Thales’s Land team are already looking forward to their first event of 2024 – the International Armoured Vehicles Conference (IAVC). Thales is attending the show, at London’s Twickenham Stadium, as three-star partners of the event. Taking place between 22-25 January, IAVC 2024 will host 1000 delegates from over 40 nations as attendees from across military, government and industry. Its focus on the full armoured vehicles ecosystem brings together major vehicle OEMs and the supporting supply chain, both working in tandem to drive the development, delivery and deployment of innovative, integrated capabilities that will make today’s armoured vehicles future-proof and battle-ready.
Designed and developed in Bendigo, Australia, Thales is bringing its Hawkei vehicle to the UK at IAVC 2024. The Hawkei is an Australian light four-wheel-drive protected mobility vehicle. Originally designed in 2010 to meet an Australian Defence Force (ADF) requirement for a light armoured patrol vehicle to replace some of its Land Rover Perentie variants. It’s a light, versatile and C41 integrated vehicle, offering first-of-its-kind protection, mobility and payload alongside advanced mission system integration, making it adaptable and scalable to operational requirements. Described as a ‘force multiplier’ for the Australian Defence Force, the 1000th Hawkei was recently lifted off the production line in Thales’ vehicle manufacturing facility in Bendigo, Victoria.
Thales’ cutting-edge vehicle optronics product, PAAG features state-of-the-art sensors, including: high-resolution daylight colour cameras, a cooled thermal imager, SWIR sensor, laser rangefinder, laser pointer and a laser target designator. PAAG enables long-range threat detection, identification and weapon aiming on the move, as well as fire support capabilities – day and night and in all weather conditions. Thales sights can also come with DigitalCrew® smart processing – providing image enhancement, video and image combination and automated threat detection and tracking to significantly reduce cognitive burden.
Also at the show, Thales will be displaying its indirect fire support system and technology, its ruggedised inertial system for geo-positioning and target acquisition, and its mounted software defined radio. Thereby demonstrating a complete, battle winning capability to defeat threats, today and tomorrow. As the world’s premier meeting ground for the armoured vehicles community, IAVC2024 is a perfect opportunity for attendees to investigate, demonstrate and discuss innovative capabilities like Hawkei and PAAG. IAVC 2024 presents us with a great opportunity to remain close to the fast moving defence market, subsequently increasing the relevance of the company value proposition to customers seeking to gain decision advantage on the battlefield.
