Gefechtspanzer Puma.

More Puma:
 

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Holy Mackel.. more proof of the already done once at least.
Thank you for posting my Dear Eshelon
 
Just for clarity, this vehicle family from the early 1980s is not closely related to the Puma that actually entered German service in 2014, right?
 
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Grey Havoc said:
Correct. About the only thing they share is the name 'Puma'.
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Or the Sd.Kfz 234 series of the WWII era, which apparently got the Puma nickname somewhere along the way, though as far as I know the Germans never actually called it that.
 
It was intended for the Bundeswehr as well. The end of the Cold War and the so-called 'Peace Dividend', not to mention German Reunification costs & general worldwide economic dislocation, clobbered the program unfortunately.
 
Grey Havoc said:
It was intended for the Bundeswehr as well. The end of the Cold War and the so-called 'Peace Dividend', not to mention German Reunification costs & general worldwide economic dislocation, clobbered the program unfortunately.
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I'm a little unclear on this point. Puma was Krauss-Maffie design and the Grand government did order two as test vehicles. Krauss-Maffie also won the German Army Marder 2 competition in the late 1980s. But it's not obvious to me whether these were the same or related vehicles or not.
 
Wyvern said:
TomS said:
Wyvern said:
Where all of them built? Did they enter service? If not, why?
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None of them were built beyond a couple of prototypes. This was an export design that never found customers.
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Of which variants were these prototypes built?
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Check the attached Jane's articles. It's all in there, I think. There were five total prototypes, three as private initiatives and two for the German government. The specific equipment and armament were swapped out many times for various tests and competitions.
 
Bofors BOSAM anti air missile system mockup on ACV Puma schützenkampfwagen chassis. The BOSAM system was planned for RB70 and Bolide missiles. 16 missiles was planned to be carried. It's "reaction time" was stated to be 4 seconds.
 

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After operating the M113 for so long, I can't imagine why the German's would go to such an awkward 'troop door' arrangement, as opposed to a ramp! If anything, I thought this was one of the BMP-1 & BMP-2 recognised design faults....

Regards
Pioneer
 

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Pioneer said:
After operating the M113 for so long, I can't imagine why the German's would go to such an awkward 'troop door' arrangement, as opposed to a ramp! If anything, I thought this was one of the BMP-1 & BMP-2 recognised design faults....

Regards
Pioneer
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Several countries uses doors on their ifvs, so there must be some tradeoff to using doors over ramps.
 
blockhaj said:
Pioneer said:
After operating the M113 for so long, I can't imagine why the German's would go to such an awkward 'troop door' arrangement, as opposed to a ramp! If anything, I thought this was one of the BMP-1 & BMP-2 recognised design faults....

Regards
Pioneer
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Several countries uses doors on their ifvs, so there must be some tradeoff to using doors over ramps.
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Yeah, I've operated from both door and ramp mate and I know which I prefer - time of mounting and dismounting, getting gear and weapons systems (ATGM, Mortar's) in and out, ......

Regards
Pioneer
 
Pioneer said:
blockhaj said:
Pioneer said:
After operating the M113 for so long, I can't imagine why the German's would go to such an awkward 'troop door' arrangement, as opposed to a ramp! If anything, I thought this was one of the BMP-1 & BMP-2 recognised design faults....

Regards
Pioneer
Click to expand...
Several countries uses doors on their ifvs, so there must be some tradeoff to using doors over ramps.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I've operated from both door and ramp mate and I know which I prefer - time of mounting and dismounting, getting gear and weapons systems (ATGM, Mortar's) in and out, ......

Regards
Pioneer
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My guess would be that doors are smaller, therefore lighter for the same amount of protection. That might make it possible for troops to open & close side-hinged single doors by hand without needing to lift a couple of square metres of metal. It's possible that whoever wrote the requirements had decided that placing reliance on power to close a ramp door was, for some reason, unacceptable.
 
eshelon said:
All? planned variants of Puma - https://www.armas.es/foros/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=1064356
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One of the last three images on that page is of a four wheeled version captioned with (google translation):
And the last image of the prototypes corresponds to a Puma 4 prototype that was equipped with a Leopard 1 tower and with a strange cannon or similar for tests.
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This is a picture, not just a line drawing, so apparently something actually built.

The turret does indeed look like a Leopard 1 turret, but with a shortened gun and what appears to be an enormous bore evacuator. The four wheel version seems like a very odd choice for adding an MBT turret, given that the TD versions, with presumably lighter turrets, were on the five wheel version.

I am reminded enormously of the Spahpanzer Recon tank derivative of the panzer Kanone 90 (not saying there's any actual commonality). Does anyone have any idea who did this or for what purpose? All I can come up with is some sort of test rig for seeing how the chassis handled large recoil forces.
 
RLBH said:
Pioneer said:
blockhaj said:
Pioneer said:
After operating the M113 for so long, I can't imagine why the German's would go to such an awkward 'troop door' arrangement, as opposed to a ramp! If anything, I thought this was one of the BMP-1 & BMP-2 recognised design faults....

Regards
Pioneer
Click to expand...
Several countries uses doors on their ifvs, so there must be some tradeoff to using doors over ramps.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I've operated from both door and ramp mate and I know which I prefer - time of mounting and dismounting, getting gear and weapons systems (ATGM, Mortar's) in and out, ......

Regards
Pioneer
Click to expand...
My guess would be that doors are smaller, therefore lighter for the same amount of protection. That might make it possible for troops to open & close side-hinged single doors by hand without needing to lift a couple of square metres of metal. It's possible that whoever wrote the requirements had decided that placing reliance on power to close a ramp door was, for some reason, unacceptable.
Click to expand...

There was a whole thread about doors vs ramps over on Tank Net, which didn't reach a clear conclusion but which I'd summarize as "Ramps are, in general, preferred but there are good reasons for doors and a significant number of designs still use them."
https://www.tanknet.org/index.php?/topic/45557-british-apcifvs-why-doors-and-no-ramp/
 
Doors are generally smaller than ramps, therefore a less of an opening in the armour protection. They appear to be important to MICVs that place some adherence to the idea that armour is important.
 
Grey Havoc said:
Beancounter logic in action?
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Those doors are almost as bad as the failed Canadian Bobcat APC of the 1950s. This sort of "economy" is used by engineers when the "poor bloody infantry" end up "priority last" in the design process.
 
TomS said:
That IFV HELPAK version is interesting. I don't recognize the turret. 35MM?
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Im not 100% sure but it looks similar to concepts of a 35mm anti-helicopter vehicle i have seen. I cant find the source right now but if i remember correctly it was part of the Kampfwagen-90 plan before the anti-helicopter and anti-tank role were merged into a giraffe tank.
 
Voltzz said:
Im not 100% sure but it looks similar to concepts of a 35mm anti-helicopter vehicle i have seen. I cant find the source right now but if i remember correctly it was part of the Kampfwagen-90 plan before the anti-helicopter and anti-tank role were merged into a giraffe tank.
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That makes sense. HELPAK = Helikopterpanzerabwehrkanone?

(Yes, I know it should be Hubschrauber, but the English-ified version seems pretty popular.)

The Mehrzweckkampfwagen in image 28 seems similar in role, with a ~30mm gun and Stingers.
 

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