Nanuk AFVs in Afstan

Further to this post,

New LAV III Remote Weapons Systems: The Nanuk

the latest:

Canada has "rushed" scores of fighting vehicles with five tonnes of additional armour plating to Afghanistan to try to counter the Taliban's lethal success with larger homemade landmines.

The latest response to improvised explosive devices that have killed more than 100 Canadian troops involves putting a smaller, remotely controlled mobile gun system atop what had been an anti-tank variant of Canada's light-armoured vehicles instead of the turret-mounted cannon commonly found on the LAVs, Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie and a Canadian improvised explosive device specialist based in Afghanistan confirmed in recent interviews.

The cannon-less LAVs now entering service in Panjwaii, Dand and Daman districts were the only ones in the Canadian inventory that had not already been deployed to Kandahar, they said.

"We took those 66 LAVs and built on the lessons of Afghanistan," Leslie said, adding that as well as more belly plating, there was shock frame seating and straps to hold soldiers in place like fighter pilots in a cockpit.

The U.S. spent more than $26 billion to develop mine-resistance ambush protected vehicles but, as Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell explained last month, there had still been "real problems ... off road in Afghanistan" recently, so another $5 billion has been spent on a new variant that is more manoeuvrable...

The changes to the new Canadian LAVs "sacrifice a bit of weapon power" in return for "the most up-to-date armour," said Capt. Olivier Sylvain, who as chief of battle damage assessment for Task Force Afghanistan is a forensic specialist of sorts on IEDs.

The "new, old LAVs" now in Kandahar were what Leslie called "a bridging mechanism" until Canada can complete a $5.2-billion upgrade to the entire fleet that is slated to begin in 2012...