GDELS announced on January 26 that the Austrian Ministry of Defense awarded a contract on October 30, 2020 to General Dynamics European Land Systems-Steyr for the delivery of 30 Pandur 6x6 Evolution (Evo) wheeled armored vehicles.
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Pandur Evolution in APC version (Picture source: GDELS)
The new vehicles are designed as armored personnel carriers (APCs) and can be quickly converted into other roles such as CASEVAC (casualty evacuation) due to their modular design. In addition to the 34 vehicles purchased in 2016 and based in the center of excellence at the Jägerbataillon 17 in Strass/Styria, the Austrian Armed Forces will operate a fleet of 64 new Pandur 6x6 Evo. Deliveries will be made in 2022 and 2023.
Since 1996, the Pandur has successfully served in domestic and international peacekeeping missions. The significantly modernized version of the Pandur MTPzUN, the Pandur Evo, offers an unmatched compact vehicle design with a crew of 11 soldiers, superior mobility, and a significantly increased level of protection against mines and IED threats. The vehicles will be completely manufactured in Austria. More than 200 suppliers, mainly SMEs, are involved in this program: “We are very proud that we have been awarded this important contract. The cooperation with the Austrian Armed Forces is excellent and underlines the great satisfaction with our products. In addition, this order secures hundreds of high-tech jobs due to the Austrian added value,” explains Martin Reischer, Managing Director of GDELS-Steyr.
The Pandur family of vehicles, available in 6x6 and 8x8 and amphibious or terrestrial configurations, serves as a common platform for various armament and equipment systems. It combines high mobility, survivability, and protection thanks to its internal drive train concept. The Pandur ensures logistics commonality, versatility of armament and equipment, simple operation, excellent sustainability, high availability, in-house electronic architecture, and easy maintenance.
GDELS-Steyr has built more than 3,000 armored vehicles (tracked and wheeled), thereof more than 800 Pandur platforms are in operation worldwide, more than 500 in NATO member countries.
Pandur Evo
The Pandur Evolution (Evo) has been engineered by a team having more than three decades of experience of design, development, production, testing and logistic support of about 2,000 tracked vehicles. Therefore, the Pandur shares a lot of design loads and boundary conditions for the concept design, dimensioning and selection of mechanical and electrical/ electronical components and subsystems with the tracked vehicle families (ASCOD/ULAN).
The Pandur Evo has a more powerful 455hp engine than its predecessor, a better mine protection, more inner space, an anti-lock braking system for greater driver safety, an NBC protection system, and more capable electronics. The program cost is around EUR105 million (USD123 million).
