Autovehicul Blindat pentru Intervenție (ABI, "Armored Vehicle for Intervention") was a
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
n
armored car based on the chassis of the
ARO 240 off-road vehicle. Intended for escort and counterinsurgency missions, the ABI armored vehicle was manufactured by Automecanica Moreni. The export variant was known as AM 100 ALG.
History
Development
In June 1978, the Romanian government expressed their desire to have an armored car based on the ARO 240 vehicle that was equipped with a machine gun. It was to be supplied to airport security units. A prototype was completed by the end of the year. On May 27, 1979,
Nicolae Ceausescu Nicolae may refer to:
* Nicolae (name), a Romanian name
* ''Nicolae'' (novel), a 1997 novel
See also
*Nicolai (disambiguation)
*Nicolao Nicolao is an Italian given name and a surname. It may refer to the following:
Given name
*Nicolao Civitali ...
ordered the manufacture of a batch of armored vehicles to parade at the
August 23
Events Pre-1600
*30 BC – After the successful invasion of Egypt, Octavian executes Marcus Antonius Antyllus, the eldest son of Mark Antony, and Caesarion, the last king of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt and only child of Julius Cae ...
military parade. The armored car, known as the ABI, was also presented to the
Romanian Army
The Romanian Land Forces ( ro, Forțele Terestre Române) is the army of Romania, and the main component of the Romanian Armed Forces. In recent years, full professionalisation and a major equipment overhaul have transformed the nature of the Lan ...
, but it was rejected and solely used for airport security. 17 ABIs made their appearances in the military parade on August 23, 1979.
Service
ABI vehicles were used during the
Romanian Revolution
The Romanian Revolution ( ro, Revoluția Română), also known as the Christmas Revolution ( ro, Revoluția de Crăciun), was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred i ...
of 1989 , when they were involved in several notable incidents, such as the massacre by
USLA troops in front of the
Ministry of Defense
{{unsourced, date=February 2021
A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...
headquarters.
Design and specifications
ABI was built on the chassis used by the ARO 240. The armor was made of welded steel plates, 4-10 mm thick, and provided protection only against small caliber bullets and splinters.
[ The armored vehicle was vulnerable to 7.62 mm perforated cartridges.
The driver was seated on the left at the front of the vehicle, and the commander was on the right. The commander had two ]firing port
A firing port, sometimes called a pistol port, is a small opening in armored vehicles, fortified structures like bunkers, or other armored equipment that allows small arms to be safely fired out of the vehicle at enemy infantry, often to cover veh ...
s at his disposal. One firing port was to the right of the windscreen and the other was a window in front of him. The driver had only one window to fire inside the vehicle.[ The windshield and left door window were bulletproof. The windows could be additionally protected with folding armor plates, without visible slots. If the windows were covered, the commander and the driver used the six periscopes to see outside. The rear soldiers had four firing ports at their disposal to shoot: two in the rear doors and one in the sides. To see the outside, the soldiers used two observation slots and two periscopes. The turret was equipped with a 7.62 mm ]PK machine gun
The PK (russian: Пулемёт Калашникова, transliterated as ''Pulemyot Kalashnikova'', or "Kalashnikov's machine gun"), is a belt-fed general-purpose machine gun, chambered for the 7.62×54mmR rimmed cartridge.
Designed in the Sov ...
.
Variants
* AM 100 ALG: Export version for Algeria
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, relig ...
equipped with a Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
n VAMO Model D 3900 A engine, providing 82.5 hp and maximum road speed of 100 km/h.[
* AM 100 Armoured Off Road Vehicle: A marketed version with infra-red searchlights and a white light searchlight.][
]
Operators
*: 10 vehicles were delivered in 1987 for use by the police.
*: 5 were delivered in October 1986 and paraded at the military parade in Monrovia
Monrovia () is the capital city of the West African country of Liberia. Founded in 1822, it is located on Cape Mesurado on the Atlantic coast and as of the 2008 census had 1,010,970 residents, home to 29% of Liberia’s total population. As the ...
on November 16, 1986.
*
References
Bibliography
* {{cite book , last=Urdăreanu, first=Tiberiu , title=Jurnal 1978-1988 , trans-title=Journal 1978-1988, language=ro, publisher=Editura Militara , publication-place=București , year=2004 , isbn=978-973-32-0663-7 , oclc=81150009
Armoured fighting vehicles of Romania
Armoured cars
ARO vehicles
Military vehicles introduced in the 1970s