickers has been the Challenger II.

The 1990s saw Vickers enter a period of diversification, notably with the £340m ($609m) acquisition of Ulstein, the Norwegian shipbuilding group in December 1998. Vickers already owned the Swedish ship engineering company Kamewa (acquired in 1986.)

Vickers was acquired by Rolls Royce plc in 1999 for £576m ($1.03Bn.) The marine propulsion portfolio of Vickers made it particularly suited to Rolls-Royce, transforming the group into the global leader in marine power systems.

In 2002 Vickers Defence Systems (which excludes marine business) was bought by Alvis plc, and is now a subsidiary - Alvis Vickers Ltd.

On March 11, 2004 it was announced that the board of Alvis Vickers had approved a take-over by a direct competitor in the field of military vehicles, General Dynamics of the USA.

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