The Mahindra Mine Protected Vehicle-I (MPV-I), is an Indian

MRAP Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP; ) is a term for United States Armed Forces, United States military light tactical vehicles produced as part of the MRAP program that are designed specifically to withstand improvised explosive device (IE ...

-type

armored personnel carrier An armoured personnel carrier (APC) is a broad type of armoured military vehicle designed to transport personnel and equipment in combat zones. Since World War I, APCs have become a very common piece of military equipment around the world. Acc ...

manufactured by

Defense Land Systems Defence Land Systems India Limited (DLSI) was a joint venture between Mahindra & Mahindra Limited and BAE Systems. It designs and produces light armoured vehicles, specialist military vehicles, mine protected vehicles, artillery systems and o ...

, a joint-venture of

Mahindra & Mahindra Limited Mahindra & Mahindra Limited (M&M) is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing corporation headquartered in Mumbai. It was established in 1945 as Mahindra & Mohammed and later renamed as Ma ...

and

BAE Systems BAE Systems plc (BAE) is a British multinational arms, security, and aerospace company based in London, England. It is the largest defence contractor in Europe, and ranked the seventh-largest in the world based on applicable 2021 revenues. ...

, the first vehicle made under the venture. It is an improved

Casspir The Casspir is a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle that has been in use in South Africa since the 1980s. It is a four-wheeled, four-wheel drive vehicle, used for transport of troops. It can hold a crew of two, plus 12 additional soldiers an ...

variant built under licence.

Design

The MPV debuted in 2010, with the design aimed at protection of Indian security forces conducting

anti-terrorism Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, business, and intelligence agencies use to combat or el ...

and anti- Naxalite operations in India's rugged forested and hilly terrains. It is powered by a ruggedized 230 HP

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

, paired with a

6x6 Six-wheel drive (6WD or 6×6) is an all-wheel drive drivetrain configuration of three axles with at least two wheels on each axle capable of being driven simultaneously by the vehicle's engine. Unlike four-wheel drive drivetrains, the configurat ...

transmission Transmission may refer to: Medicine, science and technology * Power transmission ** Electric power transmission ** Propulsion transmission, technology allowing controlled application of power *** Automatic transmission *** Manual transmission *** ...

. The MPV offers

armored Armour (British English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat Co ...

protection to its crew and passengers against ballistic and

land mine A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...

threats. It uses a V-shaped hull of steel and

monocoque Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, ...

construction to direct the force of the blast away from the occupants under a Ural truck chassis. It has been tested to protect against

7.62×51mm NATO The 7.62×51mm NATO (official NATO nomenclature 7.62 NATO) is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It is a standard for small arms among NATO countries. First developed in the 1950s, the cartridge had first been introduced in U.S. service fo ...

7.62×39mm The 7.62×39mm (aka 7.62 Soviet, formerly .30 Russian Short) round is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge of Soviet origin. The cartridge is widely used due to the worldwide proliferation of Russian SKS and AK-47 pattern rifles, as ...

Soviet and

5.56×45mm NATO The 5.56×45mm NATO (official NATO nomenclature 5.56 NATO, but often pronounced "five-five-six") is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge family developed in the late 1970s in Belgium by FN Herstal. It consists of the SS109, L110, and ...

rounds from a 10m distance. It can withstand 21 kg of

TNT equivalent TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a m ...

explosions directly under any wheel, and 14 kg of TNT equivalent explosions directly under the crew compartment. It can carry up to 18 security and paramilitary personnel with full equipment including the crew. The MPV can be armed with a remote controlled weapon station for basic armaments purposes.

Users

In August 2011, the first production series vehicles were delivered to

Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . It ...

Police. In October 2011, the

CRPF The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is a federal police organisation in India under the authority of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) of the Government of India. It is one among the Central Armed Police Forces. The CRPF's primary role lie ...

reported that it had reduced the use of MPVs in operations against Naxalites, since some of the

improvised explosive device An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechan ...

s were of up to 80 kg, far above the 21 kg limit that the vehicles were designed to withstand due to IEDs and not against anti-tank mines. They were only used in limited roles, such as evacuating casualties. In early 2015,

Myanmar Army The Myanmar Army ( my, တပ်မတော်(ကြည်း), ) is the largest branch of the Tatmadaw, Armed Forces (''Tatmadaw'') of Myanmar (Burma) and has the primary responsibility of conducting land-based military operations. The My ...

received 10 MPV-1 from India and, 10

Aditya Surya (; sa, सूर्य, ) is the sun as well as the solar deity in Hinduism. He is traditionally one of the major five deities in the Smarta tradition, all of whom are considered as equivalent deities in the Panchayatana puja and a me ...

aid from India in 2006 for use against Indian Assamese rebels operating from Myanmar.

References

External links

Official Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mine Protected Vehicle India Armoured fighting vehicles of India Post–Cold War military equipment of India Mahindra vehicles BAE Systems land vehicles BAE Systems joint ventures Military vehicles introduced in the 2010s Armoured personnel carriers of the post–Cold War period

Design

Users

See also

References

Further reading

External links