The German ground forces have received the first of the ordered Boxer armored personnel carriers, according to Defense Aerospace. Currently, the first 8 armored personnel carriers are undergoing training before being sent to Afghanistan. The vehicles are expected to be shipped to Afghanistan in August this year. They were received by the 292nd Jaeger Battalion.
They are also used for driver training at the military driver's school in Dornstadt - the school received 7 training armored vehicles in 2010. Conducting training on new machines, the German military also evaluates them. If any problems are found, a corresponding notification will be sent to the manufacturer - Boxer PD.
The contract for the purchase of such armored vehicles was signed at the end of 2006. In total, the German Ministry of Defense purchased 272 Boxer armored personnel carriers. The armored combat vehicles for the German Armed Forces will be produced in three versions: 135 armored personnel carriers, 65 command and staff vehicles and 72 armored ambulances. At the same time, in the future, the total number of such vehicles in service is planned to be increased to 1000 units.
Help: GTK "Boxer" (German Gepanzerte Transport Kraftfahrzeug Boxer) is a German-Dutch multipurpose armored personnel carrier. Combat wheeled amphibious armored vehicle, equipped with weapons, intended for use in motorized rifle units of the ground forces. The machine was created by the German firms Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, Rheinmetall AG and the Dutch Stork.
History
The governments of Great Britain and Germany in November 1999 signed an agreement on the joint design of a new generation of armored personnel carriers, which was named Boxer. In England, the program is called MRAV, and in Germany it is known as Gepanzertes Transport-Kraftfahrzeug (GTK). In February 2001, the Netherlands will be interested in the project, and then they will join it. In the Netherlands, the project received the Pantser Wiel Voertuig (PWV) code. And already in December 2002 it was announced that the armored personnel carrier would be named "Boxer".
The project was managed and supervised by the European Armaments Agency, OCCAR (Organization for Joint Armament Cooperation). In July 2003, the Ministry of Defense of England announced its withdrawal from the project, motivating the creation of its own FRES system. The first prototypes were built in December 2002, in October 2003 the first modification appeared - a command post based on the Boxer armored personnel carrier. Tests of the armored personnel carrier were completed in 2006. In July 2006, the Dutch parliament approved the purchase of the first batch of 200 Boxer armored personnel carriers, and in December of the same year, Germany approved the purchase of 272 vehicles (including 72 sanitary options). The production contract was signed on May 19, 2006 with ARTEC.
Peculiarities
The main body of the vehicle is made of solid steel, and is equipped with "modular armor", it provides protection against bullets and fragments of artillery shells and anti-tank mines. It is possible to install new armor, which will provide protection against RPGs (of course, which RPG with which charge is not indicated). The vehicle performs various tasks and has several modifications: armored personnel carrier, command vehicle, ambulance, "tank destroyer". The cost is 3 million euros.
The layout is modular. That is, a chassis and a control compartment are produced as a base, and then, depending on the order, an airborne or sanitary compartment, a compartment for calculating an ATGM or mortar, etc., is mounted.
In the front of the vehicle, the designers of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann used the same layout with rational angles of armor slope as on the Puma infantry fighting vehicle, and the same forward engine layout. It should be noted that the "rational angles of inclination" of the upper armor plate are actually made counting on the use of active armor, and not at all from the hope of causing a ricochet of a sub-caliber projectile. Although a ricochet with such a strong slope is quite probable.
Basic performance characteristics
Combat weight, t - 33, Crew, people - 2, Troopers, people - eleven, Body length, mm - 7880, Case width, mm - 2660, Height, mm - 2370, Armament (standard): 12.7 mm machine gun, 40 mm automatic grenade launcher (Heckler & Koch GMG), Engine type - one liquid-cooled diesel engine, Engine power, hp with. - 530, Highway speed, km / h - 103, Cruising on the highway, km - 1050-1100, Suspension type - independent, torsion bar with telescopic hydraulic shock absorbers 8x8, Overcoming obstacles - on the move (without preparation) overcomes a 2 meter trench and a ford about a meter deep
It is assumed that this armored personnel carrier will replace part of the Marder-1 BMP and the M113 armored personnel carrier in the Bundeswehr. During the Eurosatori 2010 exhibition, the Krauss-Maffei Wegmann company presented a prototype of the Boxer armored vehicle equipped with a module with a 30-mm stabilized Mk.44 ATK cannon with two-sided feed and a coaxial machine gun. At the same time, Rheinmetall Defense presented the Boxer in the BMP version, which was equipped with a two-man Lance turret with a 30-mm stabilized MK-30-2 cannon and a coaxial 7.62-mm machine gun.
