The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Armed Forces’ new Rabdan 8×8 infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) participating in Exercise ‘Native Fury 20′. Native Fury is an exercise of the U.S. Marine Corps’ ability to deploy a force for quick and effective crisis response. The exercise is designed to increase proficiency, expand levels of cooperation, enhance maritime capabilities and promote long-term regional stability and interoperability between the United Arab Emirates and the United States. This exercise involves ship-to-shore offloads of personnel, equipment and humanitarian resources as well as a logistics convoy movement across the UAE.
In 2016, Otokar teamed up with Emirati company Al Jasoor to develop a new 8×8 vehicle for the United Arab Emirates Army. Al Jasoor, which is a joint company between Otokar UAE (49%) and Tawazun Holdings (51%), was established to create and develop a unique variant based on the Arma 8×8 called Rabdan in the United Arab Emirates. The Rabdan also provides a small arms fie protection of up to STANAG 4569 Level 4 and mine blast protection of up to STANAG Level 4a and Level 4b. Since the Rabdan was created to replace the BMP-3, the BMP-3 turrets are also configurable on the Rabdan and the Rabdan is equipped with 100-mm 2A70 semi-automatic rifled gun, 30 mm 2A72 cannon, and 7.62 mm machine gun.
The Rabdan is heavier at 28 tons (vs Arma 24 tons) and has a length and width of 15 cm and 55 cm. The vehicle will carry 11 passengers, designed to keep them safe from mines and missile threats, and will be able to easily traverse over rivers and ponds. The vehicle is motorized with a Caterpillar 12.5 liter diesel engine developing 600 hp. coupled to an Allison 4500 automatic transmission with 6 forward and 1 reverse gears. The vehicle can reach 105 km/h with a maximum cruising range of 700 km. It has gross vehicle weight varying from 28,000 kg to 30,000 kg.