History and design
The Sandcat its a light armored 4x4 vehicle made by Plasan Sasa (ACS) Ltd., an Israeli company founded in 1985 that its specialized in survivability kits, armored vehicles, and robotics; with clients all around the world. Its development started in 2004 as a proposal to replace the AIL Storm jeeps used by the IDF and was first unveiled at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) in October 2005, being based in the commercial Ford F-series chassis.
At the Eurosatory, June 2018, Plasan presented their proposal of a mine-resistant light patrol vehicle (M-LPV) using the Sandcat platform, this one being the 4th generation of the Sandcat family. The level protection its “in compliance with the STANAG 4569 standards. The vehicle integrates energy-attenuating blast seats and offers STANAG 4569 level 2a/2b protection against 7.62mm rounds, shell sprinters, fragments, and mine explosions. (Army Technology, 2018)”.
During this exhibition, Plasan also offered a posibility to add roof-mounted weapons which can be manual or remotly controled, but in this case, and the one we want to focus on, its the SAMSON DUAL RWS turret with the M230 30mm cannon.
“The cannon its similar as the ones in the AH-64 helicopters, but because its a ground platform, we can assume its the M230LF Bushmaster, which has a slower fire rate (200 rpm) than the ones installed in air platforms. Additionally, the cannon its capable to shoot HEDP (anti-armor with 51 mm of pen), HE, and HE-VT (proxy airburst rounds against drones) rounds”.
Altough the Sandcat vehicle was used in combat escenarios by Mexico (against drug traffickers in Tamaulipas, 2011), Israel (during the Gaza conflict, 2023 - present), Azerbaijan (during the war with Artsakh, 2020), etc. The Sandcat M-LPV with the SAMSON RWS M230 turret configuration was not used in any combat escenario, with no countries currently using this configuration, and only Nigeria and Israel using the M-LPV configuration without the M230 cannon (usually small guns mounted like 7.62mm or 12.7mm guns).
Specifications
Platform:
- Crew: 2 (driver and gunner) + 6 passengers
- Lenght: 5.94 meters
- Width: 2.30 meters
- Height: 2.54 meters
- Wheelbase: 2,946 meters
- Weight: 9,300 kg
- Max. speed: 110 km/h
- Engine: Ford 6.7L V8 OHV 330hp power-stroke engine
- Transmision: 6-speed automatic gearbox
- Ammo capacity: 200 ready-to-fire rounds (for the 30mm cannon) and 2 ready-to-fire Spike LR 2 missiles.
M230 Bushmaster Chain Gun:
- Caliber: 30x113 mm
- Ammo types: HEDP / XM1211 (HE-VT) / XM1198 (HE)
- Rate of fire: 200 rpm (for the ground variant M230LF)
- Dual feed: Yes
Purpouse for this vehicle in-game
My objective for this vehicle in-game would be for an anti-air vehicle that fills the gap between the Hovet and the ZSU-23-4V in the Israeli Ground Tech Tree, with the use of the air tracker, laser rangefinder, thermals and HE-VT rounds, I expect for this vehicle to perform better than the Hovet, but with limitations because of the low fire rate and the M230’s bullet drop.
Pictures
Sources
https://www.army-technology.com/projects/plasan-sandcat-m-lpv/?cf-view
https://www.rafael.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/samson-rws-remote-weapon-systems.pdf
Plasan SandCat - Wikipedia
Plasan - Wikipedia
https://plasan.com/
Eurosatory 2018: Plasan Unveils the new Sandcat M-LPV
https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/34503
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhNTeZQXRBk