On August 22, 2022, BAE Systems Corporation announced that it had won the US Army tender for the Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle (CATV) program and received a corresponding contract in the amount of $278.183 million for the supply to the US Army of 110 (with an option for 53 more) Arctic two-link articulated tracked floating all-terrain vehicles Beowulf, developed and manufactured by the Swedish branch BAE Systems (BAE Systems Hägglunds). The contract also includes logistics and service support and is valid until August 2029.
A prototype of the BAE Systems Hägglunds Beowulf two-link articulated tracked floating All-terrain vehicle (CATV) selected by the US Army under the Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle (CATV) program, BAE Systems plans to purchase 163 new all-terrain tracked vehicles for Arctic units starting from 2023. In order to replace the Bv 206 two-link articulated tracked all-terrain vehicles, designated as Small Unit Support Vehicles (SUSV), manufactured by the same Swedish company Hägglunds (since 1997, which was owned by British owners as part of Alvis, then Alvis Vickers, and in 2004), the US Army has been in service with them since the early 1980s. acquired as part of the latter by BAE Systems Corporation).
In addition to the selected Beowulf machine presented by BAE Systems, another competing proposal in the CATV tender was a two-link articulated Bronco family machine developed by the Singapore company ST Kinetics, represented by the American company Oshkosh Defense. Comparative tests of both samples were conducted in Alaska from August 2021 to January 2022.
The Beowulf machine selected by the US Army is an unarmored version of the BvS 10 two-link articulated tracked armored vehicle developed and manufactured by BAE Systems Hägglunds - a further development of the same Bv 206. The BvS 10 machine was originally developed for the British Marine Corps, which has been in service since 2006 under the name Viking, and was also purchased by the Swedish Ground Forces, France, Austria and the Netherlands Marine Corps. The US Army will be the launch customer of its unarmored Beowulf variant, first introduced back in 2015. The Beowulf machine has a payload of up to 8000 kg and is capable of traveling with it at highway speeds of up to 65 km / h, in the passenger version up to 14 people are transported.
Beowulf production, as previously and BvS 10, will be carried out at the BAE Systems Hägglunds plant in Ernshedlsvik in Sweden. A significant part of the car's components are manufactured in the USA, including the Cummins diesel engine and the Allison automatic transmission.
Prototypes selected by the US Army under the Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle (CATV) program of the Arctic two-link articulated tracked floating all-terrain vehicle BAE Systems Hägglunds Beowulf (c) BAE Systems Video: