18 January 2001

Even though the armoured fighting vehicle industrial base has been contracting over the last few years and some famous names have already disappeared, potential customers for new vehicles still have a wide range of vehicles from which to choose.

Many countries now have competitions to select their new vehicles. The Belgian requirement for 54 new wheeled armoured personnel carriers (APCs) ended up as a straight competition between Steyr-Daimler-Puch of Austria with the Pandur 6 x 6 and MOWAG of Switzerland with the Piranha 6 x 6; the Pandur was eventually selected and assembled in Belgium.

The more recent requirement was for 40 APCs for Ireland and in the end just two vehicles were evaluated: the Pandur 6 x 6 and the Piranha III 8 x 8. Ireland subsequently selected the Piranha III fitted with the Helio FVT800 one-person turret armed with 12.7mm and 7.62mm machine guns.

There are many countries offering machine gun and cannon mounts for light armoured vehicles (LAVs) including FN Herstal of Belgium with their .50 cal MPH/M3M weapon system and Helio of the UK with their SWARM (Stabilised Weapon and Reconnaissance Mount). The latter can be adopted for different missions and is available with different weapons and sensor pods.

The RAFAEL Armament Development Authority Overhead Weapon Station (OWS) is now being adopted for an increasing number of countries including Canada (upgraded M113 APC), Romania (upgraded MIL-84 infantry fighting vehicles) and Singapore (M113s upgraded by Singapore Technologies Kinetics).

In the 25mm/30mm area, the US Delco Defense Systems Operations two-person targets have been installed on all production LAV-25 8 x 8 vehicles. An enhanced version with TOW missiles has been installed on the Alvis Vehicles Desert Warrior vehicles sold to Kuwait.

At the heavier end of the turret market, the Belgian CMI LCTS 90mm Mk 8 turret system, which fires ammunition developed by MECAR, has been selected by three countries in the Middle East.

These are Kuwait (10 turrets installed on an Austrian Steyr-Daimler-Puch Pandur 6 x 6 manufactured by AV Technology), Saudi Arabia (ordered to be fitted on 130 Diesel Division, General Motors of Canada LAVs) and Qatar (installed on 36 Alvis Vehicles built MOWAG Piranha II vehicles).

The design of the LCTS 90mm Mk 8 turret system is modular so that it can be adopted for a wide range of user requirements. Jane's Defence Weekly understands that it has been offered to the US Army installed on a United Defense M113 series chassis.

According to CMI, their LCTS 90mm Mk 8 turret system, firing the extensive MECAR family of ammunition, will beat all the targets specified by the US Army Brigade Combat Team (BGT) requirement.

It is not often realised that there is also intensive competition at the subsystem level. For many years the Piranha 8 x 8 was only offered with a Detroit Diesel engine but today is available powered by a Caterpillar, Detroit Diesel, MTU or Scania diesel engine.

In addition to competitions for engines, transmissions, and weapon stations, there are also upgrades for armour systems. Leaders in this market include IBD of Germany (more than 7,000 kits sold) and RAFAEL Armament Development Authority of Israel.

The United Defense LP M113 series of full-tracked APCs was originally developed over 40 years ago and an increasing number of countries are now upgrading these vehicles to extend their operational lives.

Upgrade packages can be provided by the original prime contractor or other companies such as FFG (Germany), NIMDA (Israel), Singapore Technologies Kinetics and Marvin Land Systems (USA).