Saturday, July 12, 2014

Lockheed's Brand New 30mm Two-Men and Hellfire Turrets for Qatar

Lockheed's Brand New
30mm 2-Men IFV
&
Dedicated Hellfire (LRSAV) Turrets
Aimed for Qatar


I've got some more information the turret's potential customer. It is most probably for Qatar Armed Forces. The turret has been specifically designed for Qatar for a possible number of 200+ turrets.

Also Lockheed has been working on a dedicated Hellfire and DAGR missile turret which is probably also aimed for Qatar for Artillery Corps.


The video below shows a test fire of the Hellfire ATGM from the ATGM turret defining a system called Long Range Surveillance & Attack Vehicle dubbed LRSAV.





Rumor's have been circulating around for sometime that Lockheed Martin UK has been working on a new Two-Men IFV turret with ATK 30mm Bushmaster gun as the main armament.


This video released on July 10th from Lockheed Martin explains:

"On March 31, the Lockheed Martin UK Ampthill team successfully fired a Javelin missile from a turret at Cranfield Ordnance Test & Evaluation Center (COTEC) firing range on Salisbury Plain near Wiltshire, England. The missile hit the target successfully."

The most interesting thing in the video beside the turret is the vehicle being a Boxer 8x8.


Boxer 8x8 with Lance Turret

We have accustomed to seeing Boxer armed with either Rheinmetall's Lance Two-Men Turret or even Spz Puma's remote turret.

However, there are also rumors circulating that this Lockheed turret is specifically developed to be offered to a undisclosed Middle East customer on Boxer 8x8.

We know that Boxer has participated UAE's yearly Summer trials before and offered to UAE for their 4-5 year long 8x8 acquisition programme.

However another country that comes to mind is Qatar which also is evaluating 8x8 vehicles for their 8x8 acquisition programme. 

I would bet on Qatar for the possible customer this brand new turret from Lockheed on Boxer.

Time will tell....