Defense Technology International - September 2007 - (Page 39) An initial series of 274 tracked, all-terrain GFF 2 vehicles is under contract from Rheinmetall. The vehicles, designated Bv206S, were originally designed by BAE Systems Hagglunds of Sweden and licensed to Rheinmetall. No award has been made for the remainder of the approximately 5,700 GFF 2 vehicles planned. The main contenders for this program are the Caracal from Rheinmetall, based on the Italian Iveco LMV light multipurpose vehicle, of which thousands have been ordered by Belgium, Britain and Italy, and the Eagle IV, offered by Mowag of Switzerland, a unit of General Dynamics. In the GFF 3 class, about 220 Dingo 2 protected vehicles from Krauss-Maffei Wegmann are on order, while Rheinmetall is supplying 48 of its Yak vehicles, whose design is based on the Duro III from Mowag. The full GFF 3 procurement order will include almost 2,000 more vehicles of a yet-to-bedetermined type, the Dingo 2 or the Yak. The Dingo 2 is an upgrade of the original Dingo, which was fielded in 2000 and has been ordered by Austria, Belgium and Germany. Both the Dingo 1 and 2 have seen extensive service in Afghanistan and the Balkans, and on several occasions protected their occupants from IEDs and other attacks. The highly mobile 4 X 4 Dingo (based on an off-the-shelf Mercedes-Benz Unimog chassis) is, however, being challenged by Rheinmetall’s 6 X 6 Yak. The Yak is an off-the-shelf design, based on the Duro III vehicle from Mowag. It incorporates significant chassis modifications to meet demanding German army requirements for enhanced mobility in rough terrain. The Yak can be employed in eight operational configurations by exchanging its The Grizzly from Krauss-Maffei Wegmann transports 10 soldiers, carries a large payload and resists IEDs, projectiles and land mines. mission module. The vehicle, air-transportable in C-130 and larger aircraft, has a crew of two and carries 12 additional personnel, along with a payload of 5.5 tons depending on the mission module. Rheinmetall has changed the Yak’s armor in recent months to counter IEDs. The first 30 Yaks, delivered in 2005 and 2006 to meet urgent operational requirements from the German army in Afghanistan, had armor panels that were only required to protect against ballistic threats and land mines. When NATO forces in Afghanistan started getting attacked by roadside bombs and suicide bombers, the army expanded requirements for the Yak to include protection against IEDs. For a second batch of 100 Yaks, series production of which started recently, Rheinmetall is using an armor design that combines the conflicting requirements of ballistic and blast protection. “Pure ballistic protection requires a very hard material, for which on the first Yaks we used ceramic,” says Neidhardt. “But to absorb the blast energy from an IED, the outside of the armor must have a degree of flexibility.” Rheinmetall switched from ceramic to steel on the outside of the mission module and the driver’s cabin RHEINMETALL KRAUSS-MAFFEI WEGMANN Germany is procuring the Wiesel 2 tracked vehicle from Rheinmetall as part of its lightweight GFF 1 program requirements. www.aviationweek.com/dti SEPTEMBER 2007 DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL 39 http://www.aviationweek.com/dti
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.