Diehl Defence Land Systems at DEFEXPO 2012

Diehl Defence Land Systems (DLS), a merger of the former Diehl Defence companies Industriewerke Saar (IWS) and Diehl Remscheid, centre of track development and production for MBTs and all other types of tracked armoured vehicles, has been engaged in the track business since 1959. Since then the development and production of the Diehl System Track (DST) established the reputation of former Diehl Remscheid and now DLS as a reliable partner not only to the German Army but to the NATO partners and many other Armed Forces in the world. Today DLS claims with justification to be the only fully integrated military track designer and manufacturer in the world.

Since the middle of the eighties of the last century Diehl has been very active in India. Diehl was involved in the track design and development for the ARJUN MBT from the beginning. Nowadays the ARJUN is the only tracked armoured vehicle in service running on rubber padded tracks. In the meantime qualification trials and tests for other tracked vehicles of the Indian Armed Forces like BMP1/2 have taken place and successfully finished.

Considering the size and importance of the Indian Armed Forces on the one side and the local procurement procedures have triggered new ways for Diehl to satisfy the demands of the customer. For that reason Diehl has decided to create a Joint Venture (JV) with an Indian company to fulfil the procurement requirements of the Indian government. It is expected to receive the final approval from FIPB, part of the Indian government, to start the local production of tracks for armoured vehicles. In a second step it is intended also to produce locally by the JV-company rubber pads, as well as vulcanisation of road wheels used on the armoured tracked vehicles.

(Photo: Diehl Defence)

Furthermore since the merger, DLS is also able to provide power pack solutions including cooling systems, air filtration systems, final drives and much more for all kind of armoured vehicles, tracked and wheeled. In that field DLS has recorded already the first small success; DLS has been awarded with an contract for designing a cooling system and air filtration system as well as the integration of the complete power pack to the prototype of an automatic vehicle.

Beside India, DLS has spread their activities successfully in other Asian and Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand just to name a few.
Currently DLS is in discussion and negotiation with the related Institutions of some of the Asian countries for several new projects which comprise not just tracks but also design and integration of complete power packs including cooling systems, air filtration and other peripheral equipment.

For more information about this technology, please see MILITARY TECHNOLOGY 3/2012 and the MILITARY TECHNOLOGY DEFEXPO SPECIAL ISSUE, available at the show.