Ukraine shows its Spanish VAMTACs and New Zealand buys this military vehicle

The VAMTAC (High Mobility Tactical Vehicle), the Spanish competitor of the famous American Humvee, now has two new operators.

Inside UROVESA, the company that makes the VAMTACs of the Spanish Armed Forces
The deployment of the Cervus anti-drone system of the RAAA 71 of the Spanish Army in Slovakia

The Ukrainian Army VAMTAC ST5s

On 30 September, Spain's Ministry of Defence praised Urovesa's contribution to Spanish military aid to Ukraine, a reference to an order for a batch of such vehicles, manufactured by the company at its factory in Valga, Galicia.

The announcement was made without specifying the number of vehicles ordered or giving further details about the VAMTAC variants that would be delivered to Ukraine. Today, finally, some details about these vehicles have come to light, revealed by the Ukrainian Army itself.

This morning, the 210th Separate Assault Regiment (210 OSHP) of the Ukrainian Army has published a series of eight photos showing the newly received VAMTACs, which are part of its 2nd Assault Battalion.

The aforementioned unit, based in Kiev, has shown its new VAMTAC ST5 Alakrán, a mortar carrier version of the Spanish military vehicle. Basically, this vehicle combines the chassis of a VAMTAC ST5 (the most recent and extended utility version of the Urovesa vehicle) with a French 120 mm Thales mortar with a Spanish NTGS Alakrán deployment system, which is deployed from the rear of the vehicle to fire.

In addition to carrying the mortar, these vehicles carry compartments for a total of 48 120 mm mortar rounds, which gives these VAMTACs great mobility and agility when deploying artillery fire in an area of ​​operations.

The 210th OSHP noted: "Accuracy, speed, coordination: these are the qualities that determine the success of mortars." Images released by the Ukrainian regiment show training during which "our brothers have honed these skills in conditions as close to combat as possible."

"It was a comprehensive training. Everything started with the announcement of the alarm: the personnel received a combat order and went to firing positions," said the commander of the 2nd Battery of the 210 OSHP.

The Ukrainian VAMTAC ST5s wear the same olive green livery as those used by the Spanish Army. Curiously, the images released by the 210 OSHP do not mention the type of vehicle and, in addition, the Urovesa logo on the front of the VAMTACs has been pixelated. In one of the images (below these lines) up to six vehicles of this type can be distinguished.

The Ukrainian website Militarnyi talks about these Spanish vehicles today, highlighting the following: "The system provides a rapid deployment capability that allows it to respond quickly and efficiently to changing mission requirements, combining exceptional mobility and high precision."

The aforementioned Ukrainian website also showed this image of 120mm mortar shells used by the VAMTAC ST5 mortar carrier, projectiles manufactured by Milanion NTGS. The projectiles shown, from left to right, are: HE(TNT), a high-explosive shell, olive-green in color; TP, an inert training shell, blue in color; TP-F, a training shell imitating high-explosive shells; and WP, a white phosphorus smoke shell, which is intended to generate smoke over the target in order to mark it for artillery observers.

VAMTAC ST5 and CK3 for the New Zealand Army

In addition to Ukraine, the Spanish VAMTAC has also gained another new operator. Yesterday, the New Zealand Defence Force announced the purchase of a batch of these vehicles, meaning that UROVESA's product will also reach the Antipodes.

The purchase contract was signed on Wednesday, in the final stage of the Protected Mobility Capability Project (PMCP) for the New Zealand Army. The contract includes the acquisition of 60 vehicles in total: 40 VAMTAC CK3 for personnel transport and 20 VAMTAC ST5 for operational roles. These vehicles will replace 25% of the Mercedes Unimog and Puch Pinzgauer vehicles currently in service with the New Zealand Army.

The VAMTAC CK3 (above) is a light truck version of the Spanish military vehicle. It has a gross weight of 9,950 kg and a payload of 4,000 kg. The VAMTAC ST5 chosen by New Zealand (below) appears to be the variant with a rear cargo and personnel compartment and a canvas top, with a gross weight of 6,000 kg and a payload of 1,700 kg.

"These new vehicles will make our people safer, their jobs easier and improve our effectiveness across a variety of scenarios, and I can’t wait to see them up and running here in Aotearoa" (the Māori name for New Zealand), said New Zealand Army Chief of Staff Major General Rose King. Lieutenant Colonel Brendon Jones, PMCP's head of capability integration, said:

"These vehicles are well equipped for not only our terrain here in New Zealand, but also the operational environments we deploy to – they have great carrying capacity, have rollover protection and the medium variant can wade through water depths up to 1.5m, which is an upgrade on the current Unimog’s 1.2m. They also have an internally operated tyre inflation system, which can adjust tyre pressures depending on the difficult or soft terrain. Those attributes will be invaluable for us for domestic and regional civil emergency responses."