Warthog on track

Christopher F Foss

Thursday, 10 September, 2009

Singapore Technologies Kinetics (STK) is on schedule to deliver the first three Warthog armoured all-terrain tracked vehicles later this month and all 115 vehicles are due to be delivered in 2010. These will replace the BvS 10 Viking vehicles currently deployed in Afghanistan by the British Army, which took them over from the Royal Marines.

The UK MoD placed the £150 million-plus contract for the Warthog programme late last year under Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) funding, with four versions being procured – troop carrier, command post, ambulance and repair/recovery. In order to de-risk the programme prior to production, STK built a Warthog testbed, which incorporated many improvements. This underwent a successful 2,000km-plus trial in the United Arab Emirates this year, where it operated in temperatures of up to +47°C.

Warthog is a further development of the Bronco, which has been in service with the Singapore Armed Forces since 2001 in many configurations and has a typical gross vehicle weight (GVW) of 16 tonnes. The Warthog has a GVW of up to 19 tonnes, with a total internal volume of 13m3.

To meet the demanding UK Warthog requirement, the Bronco has been upgraded in many areas, including installation of airconditioning in front and rear units, and a new armour package that includes spall liners, appliqué armour and bar armour.

The roof is fitted with a Platt mount that can be armed with a 7.62mm or 12.7mm machine gun or an 40mm automatic grenade launcher. It also has enhanced automotive cooling, an improved dust filtration system and an electrical system uprated to 450A. STK is already studying a number of further improvements to the vehicle at the subsystem level.

Thales UK is the systems integrator for the Warthog and STK will send the vehicles complete with armour to Swansea, where they will be fitted with UK-specific equipment such as Bowman digital communications equipment and electronic devices to counter improvised explosive devices.

Other UK suppliers include Gallay for the air-conditioning system, and Permali Gloucester for the appliqué armour.