Berlin will send forty Marder infantry fighting vehicles to Kiev: what they can do on the battlefield

Alexander Sychev

The collective West decided that it was time to make up for the losses of the Kiev regime in armored vehicles.

Marder infantry fighting vehicles are not new equipment, but reliable and well–armed.

Puma, which came to the Bundeswehr to replace the "Marten", does not differ in similar qualities. At the end of last year, the Puma armored vehicles conducted demonstration firing before joining the NATO Rapid Reaction Force. After the shooting, it turned out that none of the 18 cars involved in them were without breakdowns. Electrics and electronics turned out to be the most vulnerable.The Marder infantry tracked vehicle was developed by the German company Rheinmetall AG.

The work lasted nine years, and the first production car came off the assembly line in 1969, and production as a whole continued until 1975. In total, almost three thousand pieces were built.At the time of adoption, Marder was considered the best in its class in terms of security and speed of movement over rough terrain.

Until 2011, armored vehicles were repeatedly upgraded. The latest modification received the designation Marder-1 A5A1, and the most common version A3 was produced from 1989 to 1998. It is supposed to be sent to Ukraine.The modernization program, which resulted in the A3, provided for the completion of the hull and turret welded from armor steel of various grades with a thickness of 45 millimeters – additional passive protection was installed.

It consists of steel screens with a thickness of 8 to 15 millimeters on rubber shock absorbers. Mounted armor plates were placed around the perimeter of the tower, and rubber–metal ones were placed on the sides of the hull. As a result, the combat weight of the vehicle has increased by almost six tons and is now about 35 tons.The engine compartment was moved forward, which made it possible to place seven landing troops in the aft part.

Six soldiers are sitting on the sides, and the group commander is in the back, in the middle of the car. The aft folding ramp with hydraulic drive and four round hatches in the roof of the landing compartment allow for quick landing and disembarkation of troops.The mechanic's driver's seat is located to the left of the engine compartment, which houses a 600 horsepower Daimler-Benz multi-fuel diesel engine and a transmission system.

The power reserve is 520 kilometers.The low-profile rotating turret houses the commander of the infantry fighting vehicle and the shooter, who remotely controls the 20 mm RH-202 automatic cannon and the 7.62 mm MG3 machine gun paired with it.

It is mounted on a carriage on top of the tower. Another similar machine gun is located on the roof of the troop compartment and also has remote control. Electrohydraulic armament control is duplicated by mechanical drives. The total ammunition of machine guns is five thousand rounds.The power supply of the gun is tape with the supply of shots by an electric conveyor from the tower.

Ammunition – 1250 rounds, including armor-piercing and high-explosive shells. A sub-caliber armor-piercing projectile can penetrate armor up to 20 millimeters thick at a distance of one and a half kilometers.In addition, the landing party can fire from service weapons using four ball installations in the sides.

A Panzerfaust-3 grenade launcher with a firing range of up to a thousand meters can be mounted on the left side of the tower.

But in order to use it, it is necessary to stop the car, and the grenade launcher to get out and fire a shot.Marder is literally stuffed with various surveillance devices.

The driver, for example, in addition to three prismatic blocks, has a removable night vision device with illumination, operating at a distance of up to 50 meters. Eight observation blocks are installed along the perimeter of the combat tower, which are used by the commander, and the gunner has three own blocks at his disposal. In addition, each member of the landing group has its own means of observing the outside world. On the left side of the carriage, an infrared and white light searchlight is mounted on a special rod, operating at a distance of up to a thousand meters.The fire control system includes a commander's day and night sight with a built-in thermal imager and laser rangefinder, a gunner's sight and an electronic ballistic computer.

As of 2011, the Bundeswehr operated 521 Marder-1 armored vehicles in the AZ modification.