In Development: Hunter AFV

Commanders!

Two vehicles of the upcoming Battle Path remain to be announced and today, we’d like to unveil one of them. Unlike the previous AFV, this one is on the heavier side, comes from Singapore and it’s called Hunter AFV.

Another alternative name for this vehicle is NGAFV (or Next Gen AFV), since it belongs to a whole program to replace the obsolete M113 APC in Singaporean service and to operate alongside its predecessor, another indigenous Singaporean IFV called Bionix. Hunter is the name of the production model of this program. The Hunter AFV is the pinnacle of bleeding edge of technology. In this sense, it can be compared to the AS21 Redback and both vehicles share several characteristics, not the least of which being relatively large size. This bulky IFV offers considerable levels of protection and firepower. It is expected to serve in the Singaporean army in large numbers in the near future with its mass-production having recently begun. The details about this vehicle’s history will be disclosed in a separate article.

In Armored Warfare, the Hunter AFV will be a Tier 9 Premium Armored Fighting Vehicle that will be available via the upcoming Battle Path Loot Crates, which you’ll be able to obtain for Battle Coins. As its description above suggests, it will be a rather standard-sized IFV with good levels of protection and excellent firepower. It will also be the first vehicle to use a new type of armor, NERA.

But before we get into any details, the usual disclaimer:

The numbers below are very preliminary as the vehicle has not been properly tested. They are sure to change and should only be discussed as an indicator of how we’d like to set the vehicle up.

With that being said, let’s look at those protection levels and the new armor mechanics this vehicle will feature. The vehicle itself will be sufficiently armored with its frontal plating protecting the crew from most autocannons. The turret will also be unmanned, further adding to its protection levels and, last but not least, the Hunter will also include a Trophy APS.

The really interesting part comes in form of the NERA armor type. NERA stands for Non-Explosive Reactive Armor (or sometimes Non-Energetic Reactive Armor) and is pretty much what its name suggests – an additional armor set that achieves the anti-HEAT ERA effect without the use of explosive filler in its elements. Instead, its elements contain inert filler (for example a special type of rubber) that expands as the impact energy of the shell dissipates into it. The advantage of this system is that it’s much safer than standard ERA. On the downside, equally sized NERA will never be as effective as actual ERA.

In Armored Warfare, NERA will be a hybrid of spaced armor and ERA. In other words, for all intents and purposes, it will act as spaced armor covering exposed parts of the vehicle, which means that to damage the vehicle by penetrating its main armor, you have to first defeat the NERA armor thickness. The difference is that NERA elements will have their own sets of hitpoints and will become damaged when fired upon. The protection level of NERA elements will decrease with their hitpoint loss (there will be four stages of NERA damage). After taking a sufficient amount of hits, NERA will break completely and will no longer provide any protection.

Mechanics-wise:

• NERA armor will not allow for ricochets to happen
• NERA armor will come with different coefficients against different shell types
• NERA armor will not be bypassed or ignored by special projectiles such as tandem HEAT warheads or kinetic missiles
• Powerful hits (that penetrate both the NERA and the main armor of the tank behind it) can seriously damage the NERA but do not necessarily have to destroy it outright

In other words, what this means is that a vehicle with NERA will start with very good protection that will gradually decrease as the vehicle takes fire. In this case, Hunter’s NERA protection will be amongst the best of its Tier bracket and class, but will decrease to average only over the course of battle. The firepower of this vehicle will be rather conventional with its weapons consisting of:

• 30mm Bushmaster Mk.44 autocannon
• Spike-ER ATGMs

The Bushmaster autocannon will fire 192mm penetration APFSDS and standard HE rounds at 500 rounds per minute or so (continuous belt-fed feed system) and will feature excellent -12 degrees depression and +70 degrees elevation.

The Spike-ER ATGM dual launcher will be able to fire two missiles in three seconds, followed by a longer reload period. The missiles will have HEAT warheads with 1000mm of penetration and will have the self-homing ability. These missiles will not fly extremely fast, but will be easy to control.

This vehicle’s firepower will be possible to further enhance by the means of additional progression to:

• Have two missiles in the air at the same time
• Fire two missiles at once

The latter will effectively mean an ATGM “double tap” feature but will come at a price – with it installed, it will no longer be possible to launch a single missile at all, so every single ATGM launch will be followed by a long reload period.

As for the vehicle’s mobility, it will be good, excellent even – not the absolutely best, but somewhere between AS21 and K21. Hunter’s 711hp engine will allow it to go as fast as 70 km/h.

Utility-wise, the Hunter will have average camouflage factor (even though its engine will be harder to detect by enemy thermal imagers) but also excellent view range and will be able to deploy mechanized infantry.

As tactics go, the Hunter will be very universal. Its NERA armor will give it some edge early on in battle and its firepower will allow it to take care of most targets on the battlefield – with the “double tap” module enabled, it will hit especially hard with its first strike. At the same time, however, it will not excel in any specific discipline and will, unlike some other high-end vehicles, allow you to make some mistakes instead of exploding whenever someone looks at it funny. Rugged and reliable, it will provide an interesting middle-ground alternative to the fast but rather fragile K21 and the absolute chonker that is the AS21.

We hope that you will enjoy this vehicle and, as always:

See you on the battlefield!