First tests with Romanian PIRANHA

General Dynamics European Land Systems (GDELS) has achieved an important milestone in the PIRANHA 5 program for the Romanian Army with the successful completion of dynamic firing tests in the presence of the Romanian procurement authority.

This test took place on March 28, 2019 at a shooting range in Camp Rena (Norway). A fully equipped PIRANHA 5 conducted a series of static and dynamic firing tests with its 30mm weapon system to demonstrate its performance. The tests exceeded the customer's requirements and qualified the ELBIT UT30MK2 system for the highly protected 8×8 wheeled vehicle for the Romanian program.

As part of the Romanian Army's plan to modernize its armored wheeled vehicle fleet, GDLES signed a contract in January 2018 with the Romanian Armed Forces for the delivery of up to 227 highly protected PIRANHA 5 wheeled vehicles in six different configurations. The modern PIRANHA 5 vehicles are produced in Romania as part of a strategic cooperation and technology transfer between GDELS - Mowag and the Romanian company Uzina Mecanică București (UMB).

Last year, GDELS and UMB completed the first phase of renovating the UMB production facilities as part of their cooperation. Additionally, Romanian employees of UMB were trained in Switzerland and qualified by General Dynamics European Land Systems-Mowag for the serial production of PIRANHA 5. This positions the UMB site and employees ready for the start of serial production in Romania.

"We are pleased to achieve two important milestones in the program for such an important customer with the successful firing tests and the readiness of our partner UMB for local serial production." says Oliver Dürr, Vice President Wheeled Vehicles and Managing Director of GEDLS – Mowag.

GDELS online: www.gdels.com

UMB online: roumb.eu