FV430 series
Encyclopedia
The FV430 series covers a number of armoured fighting vehicles of the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

, all built on the same chassis. The most common of the series is the FV432
FV432
The FV432 is the armoured personnel carrier variant of the British Army's FV430 series of armoured fighting vehicles. Since its introduction in the 1960s it has been the most common variant, being used for transporting infantry on the battlefield...

 armoured personnel carrier
Armoured personnel carrier
An armoured personnel carrier is an armoured fighting vehicle designed to transport infantry to the battlefield.APCs are usually armed with only a machine gun although variants carry recoilless rifles, anti-tank guided missiles , or mortars...

.

Although the FV430 series has been in service for a long time and some of the designs had been replaced in whole or part by vehicles such as those of the CVR(T)
Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked)
The Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance  —or CVR—is a family of armoured fighting vehicles s in service with the British Army and others throughout the world...

 range or the Warrior
Warrior Tracked Armoured Vehicle
The Warrior tracked vehicle family is a series of British armoured vehicles, originally developed to replace the older FV430 series of armoured vehicles. The Warrior started life as the MCV-80 project that was first broached in the 1970s, GKN Sankey/Defence winning the production contract in 1980....

, many have been retained and are receiving upgrades in the engine and control gear.

The FV430 chassis is a conventional tracked design with the engine at the front and the driving position to the right. The hatch for the vehicle commander is directly behind the drivers and a pintle mount next to it can take a machine gun. There is a side-hinged door in the rear for loading and unloading, and in most models a large split-hatch round opening in the passenger compartment roof. In common with such an old design there are no firing ports for the troops carried - British Army doctrine has always been to dismount from vehicles to fight.

There is a wading screen as standard, and the vehicle has a water speed of about 6 km/h when converted for swimming.

FV430 vehicles, if armed, tend to have a pintle-mounted L7 GPMG. There are two three-barrel smoke dischargers at the front.

Vehicles

British Army nomenclature
  • FV431 Armoured load carrier - one prototype produced, Alvis Stalwart 6x6 vehicle selected instead for load carrier role.
  • FV432
    FV432
    The FV432 is the armoured personnel carrier variant of the British Army's FV430 series of armoured fighting vehicles. Since its introduction in the 1960s it has been the most common variant, being used for transporting infantry on the battlefield...

     Armoured Personnel Carrier
  • FV433 Field Artillery, Self-Propelled "Abbot"
    FV433 Abbot SPG
    FV433 Field Artillery, Self-Propelled "Abbot" is the self-propelled artillery variant of the British Army FV430 series of armoured fighting vehicles, using much of the chassis of the FV430 but with a fully rotating turret at the rear housing the 105 mm gun and given the vehicle designation of...

     - 105 mm self propelled gun built by Vickers
    Vickers
    Vickers was a famous name in British engineering that existed through many companies from 1828 until 1999.-Early history:Vickers was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by the miller Edward Vickers and his father-in-law George Naylor in 1828. Naylor was a partner in the foundry Naylor &...

    .
  • FV434
    FV434
    The FV434 is the Armoured Repair Vehicle variant of the British Army's FV430 series of armoured fighting vehicles. Introduced in the 1960s and is operated by the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers...

     "Carrier, Maintenance, Full Tracked" - REME
    Reme
    Reme may refer to:*Rəmə, Azerbaijan*Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers...

     Maintenance carrier with hydraulically driven crane lifting capacity of 3,050 kg crew of four.
  • FV435 Wavell communications vehicle
  • FV436 Command and control - some fitted with Green Archer radar, later Cymbeline radar.
  • FV437 Pathfinder vehicle - based on FV432 with integral buoyancy and other waterjets - prototyped only.
  • FV438 Swingfire
    FV438 Swingfire
    The FV438 Swingfire was an armoured anti-tank vehicle of the British Army.It was derived from the FV430 series of vehicles by converting the FV432 to accommodate a launcher for Swingfire anti-tank guided missiles....

     - Guided missile launcher.
  • FV439 Signals vehicle - Many variants.
  • FV430 Mk3 Bulldog - Upgraded troop carrier that began serving in Iraq in December 2006.

FV430 Mk3 Bulldog

Introduced in December 2006, the Bulldog was designed to meet an urgent operational requirement for extra armoured vehicles for use in counter-insurgency
Counter-insurgency
A counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency involves actions taken by the recognized government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it...

 campaigns in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

 and Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

. It features an applique reactive armour
Reactive armour
Reactive armour is a type of vehicle armour that reacts in some way to the impact of a weapon to reduce the damage done to the vehicle being protected. It is most effective in protecting against shaped charges and specially hardened long rod penetrators...

 package designed by Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i company Rafael capable of defeating hollow charge warheads such as the RPG-7
RPG-7
The RPG-7 is a widely-produced, portable, unguided, shoulder-launched, anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Originally the RPG-7 and its predecessor, the RPG-2, were designed by the Soviet Union, and now manufactured by the Bazalt company...

 rockets used by insurgents. A new engine and steering gear provide better mobility and manoevrability. Other features include air conditioning and a gun station fitted with a 7.62mm machine-gun that can be controlled from inside the vehicle. Nine hundred FV430s are expected to be modified in this way and are being deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan alongside the new Mastiff PPV and Pinzgauer High Mobility All-Terrain Vehicle (Vector)
Pinzgauer High Mobility All-Terrain Vehicle
The Pinzgauer is a family of high-mobility all-terrain 4WD and 6WD military utility vehicles. They were manufactured in Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom, by BAE Systems Land & Armaments. The vehicle was originally developed in the late 1960s by Steyr-Daimler-Puch of Graz, Austria, and was named...

, relieving some of the pressure on the Warrior
Warrior Tracked Armoured Vehicle
The Warrior tracked vehicle family is a series of British armoured vehicles, originally developed to replace the older FV430 series of armoured vehicles. The Warrior started life as the MCV-80 project that was first broached in the 1970s, GKN Sankey/Defence winning the production contract in 1980....

 fleet.
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/EquipmentAndLogistics/MoreUpgradedArmouredPersonnelCarriersForTheArmy.htm

The modifications, as well as bringing the vehicle's level of protection up to that of the Warrior, give it better cross country performance and a new top speed of 45 mph (72 km/h).

Modifications on the first 50 units were carried out between January and October 2006 at the ABRO facility in Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

 by BAE Systems Land Systems at a cost of £85 million.
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