Future armoured troop carrying vehicles

Abstract

Present-day reliance on wheeled and tracked armour personnel carriers (APCs) and infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), may be changed in the future. Shaped charge grenades and impovised explosive devices (IEDs) represent a considerable threat, even to well protected main battle tanks (MBTs). Paradoxically, the crew of wheeled and tracked troop-carrying vehicles is numerically three to four times larger than that of MBTs, however, their protection in all aspects is significantly lower. Therefore, heavier vehicles may get more attention in the future, where sharing the chassis and a number of components with MBTs could provide significant reductions in procurement costs and maintenance, as well as a simplified logistics in relation to the latest tracked. Obviously, the IFVs mobility of heavy vehicles would be lower than that of lighter vehicles. However, by applying various degrees of modular armour protection, a significant rise in strategic, operational, and tactical mobility could be achieved. Such heavy tracked vehicles, built on a common chassis as MBTs, may equip the future heavy brigades, which will be in contrast to the lighter wheeled vehicles included in rapid deployment brigades. As a result, tracked personnel carrying vehicles may extinct in the future. © 2010, DESIDOC.