The ASCOD Medium Main Battle Tank (MMBT) of the General Dynamics European Land Systems (GDELS) company presented at NATO Days in Ostrava & Czech Air Force Days 2018. GDELS presented its ASCOD family of tracked vehicles at dynamic displays in which manufacturing the Ray Service company will take part as well. At MoÅ¡nov Airport, both firms signed a contract worth more than 100 million Czech Crowns regarding delivery of cabling for these vehicles. They thus build on their cooperation in production of Pandur wheeled armoured vehicles ordered by the Czech Armed Forces. ASCOD is one of the candidates for a new armoured vehicle which could replace the aging BVP-2 in the Czech Armed Forces. However, there were also its competitors at MoÅ¡nov Airport – CV-90 with 120mm cannon by BAE Systems, Lynx by Rheinmetall or Puma S1 by PSM consortium.
The Medium Main Battle Tank (MMBT) is based on a modified chassis of the ASCOD II multi-purpose vehicle platform. With a gross vehicle weight (GVW) of 42 tons, it is fitted with a modern Leonardo’s 120mm HITFACT system ( which includes gunner self-stabilised day and night IR thermal cameras ), armed with a 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun. The 120mm smoothbore gun fires standard NATO ammunition and is coupled to a computerised fire control system giving the commander and gunner stabilised day/thermal sights incorporating a laser rangefinder. The gross vehicle weight of 42 tons and vehicle has increased volume for the rear compartment.
The ASCOD Medium Main Battle Tank (MMBT) and ASCOD Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) have been developed using General Dynamics European Land Systems’ new “Common Base Platform Design” (CBP) with modular capability and open vehicle architecture with three power-pack solutions between 530, 600 and 800kW, either steel tracks or rubber bands and multiple configurations up to the crew of three plus 8 dismounts. The advanced CBP design ensures all ASCOD variants are on one common platform for a reduced logistics footprint. This also facilitates cross-national vehicle manufacturing and operational interoperability between different military users in response to the political vision to foster defence cooperation across Europe.
The ASCOD (Austrian Spanish Cooperation Development) armoured fighting vehicle family is the product of a cooperation agreement between Austrian Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG (in 1998 the production of heavy armed vehicles was sold out under the name Steyr-Daimler-Puch Spezialfahrzeug, which is now the producer) and Spanish General Dynamics Santa Bárbara Sistemas (both companies are now divisions of a unit of General Dynamics). The ASCOD family includes the LT 105, a light tank equipped with a 105 mm gun, a SAM launcher, an anti-tank missile launcher, mortar carrier, R&R vehicle, Command & Control vehicle, ambulance, artillery observer, and the AIFV model. In Spanish service, the vehicle is called Pizarro, while the Austrian version is called Ulan.
