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Land Systems / Battlefield

URO VAMTAC

Multirole / Multipurpose Military Vehicle [ 1998 ]

Looking externally similar to the American HUMVEE, the Spanish URO VAMTAC was designed and developed to local requirements.

Authored By: Staff Writer | Last Edited: 12/21/2020 | Content ©www.MilitaryFactory.com | The following text is exclusive to this site.

GO TO SPECIFICATIONS [+]

The URO VAMTAC is an all-purpose military vehicle designed, developed, and produced by UROVESA of Spain initially for the Spanish military. The vehicle shares similarities in both style lines and battlefield role to the multi-role / multi-purpose American HUMVEE detailed elsewhere on this site. The VAMTAC ("Vehiculo de Alta Movilidad Tactico" or "Vehicle of High Mobility, Tactical") has been in active service since 1996 and has been taken on by the forces of the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Indonesia, Iraq, Malaysia, Morocco, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Spain in numbers collectively exceeding 4,500 units to date (2021).

Origins of the VAMTAC lay in an original Spanish military requirement calling for an multi-role / multi-purpose battlefield vehicle in line with the American HUMVEE design of the 1980s. The program did not pick up steam until the mid-1990s which resulted in an in-house Spanish design being evolved for the requirement (as opposed to purchase of the proven American vehicle). Serial production of the VAMTAC began in 1998 and continued into 2003 for first-batch models resulting in a follow-up order arriving in 2005 with modifications to suit operational experiences to date.

Despite its obvious appearance akin to the American HUMVEE, the VAMTAC is considered its own design. Beyond its intended military value, police forces and security teams have also taken up the type - such is its versatility. It has become the standard operating vehicle for the Spanish Armed Forces which has already proven the design in actions across Afghanistan.

The base design has 4x4 capability assisting in offroad travel. Roadwheels are well-spaced and designed to run flat in combat conditions while giving ample clearance over the traveling surface. The driver sits at front-left and four total occupants is a typical load out. Dimensions include a running length of 15.9 feet, a beam of 7.1 feet, and a height of 6.2 feet. Power is from a single Steyr Motors turbo-charged diesel-fueled engine rated around 186 horsepower to drive the conventional four-wheeled arrangement. The engine is fitted to its usual place at the bow of the chassis and mated to a five-speed automatic transmission system. The vehicle sits atop a four-wheel independent double-wishbone arrangement relying on coil-type springs for support. Road weight reaches up to 7,700lb depending on configuration, passengers, cargo, and weapon load out.

As designed, the truck can reach road speeds of 85 miles-per-hour with a range out to 370 miles with its 29 gallon (US) fuel store.

Typical armament is a single 12.7mm Heavy Machine Gun on a trainable pintle mounting in an open-air position over the hull roof. This weapon arrangement requires an occupant to manual operate it and the installation can be replaced with a smaller-caliber (7.62mm) General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG), 40mm Automatic Grenade Launcher (AGL), or Anti-Tank Guided-Missile (ATGM) launcher as needed.

Ram bars can be fitted to the nose of the truck.

Like the HUMVEE, the VAMTAC can be delivered in two- or four-door hull types and arranged with a flat bed, whole body, and special-missions modular assemblies as needed.

Variants of the series include the standard support/utility model, an ambulance version, an Anti-Tank Guided-Missile (ATGM) carrier showcasing the American BGM-71 TOW/TOW-2 or French MILAN ATGM weapon, Anti-Aircraft (AA) model carrying 20mm/23mm automatic cannons or Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) launcher, Command & Communications (CC2) vehicle with enhanced communications suite, Fast Attack Vehicle (FAV) specifically for SPECial OPerationS (SPECOPS) forces, rocket-projector form (for the Multiple Launch Rocket System - MLRS - role), and a PSYOPS loudspeaker-equipped platform.

Notable designations of the line include the Rebeco, I3, S3, S3 (ARMORED), ST5, ST5 BN3 (uparmored to STANAG 3), and SK95.

Spain fields nearly 3,000 VAMTACs (2021) with Morocco having secured 1,200 of their own - making these two customers the largest global operators of the design. The vehicle has been trials by both Brazil and Paraguay but not adopted.©MilitaryFactory.com

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Specifications

BASICS [+] MANUFACTURER(S) [+] OPERATORS [+] ROLES [+] DIMENSIONS & WEIGHTS [+] POWER & PERFORMANCE [+] ARMAMENT [+] AMMUNITION [+] VARIANTS [+] HONORS [+]

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