Future Armoured Vehicles Survivability 2022: Boxer operators plan user club

Boxer operators plan to create a user club for the armoured vehicle. (Krauss-Maffei Wegmann)

Boxer operators plan to create a user club for the armoured vehicle, Lieutenant Colonel Karlheinz Boehnke, Multi-Role Armoured Vehicle (MRAV) representative in the German Army Concepts and Capabilities Development Centre, revealed on the first day of SAE Media Group's Future Armoured Vehicles Survivability 2022 conference held in London from 16 to 17 November. Lt Col Boehnke hoped that an agreement on the formation of the user club could be agreed by the end of 2022 so that the grouping could start work in 2023.

The original Boxer users are Germany and the Netherlands, and the vehicle is being procured by Australia, Lithuania, and the UK (Slovenia announced on 15 September its intention to withdraw from the programme).

Answering a question from Janes during the second day of the conference, Lt Col Boehnke said the Boxer user club would co-operate in such areas as capability development and logistics.

The Boxer user club will be modelled on a similar grouping of CV90 infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) users: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. Tarkan Turkan, CV90 platform director at BAE Systems Hägglunds, told Janes on 17 November that the CV90 user club has a steering committee, system development board, and training, sustainment and logistics, and survivability groups.

According to the BAE Systems website, the topics discussed by the CV90 user group are broad and in depth and could include missiles, smoothness of a ride, battlefield situational awareness, new technologies, and shared experiences.

Turkan cited as an example of the sharing of experience the lessons learned from Norway about its deployment of CV90s in Afghanistan.