The Singapore Army has commissioned a new variant of the Hunter armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) designed for battlefield engineering missions, the service announced on its social media account on 11 January.
Called the Hunter Armoured Engineer Vehicle (HT-AEV), the new vehicle is equipped with an excavator arm and front loader system and leverages on the baseline Hunter AFV platform’s mobility, survivability, and networked warfighting capabilities. The army added that the HT-AEV is a co-development with the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA).
The HT-AEV is the latest Hunter variant to be operated by the Singapore Army. In mid-October 2022, the service commissioned a new combat bridging variant called the Hunter Armoured Vehicle-Launched Bridge (HT-AVLB).
Specifications of the HT-AEV and HT-AVLB have not been disclosed, although it is known that the baseline Hunter AFV measures 6.9 m long and 3.4 m wide and has a combat weight of approximately 29 tonnes. Like the AFV variant, the HT-AEV and HT-AVLB are equipped with an all-round camera suite that provides high levels of situational awareness and enables the crew to fully manoeuvre and operate its bridging system under armour protection, thereby enhancing their survivability.
The AFV variant of the Hunter platform is the service’s first combat vehicle to incorporate an indigenously developed battlefield C2 system called the Army Tactical Engagement and Information System (ARTEMIS), which is not only an operating system that governs most of the vehicle’s critical mission equipment – including its weapons, sensors, and communications systems – but also functions as a real-time mission planning tool and can wirelessly exchange information between friendly vehicles via low-latency network radios and wide area communication networks.
The service also commissioned an armoured recovery vehicle variant of the Hunter platform called the Hunter Recovery Vehicle (HT-HRV) on 18 February 2022. First revealed to the public as the Next Generation Armoured Recovery Vehicle (NGARV) in July 2017, HT-HRV is operated by a crew of three that includes a vehicle commander, a driver, and an automotive specialist technician.
The vehicle’s primary equipment is a telescopic knuckle boom crane that can be traversed through a full 360° and a recovery winch with a stated maximum pull of 25,500 kg. DSTA also claims that it features a “first-of-its-kind mechanism” that facilitates swift and easy loading and unloading of the tow bar. When performing a recovery or winching operation with heavy loads, the HRV deploys a front-mounted dozer-like blade as well as a pair of outriggers at its rear to stabilise itself.
by Jr Ng
