XM800 Armored Reconnaissance Scout Vehicle

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XM800W with the new turret design

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XM800T on display at Fort Knox

The XM800 Armored Reconnaissance Scout Vehicle, or ARSV, was an experimental scout vehicle developed by the US Army in the 1970s. It was part of a series of armored vehicles being designed by the Army to replace their existing armored personnel carriers, the M113 and M114, with vehicles with greatly improved fighting capabilities. While the MICV-65 program focused on troop carriers, a separate requirement for a scout vehicle led to the XM800. None of the vehicles from the MICV-65 project entered production, although they provided valuable experience that was used in the M2 Bradley.

Two different vehicle designs were designed for the XM800 project, Lockheed's XM800W unconventional articulated 6 × 6 wheeled armored car and FMC's XM800T tracked version. Both models initially featured the same turret with the US-built version of the Hispano-Suiza HS.820 20 mm autocannon, the M139, as the primary weapon, as well as a M60-derived machine gun on a pintle mount. The M139 had been selected for all of the MICV projects. The XM800W was later equipped with a new turret design that kept the M139 cannon, but that had an upper cover that flipped forward to form a gun shield, or rearward to close up.

References

• Jane's World Armoured Fighting Vehicles, 1976.