Summary
Medium Armoured Vehicles
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Extract
Weight lifters.
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With the emergence of the requirement for highly protected vehicles resulting from the asymmetrical nature of warfare, the distinction between the traditional medium armoured, scout and troop transport vehicles is becoming increasingly difficult to make, especially if weight is the yardstick. Since a line has to be drawn somewhere, this survey will concentrate on both wheeled and tracked armoured vehicles primarily in the ten to 30-tonne range, while armoured troop transports and convoy protection vehicles will be examined in the next issue. On 8 May 2008 the General Dynamics-Mowag Piranha V had emerged as the winner of the British Ministry of Defence's 'Trials of Truth' competition. The purpose was to select the 'provisional' preferred design for the Utility Vehicle (UV) portion of the Future Rapid Effects System (Fres) project to equip the British Army with medium-weight armoured vehicles. However, in a twist of events that seems to have become somewhat recurrent in recent years in Britain, the Utility Vehicle segment of the programme came to a grinding halt in mid-December; officially on the grounds of a misunderstanding between parties regarding the conditions of intellectual property transfer inherent to the design. It must be remembered here that in fact the Piranha V only exists on paper. The actual 'provisional' winner was the Piranha Evolution, which basically was a Piranha IV. Ironically, the prototype of the Piranha IV had its public debut at the 2001 DSEi exhibition in London. Mowag has always had a reputation of thorough seriousness in the design and construction of its vehicles; there are thus no serious reasons to question what might have been the capabilities of the eventual Piranha V. Nevertheless, after the May selection Lieutenant General Dick Applegate, Chief of Materiel (Land), told the House of Commons Defence Committee: >. The alternative in this case was constituted by two proven vehicles that are already in production and thus approved by several services: the Artec Boxer (much instigated by Britain and later also rejected in an earlier project) and the Nexter VBCI. BAE Systems Hagglunds had hoped that the 8 x 8 platform developed for the Fres requirement under the umbrella of the Swedish Army's Splitterskyddad EnhetsPlaftorm (Sep or Modular Armoured Tactical System) offered the prospect of Anglo-Swedish co-operation. Without a partner the Swedish Army terminated funding for the Sep project in February 2008 and in October launched a competition for an off-the-shelf 8 x 8 vehicle. Story of Indecision With a projected cost of 16 billion [pounds sterling] Fres was until recently regarded as Europe's largest armoured fighting vehicle project. What will be left of it is now a matter for conjecture in spite of the fact that attentions are now to focus on the Scout portion of the programme. For the time being, it might simply be safer to be content with the explanations given by Defence Secretary John Hutton to the House of Commons on 11 December 2008:See the full content of this document
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