Leonardo/Aris Bronco 3

Il_Signor_Regio · September 10, 2025, 9:49pm

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History

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Back in the early nineties, the Singaporean army was looking for a new vehicle, one that could serve in its ranks as an adequate armored personnel carrier and be able to cross most terrains with ease. Thus, two Singaporean companies, Singapore Technologies Kinetics (ST Kinetics) and Singapore’s Defence Science & Technology Agency (DSTA), decided to join forces in order to meet the requirement expressed by their country’s army. In a short span of time they managed to deliver the platform the army was looking for, a capable and modular all-terrain vehicle called Bronco. The Singaporean army was satisfied with the results of this new platform and ordered a total of 600 units, the first of which was delivered in early 2001. The second customer of this new machine was Thailand, who in 2007 ordered a small amount of units in the baseline configuration, 10 in total, to be used by the army’s engineers. But the export success for this machine had only begun, and one year later, the British minister of defense awarded ST Kinetics a contract for a total of 155 units in a further development of the base vehicle, called Bronco 2 (Warthog in British service), a more heavily armed machine that could be able to survive the harsh environment of the Afghanistan war that was raging on at the time, alongside the Swedish BVS210. At DSEI 2017, the latest member of the family, Bronco 3, was unveiled for the first time to the public. This new variant was improved in every conceivable way over the last model, featuring lighter weight, better armor, speed, fuel consumption, additional armor kits, and others. Unfortunately, the vehicle was not able to score any success, unlike its predecessors, remaining on the shelf for a lot of time without being acquired by anyone. After nearly 8 years, the Bronco 3 was spotted at the military exercise Stella Alpina 2025, when it was shown alongside the Swedish BVS210 in a new configuration. Indeed, this important event was used as an opportunity to test new equipment, such as hand weapons, loitering munitions, and new all-terrain vehicles, by the Italian Alpini corps. The Italian army still uses the old BV206, a proven and reliable vehicle for sure, but something that has become old over time and is in need of a replacement. The two contenders for this competition were the previously mentioned Bronco 3, depicted in a new configuration, with Italian-made systems and remote-controlled weapons, with the other being the BVS210, albeit in the baseline version. ST Engineering agreed to cooperate with Leonardo in order to integrate the Italian system on the vehicle and ARIS for a complete under-license production in Italy. The vehicle was proposed in plenty of configurations, such as APC, anti-air, mortar, command, medevac, EW and others, with the Italian army demanding full interoperability between all versions, with a vehicle being able to be fitted with any configuration if needed. The vehicle was shown again at DSEI 2025, and so far its chances of winning this bidding are fairly high.

Specifications

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