German Boxer Armored Vehicle Can Be Everything the Soldiers Need in the Field

Designed between 1998 and 2009 and produced from 2009 onwards, the Boxer is the result of a joint venture called ARTEC and set up by German defense contractors Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW).

The Boxer is getting increasingly popular with the armies of the world. The Australian Department of Defence has recently ordered more than 200 such machines in order to upgrade their combat vehicle force and replace their old inventory. To prove Boxer's worth, they have set up an extensive military exercise spanning multiple days at the Shoalwater Bay Training Area in Central Queensland, calling it "the largest exercise the vehicle has operated in since its introduction."

The Boxer armored transport vehicle consists of the main drive unit, which can be promptly outfitted with several mission-specific modules. These modules can make the Boxer a troop carrier for infantry, a field ambulance, a combat engineering vehicle, command or logistics vehicle, and, not least, a battlefield maintenance vehicle.

The powerplant that gives this battlefield monster life is an MTU 8V199 TE20, a modified version of the Mercedes-Benz OM 500 truck engine that develops between 711 hp or 805 hp, depending on the variant, mated to an Allison HD4070 fully automatic transmission. As a result of the Boxer's highly modular architecture, the whole engine-transmission assembly can be unmounted from the vehicle and entirely replaced right on the spot, in battlefield conditions, in up to 20 minutes. The machine comes fitted with three fuel tanks totalizing up to 562 liters (148 gallons).

Not at all a light vehicle, the Boxer can weigh up to 85,000 lbs (38,500 kg) in combat-ready form and measures up to 26 feet (7.93 m) in length and around 9 feet (3 m) in width. The baseline driving module is 7 feet 9 in (2.37 m) high, but the whole vehicle assembly can get way taller depending on the chosen configuration.

The Boxer comes fitted with a permanent 8-wheel drive system with locking differentials on all axels and front four-wheel steering. On the tire front, the vehicle can be equipped either with Michelin XML or Michelin XForce 2s, depending on the workloads at hand.

The Boxer's armor protection comes from welded steel armor plating on which the module kits can be applied using shock-absorbing mountings. Moreover, the crew compartment is wholly covered with a spall liner to further protect the operating military personnel against fragments and projectiles penetrating the hull. Not least, the seats are organized so that they are not coupled with the floor, which acts as a shockwave guard and does not affect the occupants in case of a direct mine detonation underneath the vehicle.

A highly-competent configuration is the Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV), first presented at the Eurosatory 2014 event. It comes fitted with Rheinmetall's own LANCE 30mm two-person turret, which results in a versatile combination of the Boxer's highly mobile and capable main drive unit and the state-of-the-art technology found inside the turret. The turret can be set up to function either as a two-person hardware or be in remote-controlled operation mode.

The Boxer Armoured transport vehicle is a high-tech addition to the current line-up of combat vehicles ready to be deployed on the modern battlefield. It can easily be deployed in any adverse conditions with a specific equipment layout to fit each mission task perfectly, making it the perfect choice for this segment for an increasing number of countries around the world.