The FV180 Combat Engineer Tractor or C.E.T. is an amphibious specialist armoured 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 Gurk ...

and has been in general service since 1976. A tracked, lightly armoured vehicle, with amphibious capability, the CET is used by

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 heade ...

in ground preparation for bridge construction and towing activities in the front line of battle, such as digging vehicle fighting pits, constructing earthen barriers, repairing roads, recovery of disabled vehicles from water and other obstacles, preparing riverbanks for vehicle crossings and clearing obstacles.

Design

The two crew sit in tandem positions on the left hand side of the vehicle, each with a set of driving controls facing opposite directions. A large earthmoving bucket is fitted at the rear of the vehicle and a rocket-propelled anchor on a 100m

hawser Hawser () is a nautical term for a thick cable or rope used in mooring or towing a ship. A hawser passes through a hawsehole, also known as a cat hole, located on the hawse.The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, third edition, ...

attached to an 8 tonne winch can be fitted to the front. When operated from the rear seat the bucket is used for earth moving; clearing obstacles, paths or digging tank or gun pits and anti-tank ditches. When operated from the front-facing seat it can be driven on the road, and the anchor can be used to pull the CET up steep obstacles such as riverbanks. The winch rope can be deployed to the front or the rear of the vehicle with a maximum pull of 8 tonnes in both configurations. The vehicle is NBC ( Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) proofed and has an air filtration unit, supplying clean air to the crew when operating with the crew hatches closed down in a contaminated environment. The NBC air system is also used to inflate the buoyancy aids required to trim the vehicle when swimming. An Auxiliary Lifting Attachment (ALA) - a davit with a winch rope roller - fitted to the inside of the earthmoving bucket was used for lifting loads of up to 4tonnes. Loads such as

Medium Girder Bridge The Medium Girder Bridge (MGB) is a lightweight, man portable bridge and can be assembled without help from heavy equipment. In addition, it is also a deck type, two-girder bridging system capable of carrying loads up to and including Main battl ...

pallets could be lifted vertically to a height of 1.8m. This then allowed a cargo vehicle to back under the suspended load, the CET could not travel or turn with a suspended load on the ALA due to lateral weakness of the ALA and the proximity of the load to the earthmoving bucket. Use of the ALA was discontinued in the 1990s due to difficulties in annual testing of the safe working load, and a reduced requirement for its use. The amphibious propulsion is provided by two Dowty water impellers, one mounted on each side of the vehicle and controlled by the commander in the rear seat facing forwards. The water jets are used to steer the vehicle when swimming, this is with the use of movable cowls directing the flow of water. When not in use, the propulsion unit water intakes are closed off with armoured covers to prevent damage during digging operations. Flotation aids are required to trim the vehicle for swimming and a "wash board" is fitted to the front of the vehicle to prevent the bow wave flooding the crew compartment when entering water. Maximum speed in water is 8.5 knots, the vehicle will wade in 1.8m of water and requires preparation for operating in deeper water than this as it achieves buoyancy. FV180 can tow a "Giant Viper" anti-mine system. It can be airlifted by a C-130 Hercules aircraft.

History

From 2013 the CET is being replaced by a new, larger vehicle - the 30 tonne

Terrier Armoured Digger The Terrier vehicle is an air-transportable armoured combat engineer vehicle for the Royal Engineers. It is being developed as a replacement vehicle for the FV180 Combat Engineer Tractor used by the British Army. Design The vehicle will weigh a ...

. This is better protected, equipped with

night vision Night vision is the ability to see in low-light conditions, either naturally with scotopic vision or through a night-vision device. Night vision requires both sufficient spectral range and sufficient intensity range. Humans have poor night vi ...

and can be remotely operated if required in more hazardous circumstances.

Operators

Current operators

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

Former operators

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

References

{{Use British English, date=July 2014 Amphibious armoured fighting vehicles Military engineering vehicles of the United Kingdom Military vehicles introduced in the 1970s