Companies gear up for light recon vehicle competitions.

During the next several months, the European military-vehicle industry will be watching closely a French and a British competition for new armored reconnaissance trucks, expected to be used in peacekeeping operations and low-intensity conflicts.

Last March, France's procurement agency, the Delegation Generale pour l'Armement (DGA), awarded four contracts for the Petit Vehicule Protege (PVP), or light protected vehicle program.

The competitors include three French firms--Soframe/Lohr, Auverland and Panhard--and a British company, Vickers Defence.

Vickers officials said they were particularly pleased to have been selected, because it is rare for any major French military procurement to include foreign firms.

The PVP program may involve up to 1,500 vehicles. Each competitor was expected to submit a prototype this month, in preparation for September trials. A contract award is scheduled for 2003.

The PVP will be a rapid-deployment vehicle--transportable by helicopter--that can travel on any type of terrain, with significant off-road use. There will be two variants--infantry and command post--and each will carry a crew of five. It must provide ballistic protection for the crew and the engine. The French government also required that the PVP candidates be derived from existing vehicles or at least have commercially available subcomponents.

Panhard's PVP prototype is based on a DaimlerChrysler 4x4 chassis. The company has been supplying tactical wheeled vehicles to the French Army for many years and is well known in the industry. Panhard & Levassor was the first in France to manufacture an internal combustion engine in 1876.

Vickers' offering is the so-called RG-32M, a mine-proof 4x4 truck based on an existing vehicle that was modified to meet the French requirements, said Tim Burleigh, a Vickers executive.

The same truck also was one of five platforms selected for the British future command-and-liaison vehicle, which will replace the Ferret light 4x4 scout truck equipped with a machine gun. The United Kingdom will spend at least $250 million on 422 vehicles, to enter service in 2006.

The future command and liaison vehicle (FCLV) project will be used by the U.K. Army for reconnaissance tasks, which were originally performed by the Ferret. A production contract for FCLV could be awarded in March 2004. The trials have been completed.

Christopher F. Foss, armor and artillery specialist at Jane's International, said that the FCLV will have to be survivable against small arms, artillery fragments and anti-tank mines. It will carry a heavy machine gun, will have thermal imaging sensors and will be transportable on a C130 or A400M air lifter. It also will be compatible with the U.K. Ministry of Defence's Bowman digital radio.

Besides Vickers, the other contenders for the FCLV award are Insys and Alvis Vehicles Ltd., which is proposing two different trucks. Foss reported last month that Vickers and Alvis, which are owned by Rolls Royce, are expected to merge in the near future.

Insys is the prime contractor for the U.K biological detection system.

Meanwhile, other vehicle manufacturers--which are not part of the FCLV or the French PVP competitions--recently unveiled new rapid-deployment vehicles, hoping to attract international customers.

Automotive Technik Ltd., is marketing a new variant of the German Pinzgauer tactical truck, currently in service with the British Army. The revamped Pinzgauer features a low-profile superstructure comprising a rollover protection hoop and a removable support structure. It is transportable on a Chinook helicopter.

The new trucks will cost approximately $100,000. Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations have placed a large order, said a company spokesman. The Pinzgauer also is competing in a light logistics truck replacement program in Hungary.

The spokesman noted that the Pinzgauers now being sold have engines that comply with the Euro III emissions standard, which is roughly equivalent to the 1998 U.S. EPA standard. The Euro III has been mandatory since 2001.

After 2006, European vehicles must comply with a much more stringent standard, the Euro IV.

David Elmes, director of business development at Caterpillar, said that the Euro III is slightly more stringent than EPA '98. The Euro IV is scheduled to take effect in 2005.

A growing demand for lighter, mobile tactical vehicles and the tightening of the emissions standards are forcing engine manufacturers to adapt, Elmes said in an interview during the 2002 Eurosatory land-warfare exhibition.

For lighter vehicles, he said, "We tend to use smaller engines." But he added that the technology still has a ways to go before it can deliver high performance and low emissions in small packages.

For many combat vehicle programs, the requirement is for the engine to be Euro IV compliant, Elmes said. In the United Kingdom, for example, the requirement is for the engine to be compliant to whatever standard is in place at the time the vehicle is fielded. "That gives us a moving target," Elmes said. "It has a big impact on the cooling system and everything else."

Foss noted that European vehicles mostly used to have Detroit Diesel engines. "Now, they are going to Caterpillar or Cummings."

He does not foresee that Europeans will adopt military hybrid-electric systems in the near future. "Germany has been working on it for a long time," said Foss. But the issue is "how you rake it into production."

In anticipation of stricter emissions regulations and evolving customer demands, Caterpillar developed a new technology that is not quite a hybrid-electric drive but, the company claims, drastically improves the efficiency of the engine.

The system is called MorElectric. "It's not a hybrid electric, but it's going a long way towards it," said Elmes. The ancillaries on the engine are driven electrically, as opposed to mechanically. "The only thing that it's not doing is actually driving the vehicle, but it's driving everything else," he said.

The MorElectric is scheduled to go into production in 2004 for U.S. commercial truck companies. "The technology is commercial, but can be leveraged for the defense industry," said Elmes.

"This is a mature technology," he said. The system fits in the existing engine hole, so the upgrade is relatively simple, he added.

The U.S. truck industry was the target customer for MorElectric, said Elmes.

Driving Accessories

The MorElectric system will provide heating, cooling and accessory power--including battery charging--without idling the engine. Idling a truck engine when the vehicle is parked is a common means of providing cabin heat or cooling while a driver sleeps or does paperwork. This practice uses fuel inefficiently, increases engine maintenance, creates additional exhaust emissions and generally increases operating expenses.

With this technology, a flywheel generator/starter provides electrical power to drive several accessories on a "flow-on-demand" approach. Some of the first accessories chosen to be converted to the electrically driven system are the HVAC, air compressor and oil and water pumps.

Caterpillar developed MorElectric in a partnership with Kenworth Truck Company, Engineered Machined Products Inc., and Emerson, under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The program started in 2000, when the Department of Energy launched a 42-month $4.4 million research effort to develop technology for heavy-duty on-highway trucks that would save fuel and reduce emissions through electrically driven engine accessories.

The demonstration/prototype truck designed under this program is expected to result in fuel savings ranging from 9 to 18 percent. The technology will be commercially available in 2004.

In the MorElectric system, the engine will drive a large generator. The generator, which will double as a starting motor, will provide power for electric motors driving accessories that currently are mechanically powered by the engine, via belts or gears. Such a system, says Caterpillar, would allow flexible vehicle design, because accessories would no longer have to be located in or on the engine.--Sandra I. Erwin