General Dynamics European Land Systems – Bridge Systems and Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles have presented for the first time the ANACONDA tactical bridge-laying system mounted on a high-mobility 8×8 HX2 carrier vehicle at the 5th User Forum Armament and Utilization – RÜ.NET 2023 conference held on August 30 – 31 in Koblenz. RMMV’s HX family are among the world’s most widely used military trucks. Over 16,000 are in service around the globe. Many NATO nations already have HX vehicles in their inventory, resulting in valuable synergies in multinational operations.
The ANACONDA is the latest version of the well-known BIBER (“beaver”) bridge, over 300 of which have been built for the Bundeswehr, Germany’s NATO partners and other export customers. In service since 1973, more than 240 of these ANACONDA bridges have been built for more than 10 Armies worldwide, proving its reliability and superior performance. Re-certificated for payloads of MLC 80+ the ANACONDA bridge can be crossed by current NATO Main Battle including the latest and heaviest variants of the Leopard 2, M1A2 Abrams and Challenger 2. Adaptable to legacy and modern tank chassis, the legendary ANACONDA is the Armored Vehicle-Launched Bridge (AVLB) for the future.
The bridge, the laying mechanism and vehicle together provide a dry-gap bridge capability for medium- and heavyweight forces. The bridge can be launched and retrieved from many different types of wheeled and tracked platforms. The ANACONDA offers a state of the art loading capacity for payloads of MLC 80+, and can be crossed by all NATO MBTs including Leopard 2, M1A2 Abrams and Challenger 2. Mounting the bridges on Rheinmetall’s HX family of tactical trucks, which are in service with numerous armed forces, provides substantial advantages regarding interoperability, training, service and the supply of spare parts, contributing to the system’s low lifecycle costs.
The HX family are a range of purpose-designed tactical military trucks manufactured by Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles (RMMV). The HX range was disclosed in 2003, and the first order was placed in 2004. The HX2 range, which currently complements the original HX range, was announced in 2012. The first HX2 range trucks were delivered in April 2016. The HX and HX2 ranges originally complemented the SX range, but as of 2019 they had replaced the SX range as the type was no longer produced. All models can climb a 60% gradient, traverse a 40% sideslope, have an approach angle of 40 degrees, and ford 750 mm of water without preparation, this increasing to 1.5 m with preparation.
