The new military landrover replacement "The Hawkei"

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Soldato
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From they guys who created the Bushmaster:D

Looks like a Bush pig/Wart hog to me, yet incredibly cool:D:cool:

st_hawkei-420x0.jpg




Australian soldiers could find themselves going to war in a vehicle named after a venomous snake - a thoroughly modern version of the tried and proven old Land Rover.

Defence company Thales has unveiled a mock-up of its new Hawkei (pronounced Hawk-eye) protected light mobility vehicle which is to be offered to the Australian Defence Force under a project to replace about 1,300 Land Rovers with far more advanced vehicles.

Despite its long and proven service, the Land Rover offers minimal protection against the type of threat certain to be encountered in any future conflict - landmines, improvised explosive devices and gunfire.

Thales Australia managing director Chris Jenkins says scarcely a week passes without a report of attacks on Australian troops in Afghanistan from IEDs, mines or small arms and often all three, underlining the need for troops to be protected.

"The tragic outcomes for coalition forces when attacks have been made on inadequately protected vehicles have been all too clear and unfortunately too frequent reminders of this need for greater protection," he said in Canberra on Tuesday.

Thales has established its new vehicle will protect ADF personnel from ballistic and blast threats that regularly destroy commercial and military off-the-shelf vehicles of greater size and mass.

The company's first priority is to supply the ADF but there is also vast potential for export sales, Mr Jenkins says.

"There are over 50,000 Land Rover-type vehicles unprotected or struggling to be protected around the world.

The Hawkei at seven tonnes and with its levels of protection had unique capability.

Thales land systems head Ian Irving said the ADF wanted unparalleled levels of protection and survivability, mobility and payload in a seven-tonne package able to be transported in the cargo sling of a Chinook helicopter.

"The ADF needs these vehicles now," he said, adding prototypes would be delivered at the end of 2010 for trials in 2011.

A contract is likely by 2012 and production "shortly thereafter".

Hawkei, named after a species of Australian death adder, follows Thales' highly successful Bushmaster, a 15-tonne armoured vehicle manufactured at Bendigo, Victoria, and used by Australian and Dutch troops in Afghanistan.

The new vehicle can carry five soldiers and is powered by a Steyr V6 diesel engine, giving it a top speed in excess of 110 km/h and a range of more than 1,000 kilometres.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/australian-troops-offered-new-ride-the-hawkei-20090929-gaqv.html


Found a new image of one in the plant :D

616983.jpg


Im sure there are more around but i cant find them at the moment
 
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Can't see that surviving many IED strikes to be honest. The americans as said earlier had a much better design with their V shaped hulls.

That's just going to get blown to pieces.

Nothing says of them testing it against explosives properly, similar to afghan type attacks.
 

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Soldato
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Can't see that surviving many IED strikes to be honest. The americans as said earlier had a much better design with their V shaped hulls.

That's just going to get blown to pieces.

Nothing says of them testing it against explosives properly, similar to afghan type attacks.


Its just a mock up at the moment.

But im guessing they will use the same V hull as the yanks do.

So far the bushmasters have handled IEDs pretty well so lets hoope these can too:)
 
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The yanks had a better idea with the one with the V shaped hull for IEDs.

isn't that the Australians with the bush master?

LAND_Bushmaster_Dutch_Damaged_lg.jpg


(wit the storage things on the sides removed to show hull)


Although this thing seems like it's designed for a different role, the ones with the V shaped hull are heavily armoured big and not as fast iirc.

I think this is meant to be more in line with the humvee/landrover
 
Soldato
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Can't see that surviving many IED strikes to be honest. The americans as said earlier had a much better design with their V shaped hulls.

That's just going to get blown to pieces.

Nothing says of them testing it against explosives properly, similar to afghan type attacks.

I love how people jump in to say "It won't stand up to a blast".

Can I ask are you an engineer with experience in blast mechanics? Or have you been given information on the type of materials to be used to build this, the picture there is a design sketch for the newspapers/tender and I do think that before this will be implimented they will be tested to destruction.

KaHn
 
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Interesting... Still I prefer the design of the new Zepher, which as a V shaped underbelly, not as stream lined but after poking about it at DSEi this looks a little flimsy!
 
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Wont the Taliban just use more powerful IEDs? Seen some vids of IEDs going off and they just tear everything apart.

They are already using 500lb and upwards IEDs, there is quite simply nothing that can withstand that size of blast hence the number of KIA due to IEDs rising over the past year or so.
 
Soldato
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Wont the Taliban just use more powerful IEDs? Seen some vids of IEDs going off and they just tear everything apart.

Blast mechanics is weird, stiff and strong isn't the best way of dealing with it, hence the V shaped bottoms to defelct the blast wave away from the people inside, being able to dampen the blast and move it is the easiest way of protecting yourself (apart from not being there) but with that you must do it in a way to still protect against normal attacks.

Another thing it does come down to is cost but thats another problem.

I think it will be interesting to see how these get on in the field and with some luck will be a lot better than the land rovers.

KaHn
 
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