The Trojan Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE) is a combat engineering vehicle of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkha ...

. It is used to breach minefields and for many other tasks. It is currently in use with the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is head ...

Design

The Trojan Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers is based on a

Challenger 2 The FV4034 Challenger 2 (MOD designation "CR2") is a third generation British main battle tank (MBT) in service with the armies of the United Kingdom and Oman. It was designed and built by the British company Vickers Defence Systems (now known ...

tank chassis, but lacks the main armament. In place of the

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * M ...

, it has a large hydraulic

excavator Excavators are heavy construction equipment consisting of a boom, dipper (or stick), bucket and cab on a rotating platform known as the "house". The house sits atop an undercarriage with tracks or wheels. They are a natural progression fr ...

arm, which can be used to excavate areas, move obstacles, and deposit the

fascine A fascine is a rough bundle of brushwood or other material used for strengthening an earthen structure, or making a path across uneven or wet terrain. Typical uses are protecting the banks of streams from erosion, covering marshy ground and so ...

that the Trojan carries at its rear. The Trojan is usually also fitted with a plough on the front, which enables it to clear mines, either detonating them on contact, or pushing them out of the way to clear a safe channel for following vehicles. For self-defence only, it carries a

7.62mm The 7.62 mm caliber is a nominal caliber used for a number of different cartridges. Historically, this class of cartridge was commonly known as .30 caliber, the imperial unit and customary unit equivalent, and was most commonly used for i ...

machine gun. For rapid mine-clearing purposes, the Trojan can also tow a trailer carrying the Python, a rocket-propelled hose similar to the

Giant Viper The Giant Viper was a trailer-mounted, vehicle-pulled, mine clearance system, designed to be deployed in areas containing land mines. It was developed for the British Army in the 1950s. It was designed to be towed behind a Centurion gun tank, FV40 ...

. This allows for a much quicker way of clearing a path for ground forces. The hose, packed with explosive, is launched across a minefield, and detonates after it hits the ground, clearing a 7-metre wide path for 230 metres.

History

The vehicles were built at BAE Systems Land Systems plant in

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

. The contract was awarded in 2001 to

Vickers Defence Systems Vickers plc was the remainder of Vickers-Armstrongs after the nationalisation of three of its four operating groups: aviation (as a 50% share since 1960 of British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) in 1977), shipbuilding ( Vickers Limited Shipbuilding ...

, who were bought by BAE Systems in 2004. The project was known as the Future Engineer Tank. 33 have been built. It was first used on exercise in May 2007 with the 1st Battalion (Mechanised) of the

Duke of Lancaster's Regiment The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment (King's, Lancashire and Border) (LANCS) is an infantry regiment of the line within the British Army, part of the King's Division. Headquartered in Preston, it recruits throughout the North West of England. The D ...

. A number of Trojans are permanently based in Canada at

British Army Training Unit Suffield The British Army Training Unit Suffield (BATUS) is a British Army unit located at the vast training area of Canadian Forces Base Suffield near Suffield, Alberta, Canada. BATUS is the British Army's largest armoured training facility, and it can ...

in order to allow the

to support Armoured Battle Groups on major exercises. Trojans were first deployed operationally by the

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...

in 2009 engaging in their first advance under contact in 2010. During

Operation Moshtarak Operation Moshtarak (Dari for ''Together'' or ''Joint''), also known as the Battle of Marjah, was an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) pacification offensive in the town of Marjah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. It involved a com ...

28 Engineer Regiment operated the Trojan attempting to use its traditional

mine clearance Demining or mine clearance is the process of removing land mines from an area. In military operations, the object is to rapidly clear a path through a minefield, and this is often done with devices such as mine plows and blast waves. By contr ...

equipment in the Counter- IED role in support of a major British Army advance.. Its companion vehicle, developed at the same time, is another variant of the Challenger 2, the Titan armoured bridge layer, of which 33 have also been built.

References

External links

{{Commons category, Trojan AVRE
Royal Engineers
Military engineering vehicles of the United Kingdom Mine warfare countermeasures BAE Systems land vehicles Vehicles introduced in 2007 Military vehicles introduced in the 2000s