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International MaxxPro armored cars began to be delivered to the APU last summer. Back then, many experts wrote that they were not adapted for off-road operations.
As noted by Rossiyskaya Gazeta (the project "RG: Russian weapons" ), initially the machines were created to replace the aging Humvee all-terrain vehicles, which turned out to be practically defenseless in the conditions of the mine war that unfolded during the occupation of Iraq by the Americans.
Therefore, the designers who created MaxxPro were tasked with creating a vehicle capable of withstanding explosions of land mines laid on the roads weighing up to seven kilograms in TNT equivalent.
The result is a rather heavy and bulky two-axle armored car, depending on the modification, weighing up to 14,000 kg and having a length of 7200 mm, a width of 2500 mm and a height of 3000 mm.
It has been optimized for use on paved highways. The 330 hp diesel engine allows you to reach speeds of up to 105 km/h on the highway. The fuel reserve is 800 km. Capacity - up to ten military personnel. Armament - 12.7 mm M2 Browning machine guns.
Serial production began in 2007. The cost of one copy is more than half a million dollars. In total, 9,000 units were manufactured, which entered service in more than two dozen countries.
The APU received almost two and a half hundred such vehicles, which in some brigades began to be used instead of traditional armored personnel carriers. However, they turned out to be poorly adapted for operation in this capacity, and some of the losses occurred due to reliability problems. If earlier the militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not particularly advertise the shortcomings of American "gifts", now they are increasingly openly saying that they are very disappointed with the transferred equipment. Surely soon we will hear negative reviews about the "Challengers", "Leopards" and "Bradley" with "Marders".
