April 2005
 

Still outfoxing them all

Fuchs NBC armoured reconnaissance vehicle undergoes combat performance upgrade at RLS

Doing yeoman service with the armed forces of Germany and its allies and friends ever since 1979, the Fuchs armoured transport vehicle has undeniably been one of the great success stories of Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH of Kassel.

At the time of its inception – it first appeared on the drawing boards in 1963 – no one could have foreseen the kind of operations it would eventually excel at several decades later: international peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations missions like ISAF and KFOR.
 

A British Fuchs/Fox NBC armoured reconnaissance vehicles in action during the second Gulf War. These pictures were taken in March 2003 on the first day of the war near the southern Iraqi port city of Basrah.

Back when the world still thought in the conceptual framework of the Cold War – the TPz-1 Fuchs – to use its official German designation – was intended to plug a capabilities gap between the main battle tanks Leopard 1 and 2, the Marder infantry fighting vehicle, and the Luchs armoured reconnaissance vehicle. What is more: beginning in 1979 the Bundeswehr would have at its disposal a complete weapons system entirely manufactured by German industry. Dependence on the United States would henceforth be a thing of the past.

The origins of the Fuchs/Fox lie in the early 1960s, when Bundeswehr planners first contemplated transporting troops and materiel in wheeled armoured vehicles rather than in trucks. However, it quickly became apparent how difficult it would be to meet the conflicting requirements of the different branches of the German Army.

In 1976, the German government finally awarded the contract to build a 6x6 vehicle to Thyssen-Henschel AG, the forerunner of today's Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH in Kassel. As general contractor, the company would have to balance as best it could the divergent demands being made on the vehicle.
 

A multipurpose vehicle, the all-terrain Fuchs/Fox can be deployed in many different roles.

All branches of the Army insisted that it should possible to operate the weapons without having to leave the protection of the vehicle. The NBC Corps was prepared to make do without an amphibious capability, but not the Engineers. On the other hand, the NBC Corps wanted to be able to conduct NBC reconnaissance operations from within a protected environment.

They also specified a Rheinmetall 20 mm Rh 202 automatic cannon on a Kuka live-ring gun mount as the vehicle's main armament, whereas the Reconnaissance branch wanted a machinegun rather than an automatic cannon. Ultimately, the company was able to present solutions that met virtually everyone's needs, including those of the Army's Medical and Signal Corps.

Today, the Fuchs/Fox armoured transport vehicle exists in several variants based on equipment kits, e.g. a standard transport vehicle, a field ambulance ("Sanfuchs"), a communications vehicle ("Füfu-Fuchs"), a radar jamming vehicle ("Eloka-Fuchs"), a fire fighting vehicle connected to a special trailer by a flexible corridor ("Red Fox"), and last but not least the NBC armoured reconnaissance vehicle.

Of these variants, the NBC reconnaissance configuration is particularly important today, since upgraded versions of this system are attracting a growing number of customers.
 

Robust: the "Spürfuchs" performs perfectly even in the hot desert sands of Somalia.

The development history of this extraordinary vehicle also merits a few words. The initial concept for the vehicle, whose ability to detect NBC hazards – coupled with superb crew protection – make it globally unique, was first developed by scientists at Hamburg-Harburg University in the 1980s.

At the time, the German procurement authorities issued a requirement for a vehicle capable of manoeuvring in contaminated terrain, with the ability to detect, analyze and evaluate nuclear, biological and chemical hazards.

Right from the start, the first prototypes of the new NBC armoured reconnaissance vehicle were equipped with the typical wedge-shaped tail that still characterizes the system today, enabling the safe collection of air and soil samples, as well as a mass spectrometer, with whose help chemical agents can be detected and analyzed onboard the vehicle as soon as air and soil samples are taken.

Since then, the system's special technical equipment has been repeatedly improved in response to experience gained in actual operations. The first opportunity emerged shortly after the vehicle entered service with the Bundeswehr. It was at this point that the United States suddenly needed a vehicle for use in the Gulf War following the annexation of Kuwait by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The vehicles sold by Germany to the US came from the Bundeswehr's inventory, as Thyssen-Henschel AG was hard pressed to meet the sudden spike in demand for new vehicles. In any case, the Thyssen-Henschel vehicles proved to be unexpectedly at home in the blazing oil fields and hot sands of the Kuwaiti desert.
 

Unwilling to settle for second best, the US armed forces deployed the "Fox NBCRS" in Saudi Arabia.

Experience gained in the desert, especially with regard to operations at high temperatures, soon led to improvements in the "Fox NBCRS" – as the first Fuchs/Fox generation was known in the US – which were followed by multiple combat performance upgrades on the part of the Americans.

When it came to certain modifications, the Americans adopted a different approach from that of the original manufacturer, the current Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH, the aim being to adapt the system to the prevailing military philosophies of the United States, Britain and Germany, as well as that of Saudi Arabia.

The objective today is to standardize and upgrade the various Fuchs and Fox systems currently in service with various armies in places like Iraq and Afghanistan so as to rationalize as far as possible the logistics support and spare parts requirements.

Of course there will never be complete harmonization. Nor is this even desired: the philosophies behind the Anglo-American and Continental European systems within NATO are simply too divergent. US and UK combat performance upgrades a far more oriented to automation, whereas the Bundeswehr, for example, is interested in greater depth of analysis, which presupposes better trained drivers and operating personnel.
 

International crisis management in the Balkans: here, a "Spürfuchs" on duty in Bosnia is shown next to a "Luchs" 8x8 armoured reconnaissance vehicle mounted with a Rheinmetall Rh 202 automatic cannon.