10th December 2018
- 12:08 GMT |
The British Army’s Royal Tank Regiment
(RTR) has developed a new Challenger 2 MBT demonstrator to highlight
modifications that could be made to the platform for urban operations.
The RTR
will be demonstrating the vehicle during the Army Warfighting Experiment held
in December 2018.
Speaking
to Shephard, 2nd Lt Nicholas
Warren-Miller, 3 Tp Ldr RTR, said that the team has worked over the past two
months to add ‘low-level...low-cost modifications that can be done very
quickly’ on the tank.
One of
the key areas of modification was to enhance situational awareness in urban
environments which Warren-Miller said was particularly limited in the
Challenger 2 during urban operations when in close-down and inside the tank.
Infantry-tank
cooperation is another key area of focus for the RTR, which will make the Challenger
2 'more effective' in the urban environment, according to Warren-Miller.
‘We’ve
essentially increased the firepower of the tank and we have created a local
area network into the tank which streams camera feeds. So in theory the
infantry can use an Android tablet or phone and actually view what we are
seeing and what our cameras are seeing,’ Warren-Miller explained.
This
has been achieved through the use of fixed cameras and panoramic 360˚ thermal
imagers, barrel cameras to see left and right at junctions without exposing the
platform and camera feeds streamed to dismounted soldier systems.
The RTR
has worked with an industry team, led by Ultra Precision Control System (PCS),
to carry out the improvements. Warren-Miller emphasised that this project has
been completed completely outside of the Challenger 2 Life Extension Programme
which is currently being competed between BAE Systems and Rheinmetall.
‘It
comes from the Hobart committee…when everyone in the regiment gets to make
recommendations for Challenger 2. And we’ve been given as a squadron the urban
environment to adapt our vehicle to,’ Warren-Miller explained.
Through
the Hobart committee the team has been given funding to carry out the work.
Ultra PCS lead a team that includes FN Herstal UK, Mildef, Esterline, Istec and
Ultra Lynx.
Other
modifications include external storage for breaching tools and dismounted equipment;
turret mounted mortar; commanders GPMG and loaders HMG.
Warren-Miller
suggested that this will be an ongoing project as the RTR has more ideas for
long-lasting modifications. For now though these technologies will only be
demonstrated on the one experimental platform.
Source: shephardmediacom
Source: The Royal Tank Regiment
Challenger 2:
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