The new vehicle will be protected from mine explosions, artillery strikes and anti-tank missiles so that it does not interfere with the mission.
Advanced Blast and Ballistic Systems (ABBS) from the UK has developed a Dragon UGV robot designed for mine clearance. According to the Janes portal, the developers demonstrated the concept at the SAE Media Group Future Armored Vehicle Survival (FAVS) 2023 conference held in London on November 13-15.
They described the Dragon as an “autonomous ground vehicle” – Unmanned ground vehicle, or UGV for short. They plan to equip the robot with dozens of roller wheels that will roll over mines and detonate them, destroying themselves in the process. The military will likely be able to replace these quickly.
According to Janes, British engineers came up with the concept in 2023 after learning of the problems the Ukrainian Defense Forces were having while navigating Russian minefields during a counter-offensive. The Dragon should be lighter than other vehicles used by Ukraine and its allies for mine clearance and be more protected against mine explosions as well as artillery and anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs).
ABBS has so far only presented a rendering of the Dragon UGV, which is a computer model, and has not disclosed what stage of development the project is in. Defense Express believes that such a vehicle will be useful to the Ukrainian Armed Forces for a breakthrough on the front line, as Russian troops have created 6,000 km of fortifications in the occupied territories.
It was previously reported that the Russian army has built several barrier lines with a depth of 10 to 40 km consisting of anti-tank trenches, “hedgehogs”, concrete pyramids from “dragon teeth”, wires and filling the gaps. minefields with the highest density. According to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, 2-3 mines can lie on one square meter – this has not happened in any of the warring countries. That is why mine clearance has become a very difficult and dangerous task for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The Allies provided Ukraine with a lot of engineering equipment, including:
- M58 MICLIC mine action complex from the USA;
- Wicent1 armored engineering vehicle from Germany;
- Engineering vehicle NM189 Ingeniorpanservogn from Norway;
- M1132 Stryker engineering vehicle from the USA;
- M1150 ABV assault vehicle from the USA;
- Keiler demining machine from Germany;
- roller trawls for heavy armored vehicles.
Most often, such equipment goes over mines with explosive trawls or drives them away from the pass by plowing the ground. Despite significant assistance from partners, the Ukrainian army still lacks the means to clear mines.
At the beginning of November, they wrote that M1150 Assault Violation Vehicle (ABV) mine clearing vehicles were delivered to Ukraine. It is built on the basis of Abrams tanks and is equipped with a plow and blasting system.
Source: Focus
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