I was doing an updated list of possible candidates to replace the LARC-V and of course the AMZ Hippopotamus came up. But much to my surprise the Hippo has a little brother, the BOBR.
Information on this interesting light weight, high speed armored recon car can be found at Army Recognition and Defense24.pl (translator required).
This Bobr(Beaver) takes BRDM concept in to the 21st century. I always liked the concept where recon cars were fully amphibious . That might seem useless to some but on European battlefield there would be many rivers to cross .
ReplyDelete*Interesting fact BRDM-2 even tough its a old 4x4 vehicle was the standard by which Slovenian army measured Patria AMV's off road preformance, as newer 6x6 Pandurs or 4x4 Hummves were no match for BRDM-2
Yep, Beaver is the prototype of vehicle that would ( if succeed and Polish MoD would by it ) replace BRDM-2 in to recon duty of Polish army. You are fully correct about that relation to rivers, we got a lot of them... a loooooooot. That's why IFV Rosomak is fully amphibious.
DeleteIt need more work to be fully ready but as concept if pretty good.
If you lads want to see some other pretty nice vehicle I propose another AMZ babe, the Żubr ( European Bison ) http://www.amz.pl/pl,395,0_zubr-wd.html also check some other vehicles they got.
Lots about bridges in this series on YT...........
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU-qmHYXosQ
Large rivers seem to have better bank access. It is narrow courses, especially canals with "constructed sides" that cause problems. BUT I don't think the Russians put all that investment into amphibious vehicles without them being useful. BMP and BRDM surging forwarding in good numbers exploiting weaknesses without the need to wait for a bridge layer (and all the hoopla of securing the other bank.)
On a side note many forget that the Bradley can swim. Not that I would want to be aboard...
The German/Dutch Fennek comes without a special ability to swim. The just 1.8 m high vehicle has a fording capability up to 1 m. According to volume and weight the vehicle starts swimming at greater depths.
ReplyDeleteA real amphibious capability with propellers was omitted. Especially the Dutch dislike that feature. They have to much levees and rivers with a far to steep banquette. It is far much easier to get in than to get out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennek
The Fennek comes with a 5 t winch to get himself out of the deepest mud in case a stable anchor point is availble.