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Armoured Vehicles - Don't Risk Lives with Dodgy Parts!

Time and time again, when I go out and inspect vehicles in the field, I am staggered to see that lack of attention and care given to the selection and fitment of critical parts for the armoured vehicle. To be sure, I cannot count the number of times I have come across a vehicle with a GVW in excess of 5,000kgs that still has original base vehicle OEM brakes and shock absorbers.

To put it very bluntly, it’s both irresponsible and dangerous!

The safety of all the vehicle occupants is greatly dependent on the brake and suspension system being suitable to the gross vehicle capability and mobility requirements of the vehicle. If the parts that are fitted are under rated and unsuitable for the increased weight, then you don’t have to be an engineering genius to know that their tolerance will be lower than required and so the vehicle’s mobility will be significantly compromised.

Now for sure, many operators and fleet managers may not understand this too well. In this case, there is an ongoing need for better vehicle and fleet management education. But there are other cases where it’s a question of not willing to spend the extra money to buy the required upgraded parts which are of course are more expensive.

When it comes to protecting lives, money is not the primary consideration.

The rule is to make 100% sure that the critical vehicle parts fitted to the armoured vehicle are totally aligned with the vehicle’s weight and mobility requirements. No short cuts and not certainly no cost savings!

Armoured Vehicles - Fleet Data … the Road to Better Fleet Outcomes

The great challenge facing every fleet manager is getting meaningful data and analysis about their fleet.

Why is it important to get this data? Simply put, meaningful data, and the subsequent analysis, means that the fleet manager has a better understanding of how the fleet is actually performing.

OK, but what we do mean by meaningful? From my experience, meaningful data is information that is relevant, timely and accurate. These are the key ingredients that enable fleet managers to measure, assess and report on the performance of their fleet, particularly as it relates to a pre-determined set of KPI’s.

Let’s not forget the well-known statement of “garbage – garbage out”. And in many cases, fleet managers are surrounded by rubbish data from the field that is either out of date, not very accurate and not appropriate to the primary requirements for assessing a fleet’s performance.

This has been a problem since the dawn of time. It’s almost a disease for which there seems to be little if any real time solutions. And this is the great challenge for fleet managers. I’m talking about fleets of both soft skins/white fleet as well as armoured vehicles.

The great challenge, and long overdue, is to use technology to meet the challenge of obtaining the real time data from the source and getting into the fleet management system and data base promptly and in a way that the systems can then perform as they are designed and deliver meaningful analysis and reports for all the stakeholders.

Armoured Vehicles - Test to Pass…. Or Test to Fail?

For the 20 years I’ve been involved with blast and ballistic protected vehicles, there has been much discussion as to the optimal level of testing that an uparmouring company should conduct when certifying and verifying their vehicles.

To start, let me say that testing should fundamentally be for the verification of the ballistic (and blast) protections qualities of the vehicle design. In this way, the tests will provide confidence to both the uparmourer and the users that the vehicle, built as it was designed and tested, will provide the occupants with the level of protection as is claimed. Now without stating the obvious, the tests also need to be carried by an independent agency using well established international standards.

But the question needs to be asked as to what is the optimal scope of these tests? Should the tests be confined to that scope that will enable to vehicle design to be “certified” simply to get a certificate that will assist in the selling of the vehicle? Or should the scope of the tests go further so that both the uparmourer and the users get a better understanding as to what it will take to “break” the vehicle? In other words, what amount of protection does the vehicle actually provide?

To be sure, this question will raise lots of comments by our readers. We all recognise that the threats faced in operations are simply not confined to those that are used as part of certification tests. Don’t forget that the bad guys want to hurt you and not just shoot at you with 3 rounds in a nice and neat 120cm triangle.

There certainly needs to be a specific test regime that will lead to certification (as long as the vehicle passed the said tests). If not, then there would not be any consistency across various tests and certificates issued by the various international agencies. That is obvious. However, I would argue that this then limits the users’ confidence as to the ability of a vehicle to protect against real operational threats. So, for example, is a ballistic test using 300 rounds sufficient to give users the required confidence? Maybe it should be 500 rounds… or 750 rounds? Of course, this will depend on the user’s threat appetite and the uparmourer’s desire to test their design to the limit.

In the end, when we put people’s lives in danger, is it not better to understand what it will take to “break” the vehicle, rather than just simply know that the vehicle design protected against the minimum number of rounds required to get the international certification?

There is no simple answer to this fundamental question. What is important is that every organisation that designs and builds, or strategically uses armoured vehicles, needs to have this discussion openly and honestly before they go and spend millions of dollars of this critical protection asset.