Mercedes-Benz Special Chassis — FGA Component Kit / FGA 14.5

For years, Mer­cedes-Benz Spe­cial Chas­sis FGA 12.5 has proved its worth in very diverse mil­i­tary mis­sions as the base of the KMW DINGO 2. Exten­sive expe­ri­ence gained over the year and chang­ing oper­a­tion sce­nar­ios with regard to pay­load, mobil­i­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty have served as the basis for the new devel­op­ment of Spe­cial Chas­sis FGA 14.5. This is also the basis for the new heavy duty ver­sion of the DINGO 2 HD from Krauss-Maf­fei Weg­mann. The logis­ti­cal con­cept of the DINGO 2 HD (sup­ply­ing spare parts and ser­vic­ing) fol­lows in the foot­steps of the DINGO ver­sions already launched, which were giv­en Spe­cial Chas­sis FGA 12.5 as a base. 

Spe­cial Chas­sis FGA 14.5 Click to enlarge

The deci­sion to go into series pro­duc­tion with Spe­cial Chas­sis FGA 14.5 means that Mer­cedes-Benz is now in a posi­tion to pro­vide man­u­fac­tur­ers of mil­i­tary and civ­il vehi­cles with a com­plete­ly new­ly-designed chas­sis on the basis of the time-tried Uni­mog con­cept. Spe­cial Chas­sis FGA 14.5 is absolute­ly geared to the require­ments of mod­ern armed forces in the 21st cen­tu­ry as far as increas­ing pay­loads and tac­ti­cal mobil­i­ty are con­cerned and it comes up to the lat­est stan­dards for mil­i­tary and tech­ni­cal vehi­cles. Its improved han­dling prop­er­ties (achieved with a new dri­ve­train con­cept and a new con­cus­sion spring pack­age) and the inte­gra­tion of ergonom­ic oper­at­ing con­cepts such as the pre-pro­gram­ma­ble cen­tral tyre infla­tion sys­tem found in the dri­ving dis­play help to take the strain off the dri­ver. The con­trols are so designed that even dri­vers with lit­tle prac­tice can react quick­ly with no com­pli­ca­tions in stress situations. 

Designed accord­ing to STANAG stan­dards, the Spe­cial Chas­sis also has a flex­i­ble lad­der-type frame con­struc­tion which allows the great­est pos­si­ble tor­sion­al flex­i­bil­i­ty as well as por­tal axles which pro­vide ground clear­ance of over 455 mms. Out­stand­ing off-road mobil­i­ty is pro­vid­ed by the time-tried 3‑point mount­ing for all equip­ment which has been tak­en over from the Uni­mog con­cept and com­bined with a spe­cial­ly adjust­ed con­cus­sion spring package. 

The dri­ve­train of the FGA 14.5 is fit­ted with a Mer­cedes-Benz a 7200 cc diesel engine, type OM 926 with a pow­er rat­ing of 225 kW which can devel­op up to 1200 Nm torque. With the OM 926, Spe­cial Chas­sis FGA 14.5 has been fit­ted with an engine already test­ed for mil­i­tary pur­pos­es (400 h NATO con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion) which can also be run on poor­er qual­i­ty fuels. 

A pre­miere in the dri­ve con­fig­u­ra­tion of the Spe­cial Chas­sis FGA 14.5 is its ful­ly-auto­mat­ic trans­mis­sion designed for use in exact­ing oper­a­tions with six switch stages each with two dif­fer­ent reduc­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties (basic and off-road modes). In addi­tion, the auto­mat­ic torque con­vert­er improves the vehicle’s per­for­mance when going is dif­fi­cult, for instance over sandy ground, by mak­ing sure that trac­tion is not interrupted. 

Elec­tric pow­er for the FGA 14.5 is guar­an­teed by a new gen­er­a­tor con­cept capa­ble of up to 355 A. It is pro­tect­ed against dirt and pro­vides enough capac­i­ty for com­plex sys­tems (arma­ments, weapon sta­tions etc.). A new ener­gy man­age­ment sys­tem makes sure that the pow­er sup­ply is well-bal­anced both for the body (i.e. for a great num­ber of elec­tron­ic pow­er con­sumers) as well as for the Spe­cial Chas­sis itself. 

The FGA 14.5 equip­ment pack­age is round­ed off by a pow­er­ful aux­il­iary heater with a total out­put of 12 kW, auto­mat­i­cal­ly adjustable to alti­tudes up to 2500 m, as well as a stan­dard air- con­di­tion­ing com­pres­sor with an out­put of 9 kW which can be increased to 13 kW as an option for hot regions and/or large crew cabs. 

The Spe­cial Chas­sis is fit­ted with all the mechan­i­cal, elec­tric, hydraulic and pneu­mat­ic inter­faces need­ed for inte­grat­ing the safe­ty cage. The most impor­tant inter­faces are fit­ted with the cor­re­spond­ing quick-change sys­tems which con­tribute to reduc­ing the time the vehi­cle is out of use and the time need­ed for main­te­nance – and these of course also lead to a reduc­tion in life-cycle costs. 

Man­u­fac­tur­ers of armoured troop car­ri­ers have a max­i­mum weight of 8.5 t at their dis­pos­al for set­ting up the safe­ty cage and inte­grat­ing it (incl. armour plat­ing, weapon­ry, equip­ment etc.) 

With FGA 12.5 and FGA 14.5, Mer­cedes-Benz Spe­cial Chas­sis is pro­vid­ing a well-thought out range of prod­ucts tai­lored to the needs of mod­ern armed forces which is also in keep­ing with its idea of the vehi­cle fam­i­ly as a whole.