Åkers Krutbruk Wins the Award of the Year
16 April 2009
Åkers Krutbruk has won one of the most prestigious awards in the defence industry. The company’s protected Scania truck cab won the award for Best New Armoured Vehicle 2009 at the defence industry conference.
In February, the defence industry gathered at the 8th annual Light and Medium Armoured Vehicles Conference. Among the 450 delegates were senior military officials, government officials and representatives from suppliers and manufacturers from 36 countries.
The conference is an established international forum for exchange of information. The award ceremony at the gala dinner highlighted the most innovative solutions that have emerged over the past year. Åkers Krutbruk’s fourth-generation protected Scania truck cab won the most prestigious award for Best New Armoured Vehicle 2009.
Niclas Sahlgren, CEO of Åkers Krutbruk, said: "The response to our solution since the launch has been fantastic. In this competition we were up against some major players and winning gives us important international recognition."
The protected truck cab is based on an entirely new add-on armour concept. It is constructed from the inside, where large modular panels overlap and support each other. The new truck cab features high levels of protection, but it is almost impossible to see that the vehicle is protected.
The cab has a very high protection level against improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and it effectively withstands threats such as road-side bombs that produce a blast and scatter fragments.
Åkers Krutbruk’s new innovative concept, in which the protected cab is actually a separate cab, saves a lot of resources for the organisations that use them, and the cab looks civilian.
In the cab, peacekeeping and humanitarian personnel can be protected as they enter hot-zones, yet look civilian. This makes it easier to make a good connection with locals and will not provoke attacks from fighting forces.
