Armored Cars: SVOS Perun

Via SVOS.

The newest modular protected 4×4 to come out of Central Europe was tailored for special forces who must travel cross-country. But the resulting vehicle was so robust it’s being marketed as a be-anything/do-anything troop carrier for armies on tight budgets. Far from an experiment in a competitive niche, the company SVOS built its reputation as a trusted supplier of armor panels with a pretty decent MRAP to its name. Its Perun is a deliberate push to capture a market that, in terms of scale, remains vast and underserved. This is why SVOS are quick to emphasize the vehicle’s compatibility with NATO standards, its serious butambiguous level of ballistic and explosive protection, and its authentic in-house design.

SVOS have kept busy promoting the Perun for the better part of two years now. Aside from its open top configuration, with armaments determined by the user’s choice, the Perun is available as a fully enclosed protected truck. This means when it isn’t competing with the UK’s Supacat it holds its own versus Arquus (France), KMW (Germany), and Oshkosh (USA). The Perun as a troop carrier features a double cab with a passenger compartment seating eight people who enter from a rear swing door. Armament options are broad, starting with a remote controlled machine gun on the roof.

The Perun 6×6 with a remote weapon station armed with missiles. Via SVOS.

Each Perun runs on a 320 horsepower engine but SVOS prefer keeping mum on the type. For ease of use and optimum mobility over unpaved roads, the Perun boasts automatic transmission (don’t they all?) and a suspension system where the front and rear independent axles have hydraulic boosters with adjustable height. SVOS insist that adding runflat tires are optional. Because of its 13 ton gross weight the Perun does scale on the heavier side but not too much for a C-130 transport. Its STANAG armor level and blast resistance aren’t stated, although both are quite high; the Perun’s cab withstands gunfire from an AK-47 and grenade blasts from without won’t destroy its hull.

Besides the “light strike” configuration for special forces, SVOS offer nine variants of their Perun. These include a fully enclosed troop carrier with seating for 12; a double cab pickup truck seating four; a command vehicle with long-range cameras and detection equipment; a fully enclosed variant carrying either anti-air or anti-armor missiles; a counter-mine vehicle with a hydraulic arm for defusing bombs; an ambulance for casualty evacuation; plus at least two variants for law enforcement use. SVOS are able to manufacture a Perun on a 6×6 chassis as well if the customer needs a larger wheeled transport.

As an incentive for non-European buyers, SVOS are prepared to establish after sales offices for the Perun and modular features such as propellers that make it swim across water are available. To be clear, SVOS doesn’t manufacture weapons for its vehicles. These are left to the end users who can install their preferred machine guns, grenade launchers, recoilless armaments, and missiles once they possess the truck. Now that Europe is crowded with modular 4×4’s superior to the tracked APCs of the Cold War, trying to envision the Perun’s success is far from easy.

SVOS positioned their latest contender for elite units who want a robust transport bristling with machine guns and smoke grenades. The Perun’s ample dimensions also leaves space for storing enough ammo, food, fuel, and water to last a week. But the Perun can be so much more and do a lot of other jobs. The world simply has to wait and see.