Caption: Corsac 8x8 AFV
Tatra Defence Vehicle from the Czechoslovak Group will offer Pandur II armoured vehicles to the Slovak Armed Forces with the support of the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic and the Agency for Intergovernmental Defence Cooperation (AMOS) for the purchase of 76 and potentially more than 400 eight-wheeled Armoured Fighting Vehicles. The Slovak government wants to purchase the new equipment for its armed forces through an intergovernmental agreement and the evaluation of the bids is to be completed by the end of March 2022. In addition to price and technical specifications, the level of involvement of the Slovak defence industry will be important for the outcome, as in similar contracts in Slovakia - and CSG, which is already operating steadily in Slovakia, certainly has something to offer in this respect.
"At this point I can specify that the Czech offer includes the involvement of Tatra Defence Vehicle (a subsidiary of CSG) and includes the Pandur II vehicle, including the substantial involvement of the Slovak defence industry. The Czech Republic is one of the few countries that produces 8x8 wheeled armoured vehicle platforms and is able to develop and offer modular variants, which are also used by the Czech Army," Jana Zechmeisterová from the press department of the Ministry of Defence told the ČTK agency.
See also: Titus armoured vehicle - modern wheeled platform for the Czech Army by Czech designers
The AMOS agency was established at the beginning of 2021 and its task is to support the sale of military equipment on an intergovernmental level. It provides governmental mediation of agreement covered by guarantees for the technical quality of goods (provided by the national certification authority - the state enterprise Military Technical Institute, VTU) and an intergovernmental agreement on military-technical cooperation. The offer of Pandur II vehicles to the Government of the Slovak Republic is the first project.
"We highly appreciate the fact that we can cooperate on the first project where the Czech Republic gives another state an offer of strategic defence technology in the G2G (intergovernmental cooperation) mode, which, among other things, meets the requirement for long-term cooperation to ensure a common security area within the EU security policy," said CSG spokesman Andrej Čírtek.
CSG companies have been operating in Slovakia for a long time, for example Tatra Defence Slovakia in Trencin produces 8x8 chassis for Tatra vehicles, in addition to MSM Holding. In addition to armoured combat vehicles, the Slovak Army also needs new trucks, and traditionally, and like the Czech Army, it has long relied primarily on the Tatra brand.
See also: Tatra Defense Vehicle has fulfilled the Army contract for special Pandur vehicles
The purchase of eight-wheeled Armoured Fighting Vehicles has not been successful in Slovakia so far. In 2017, the Finnish company Patria won with its AMV 8x8. However, the tender was suspended in 2020 with the arrival of the new defence minister Jaroslav Naď allegedly due to lack of transparency. Already in the first attempt, the bids were compared between Piranha (originally Swiss MOWAG), KTO Rosomak (Polish variant of the Finnish Patria), Stryker (GDLS) and Pandur Corsac (presented in Bratislava at IDEB 2016 by MSM Martin, EVPÚ and Konštrukta Defence; it is a Pandur II with a Turra 30 turret of Slovak design). In addition to the Czech Republic, Finland (Patria AMV), Romania (GDELS produces the Piranha V 8x8 in cooperation with Romanian industry), Spain (GDELS produces the VCR Dragón, based on the Piranha V, in a joint venture with three other companies) and the United States.
In the first phase, when Slovakia is requesting 76 vehicles, the order is worth CZK 8.25 billion.