CSG’s Excalibur Army and New Space Technologies (NST), based in Czechia, will jointly develop the MEANDER amphibious tracked utility vehicle for military use.
Two Czech firms have joined hands to develop a rather exotic general-purpose vehicle based on KBP subsidiary NST’s KALAN amphibious tracked utility vehicle.
The new vehicle, named MEANDER, will have a flatbed accepting various payloads to perform logistics support, fire support, and air defence.
The renderings for MEANDER show a 122 mm MLRS (Grad derivative) and a palletised Skyranger 35 air defence system. Additionally, the amphibious tracked vehicle can carry lighter vehicles through challenging terrain.
KALAN, the parent design for MEANDER, adopts a ship-like lower half for efficiency when going on water as a common feature for dedicated amphibious vehicles to increase carrying capacity and reduce drag.
The vehicle can carry up to 13 tons of payload and 33 tons of maximum weight. The maximum speeds are 50 km/h for on-road, 35 km/h for off-road, and 12 km/h for water.
The tracked design also provides better handling under muddy terrain due to the greater distribution of weight. Cold countries regularly experience muddy terrain in transitional seasons due to the melting of snow, and this has caused many heavy vehicles to get stuck.
MEANDER could be summarised as bringing together heavy trucks that can carry significant amounts of supplies or heavy weaponry and the exotic amphibious vehicles to overcome equally exotic terrain experienced in the Eastern Europe.
Author: Kaan Azman
Editor:Özgür Ekşi
