Canada — Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV) III Upgrade Project

The recent expe­ri­ences of the Cana­di­an Forces and oth­er nations in Afghanistan and oth­er areas of oper­a­tion con­tin­ue to demon­strate the ongo­ing require­ment for a high­ly pro­tect­ed, yet high­ly mobile Light-Armoured Vehi­cle.

The LAV III Upgrade project cap­i­tal­izes on exist­ing and evolv­ing tech­nol­o­gy and improves the pro­tec­tion, mobil­i­ty and effec­tive­ness of the LAV III fleet. The project mod­ern­izes a por­tion of the exist­ing LAV III fleet to ensure it remains a high­ly pro­tect­ed and oper­a­tional­ly mobile com­bat vehi­cle and the back­bone of domes­tic and expe­di­tionary task forces. This project extends the life span of the LAV III to 2035. 

The fol­low­ing upgrades will be per­formed on the LAV III: 

• Upgrade of mobil­i­ty sys­tems such as pow­er­train, sus­pen­sion, run­ning gear and brakes;
• Upgrade of the weapon system;
• Instal­la­tion of addi­tion­al armour, height­en­ing its pro­tec­tion against increased threats; and
• Improved crew ergonomics.

The LAV III Upgrade project upgrades 550 vehi­cles with an option for an addi­tion­al 80. 

The project is now in the def­i­n­i­tion phase, which will deter­mine the scope of the work required to upgrade the vehi­cle. Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Land Systems–Canada (GDLS‑C), the orig­i­nal equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­er, was award­ed a $34 mil­lion con­tract for this def­i­n­i­tion phase. Under this con­tract, GDLS‑C will build Risk Reduc­tion Units (RRUs), which are LAV IIIs fit­ted with the var­i­ous planned upgrades. These RRUs will be test­ed and eval­u­at­ed lat­er this year. 

Fol­low­ing the Def­i­n­i­tion Phase, a con­tract will be award­ed for the imple­men­ta­tion of the upgrades. The imple­men­ta­tion work is expect­ed to begin short­ly thereafter. 

Source:
Depart­ment of Nation­al Defence, Kanada