Brazil finalizes tender for the purchase of up to 221 8×8 armored combat vehicles

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian Army General Staff has made public the EME/C Ex No. 716 ordinance approving the requirements for the country’s future 8×8 wheeled armored combat vehicle, of which the Army intends to acquire up to 221 units.

Likewise, the armed force has announced that the publication of the bidding process, so that the suppliers can effectively send their offers in detail, will take place soon, pending the approval of the Legal Advisor’s Office attached to the Army Command (Conjur).

The main requirements to be met by the armored vehicles are: to have an 8X8 traction system, to have main armament (cannon) with a minimum caliber of 105 mm, to be equipped with a command and control system interoperable with the Land Force system and with the versions adopted in the armored vehicles of the Guarani family, and to be concordant among the various subsystems with the EE-9 Cascavel modernization project.

So far, several companies have shown interest in participating in the competition, among them, the Iveco-Oto Melara consortium with the Centauro 2 vehicle; General Dynamics European Land Systems (Gdels), which offers the Piranha armored vehicle; the Finnish Patria with its AMVxp system, the Chinese Norinco with the ST1 and the South Korean Hanwha with the Tigon.

NO PROTOTYPES

Recently, during a presentation of the project made to the Brazilian Association of Defense and Security Materials Industries (Abimde), the Materials Directorate presented a slide informing that the proposals that will be considered “satisfactory” will be those that contemplate only vehicles that are in initial or consolidated series production and, on the contrary, those that are a conceptual project, prototype or pilot batch will be “unsatisfactory”.

Considering this point, if applied in the context of a weapon system, the only candidates suitable for bidding would be the proposals of Iveco-Oto Melara, Norinco, and Gdels.