"Puma IFV performance in Czech trials " Topic

"The latest issue of the InfoBrief Heer, a newsletter from the Förderkreis Deutsches Heer e.V., includes an article on the performance of the Puma infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) in the Czech trials written by Mathias Kraus, Head of Sales and Marketing of the company Projekt System & Management GmbH (PSM). The Förderkreis Deutsches Heer e.V. is a club and lobby group consisting of members of the military, politics and industry that is focused on the German land forces and its military procurements. PSM is a joint-venture between Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KWM) and Rheinmetall, the two companies that together manufacture the new IFV and various other armored fighting vehicles (AFVs).

According to the article, the trials consisted of three parts: static trials, dynamic trials and firing trials. Static trials were focused on gathering data regarding size, weight, ergonomy, protection, armament and optics. The dynamic trials included driving along a test track and determining factors affecting the mobility of the vehicle, such as top speed on road and cross-country, maximum fording depth, the ability to drive along (side) slopes and the ability to climb over smaller obstacles. The firing tests included firing at targets at a distance of 1,200 and 1,800 metres. Given the armament and optics of modern infantry fighting vehicles, this is far below the maximum effective range of the 30 x 173 mm guns used on all of the tested IFVs (the German Army requirement for the Puma was an effective gun range of 3,000 metres), but it might be a valid representation of the combat range expected in the Czech Republic; during the Cold War the average distance for tank-vs-tank combat in Central Europe was estimated to be between 1,000 and 2,000 metres according to different studies from NATO and Warsaw Pact countries…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Shows how out-of-date my military vehicle name recognition is--I thought Puma referred to an eight-wheeled AC, not a tracked IFV.

Rob