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Boxer takes aim
Tuesday, 11 September, 2007
The ARTEC Boxer (8x8) Multi-Role Armoured Vehicle (MRAV) is one of the three vehicles currently being put through a series of trials at the Armoured Trials and Development Unit at Bovington in southern England, to meet the British Army requirement for a Utility Vehicle (UV) member of the Future Rapid Effect System (FRES).
Last December the company was awarded a production contract for the Boxer from the German Army (272 units) and the Royal Netherlands Army (200 units). ARTEC expects to deliver the first Boxer vehicles to the German Army on schedule in mid-2009, with deliveries to the Royal Netherlands Army in 2011.
The three German Army versions of Boxer will be armoured personnel carrier (APC) (135), command post (CP) (65) and heavy armoured ambulance (72). The Royal Netherlands
Army will have five versions including command post (55), ambulance (58), cargo (27), cargo/command and control (19) and engineer group vehicle (41).
A total of 12 prototypes of Boxer and their associated mission modules have been built and very soon the Reliability Growth Trial (RFT) will be completed, which covers 60,000km of extensive road and cross-country trials. Troop trials will be completed by early 2008.
ARTEC has confirmed to the Show Daily that it would be in a position to meet the demanding delivery schedule of 2012 for the British Army if Boxer was selected to meet the UV requirement. First UK Boxer vehicles would come from the German/Netherlands production lines with the major part of the purchase of about 2,000 units being manufactured in the UK through a technology transfer package.
ARTEC has already had discussions with UK contractors (including BAE Systems Land Systems and ABRO) for local production of Boxer. While the Boxer chassis would be the same as that ordered by Germany and the Netherlands, the removable rear mission module would be developed to meet specific UK operational requirements.
The UK already has extensive knowledge of the Boxer, as it was originally developed to meet the requirements of the British Army. The UK pulled out of the Boxer programme in 2002 after an expenditure of some GBP57m. Since then the FRES situation has changed and the requirement for the FRES UV to be fully air-transportable in a Lockheed C-130 Hercules has been dropped and the protection level has been raised.
Gross vehicle weight of Boxer depends on the version and its appliqué armour package. It is now about 30 tonnes, but its current design allows it to grow to 36 tonnes without any additional modification to the drive line. As currently configured, Boxer is air-transportable in the A400M transport aircraft.
Boxer has a maximum road speed of 100km/h and an operational range of 1,000km. In its troop carrying configuration it has a crew of two and can carry 10 fully equipped troops.
Boxer has a very high level of protection against small arms fire, medium calibre weapons and antitank mines. A top attack protection package has already been developed and this will be installed on RNLA vehicles. Further protection packages have been developed, including belly protection against EFP attack and side protection against rocket propelled grenade attack. Studies are also being carried out on a number of specialised variants such as mortar carrier and missile platform.
ARTEC is a joint venture company formed by Dutch company Stork (50 per cent) and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (36 per cent) and Rheinmetall Landsysteme (14 per cent) of Germany.
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