Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/713424
On 24 June 2015, German Bundeswehr officially acquired the first out of 350 Puma. IFVs That event was another stage of one of the most important moderniza- tion programs of German armed forces. Germany is one of the few countries that managed to make use of the experience gained during the long service of first generation of infantry fighting vehicles in order to develop their successor. The development program itself has not been finished – currently, the works have been focus on increasing the fire power of ve- hicles. The first vehicles that could be described as IFVs were Schützenpanzer 12-3 transporters, also known as Schützenpanzer Lang HS.30. They were introduced into West German army in the end of 1950s. The next vehicle, Marder 1, was a fully fledged IFV - it was introduced to service in 1971, just five years after the Soviet Union adopted BMP-1 vehicles, which has been commonly thought to be the first classic in- fantry fighting vehicle in the world. Marder 1 was not a copy of BMP-1 - it was the effect of the original German idea. In comparison to the Soviet vehicle, it was twice as heavy and far more higher, more like a main battle tank, was able to take on board one soldier less and was not amphibious capable. In practice, Marder 1 appeared to be a quite successful cehicle with high potential for modernization and upgrades. Combat weight of the last variants of the vehicle increased from 28.5 tonnes to over 37 tonnes. www.fragoutmag.com