British forces have new BvS10 Viking tracked armoured vehicles

UK MoD awaits up-armoured BvS10 Vikings 09 July 2008 BAE Systems Hagglunds is to begin delivering a further 14 BvS10 Viking tracked armoured vehicles to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) in mid-July, all of which will be fitted with the enhanced protection package developed for operations in Afghanistan. That package was rapidly developed under an urgent operational requirement (UoR) in a series of applique fits, principally to up-armour the vehicles against small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire, but also to enhance driver awareness. As other forces in Afghanistan have discovered, low levels of ambient light have reduced the effectiveness of existing light intensification systems for night operations and the Vikings have been fitted with both infrared headlamps and Selex Galileo's latest Driver's Night Vision System (DNVS 2). The latter combines an uncooled thermal imager working in the 8-14 µm band with a daylight TV camera; this feeds a colour LCD driver's display with a clear non-reflective screen. The armour package consists of bar armour around the front and sides of the front vehicle section and the sides and rear of the aft 'trailer' section. The forward bar package fit has been arranged to hinge with the doors and flop backwards at the front to allow access to the engine bay.