Military/Intelligence Bulletin 02/2019 -Spanish Army’s Pizarro combat engineer vehicle.

Spanish Army’s Pizarro combat engineer vehicle ready for testing.

General Dynamics European Land Systems – Santa Barbara Sistemas is completing the first of their 36 Pizarro combat engineer vehicles.

Following trials, the vehicle is being handed over to the the Spanish Army for formal qualification. If accepted, it will be followed by a further 35 production vehicles. Final deliveries are due in 2021.

 

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Combat Engineer Vehicle – Pizarro

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It has a new all welded steel hull design with a higher level of ballistic and mine protection than that of the Pizarro Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV).

At the front there is a Pearson Engineering Common Interface Attachment, which enables a variety of engineer equipment to be quickly attached.

All will be fitted with the hydraulically operated Pearson earth Anchor Dozer Blade.

Mounted on either side at the rear is an obstacle marking system. When deployed they swing out to the side and dispense marker poles into the ground as the vehicle moves through the cleared minefield.

The crew consist of a Commander, Gunner and driver. It can also carry six additional engineers.

For defence, it has a Mini Samson remote weapon station armed with a stabilised .50 calibre M2 machine gun. The sensor pod on the left consists of a day camera, thermal camera and a laser rangefinder. There is also a bank of four electrically operated smoke grenade launchers mounted on each side.

The power pack is different from that in the IFV. The CEV uses a German MTU 8V-199 TE-20 V8 diesel developing 721 hp.

The CEV has a gross weight of 33 tonnes and a speed of 65 km/h with a range of 500km.

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The Pizarro IFV with appliqué armour..

Post copyrighted to Harvey Black