{"id":58493,"date":"2025-01-24T22:28:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T21:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=58493"},"modified":"2026-01-24T02:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T01:14:16","slug":"an-exhibition-in-denmark-reveals-a-problem-that-could-affect-the-spanish-vcr-dragon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/01\/24\/an-exhibition-in-denmark-reveals-a-problem-that-could-affect-the-spanish-vcr-dragon\/","title":{"rendered":"An exhibition in Denmark reveals a problem that could affect the Spanish VCR Drag\u00f3n"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For decades there has been a debate about which traction method is better for an armored military vehicle: wheels or tracks.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/12\/17\/the-problems-of-the-spanish-vcr-dragon-8x8-armoured-vehicle-a-project-under-threat\/\">The problems of the Spanish VCR Drag\u00f3n 8x8 armoured vehicle: a project under threat?<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/12\/16\/the-new-vcr-dragon-armored-vehicle-of-the-spanish-army-and-the-controversy-over-its-size\/\">The new VCR Drag\u00f3n armored vehicle of the Spanish Army and the controversy over its size<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p>Tracked vehicles eventually gained the upper hand for a time, but <strong>in recent years, wheeled armoured vehicles have been experiencing a new boom<\/strong>, even partially displacing tracked vehicles in certain roles, such as infantry fighting vehicles (IFV).<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday I watched a very interesting video by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@tankchris\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Christian Th\u00f8gersen<\/a> that may provide some insight into this discussion. The video shows <strong>a recent display of a Danish Army MOWAG Piranha V at the Panzermuseet in Oksb\u00f8l, Denmark<\/strong>. The wheeled vehicle initially demonstrated great mobility on a muddy surface, but eventually <strong>the Piranha V got stuck in the mud twice<\/strong> and had to be rescued by an old Leopard 1A5 tank:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Leopard 1A5 on recovery mission - Piranha 5 stuck in deep mud\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/69VPKscIAcY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can see some screenshots from the video here. The first one shows us <strong>the Piranha V stuck in the mud:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54284360890_34ef0d529d_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This image gives us <strong>a clue as to what goes wrong with wheeled vehicles<\/strong> on this type of terrain:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54284182083_b145edb6cb_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In case you haven't figured it out, here's a better look: <strong>The wheels end up saturated and lose traction as mud fills the gaps between the tire studs.<\/strong> This is a problem when you have a vehicle that concentrates its total weight in less surface area, unlike what happens with tracked vehicles.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54284182093_075616f206_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It should be noted that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forsvaret.dk\/globalassets\/fko---varnsfalles\/fvt\/dokumenter\/2023\/fvt-uddannelsesfolder.pdf\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oksb\u00f8l is home to the Danish Army's tank workshops<\/a>, while the maintenance centre for the Piranha V is in Slagelse. <strong>The wheeled vehicle was playing on the opponent's field and lost.<\/strong> Looking at the comments on the video, it is clear that the tankers from Oksb\u00f8l enjoyed the spectacle.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Wheeled vehicles enjoyed a boom thanks to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,<\/strong> two countries with many arid landscapes and where a wheeled vehicle offers more mobility than a tracked one. <strong>The Royal Danish Army sent its Piranha IIIs to those two countries and they performed very well.<\/strong> And someone thought that such a vehicle would be a good solution to <strong>replace its aging M-113 tracked troop carriers<\/strong> amid a trend of underspending on defense. It was then, in 2015, that <strong>Denmark bought 309 Piranha V<\/strong>s. Deliveries began in 2017.<\/p>\n<div class=\"foto_piedefoto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54284184573_87bd88eee9_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"piedefoto\">A Piranha V of the Royal Danish Army (Photo: Forsvaret.dk).<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dr.dk\/nyheder\/indland\/danmark-ignorerede-nato-krav-i-aarevis-nu-venter-ny-milliardregning\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NATO warned Denmark that the Piranha Vs did not meet the requirements for a heavy brigade<\/a>, <strong>but Danish politicians ignored these warnings<\/strong> and assigned the Piranha V to the 1st Brigade in Holstebro, a heavy unit assigned as a NATO rapid reaction force. <strong>This was a time when no one thought that a large-scale war could occur in Europe<\/strong>, and many politicians believed that it was not worth spending a lot on defense.<\/p>\n<div class=\"foto_piedefoto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54284363285_610301c246_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"piedefoto\">A Piranha V of the Royal Danish Army (Photo: Forsvaret.dk).<\/div>\n<p><strong>Then came the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has shown what happens in a war in Europe<\/strong>, with muddy roads in autumn and winter that are more suitable for tracked vehicles, and combat environments that require well-protected vehicles. <strong>Denmark has not even been able to donate some of its Piranha Vs to Ukraine<\/strong>, as they are manufactured by the Swiss company MOWAG and that country has banned the delivery of Swiss material to the Ukrainians. As a result, <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2024\/12\/denmark-and-sweden-sign-2-5-billion-cv90-ifv-joint-procurement-for-over-200-vehicles\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Denmark had to purchase 115 CV90 infantry fighting vehicles in 2024, to meet NATO requirements, and another 40 in a joint purchase with Sweden, to donate to Ukraine.<\/p>\n<div class=\"foto_piedefoto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54211502340_3abd2f6ce7_o.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"piedefoto\">Two units of the VCR Dragon of the Spanish Army (Photo: Tess Defense).<\/div>\n<p><strong>This affects the Spanish armored vehicle project VCR Drag\u00f3n.<\/strong> As I explained to you last month, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/12\/17\/the-problems-of-the-spanish-vcr-dragon-8x8-armoured-vehicle-a-project-under-threat\/\">this vehicle is based on the Piranha V<\/a>. There is another coincidence with the Danish case: <strong>Spain will also replace part of its M-113s with the VCR Drag\u00f3n.<\/strong> Obviously, we can think that it will be rare for these vehicles to be used on very muddy roads, that <strong>wheeled vehicles offer more speed on roads<\/strong> and that inconveniences like the ones we see in the video will be something exceptional. <strong>But the advantage that tracked vehicles offer<\/strong>, in being able to operate on terrain in very poor conditions at any time of year, <strong>remains undeniable<\/strong>, and to ignore it is to simply give up the ability to operate on such terrain and in such conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For decades there has been a debate about which traction method is better for an armored military vehicle: wheels or tracks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19536,11544],"tags":[15557,8921,23636,17462,17463,10557,14093],"class_list":["post-58493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-we-said-yesterday","category-army","tag-denmark","tag-mowag-piranha","tag-oksbol","tag-panzermuseet","tag-royal-danish-army","tag-spanish-army","tag-vcr-dragon"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-12 01:55:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}