A flexible, adaptable, and agile approach to combat engineering – Armoured Vehicle attachments from Pearson Engineering Ltd

Pearson Engineering Ltd is a British company with a long history of providing world-leading and boundary-pushing combat engineering equipment to Armed Forces around the world. With extensive experience of integrating their proven range of products to a wide range of Armoured Vehicle types, including Leopard, Challenger and Stryker platforms, the company champions an adaptable and agile approach to battlefield mobility.

Their combat engineering products are provided as interchangeable attachments, integrated with a common interface which is designed specifically for the vehicle. In this way, Armoured Vehicles can be rapidly optimised for specific missions, and then quickly adapted to meet the needs of the future fight. The company’s tailored and consultative approach towards vehicle interface design means that the specific power, structure, lethality, survivability, and mobility requirements of the platform are considered fully.

Pearson Engineering’s range of combat engineering tools spans mine breaching and clearing, counter-IED, route proving and clearance, earth moving, gap crossing and bridging. When each vehicle is fitted with a common interface, a range of attachments can be chosen allowing Commanders absolute flexibility and freedom to adapt. For example, scaling up mine breaching capability when it is needed, whilst increasing earth moving capability at other times.

It is an approach that has been proven throughout NATO and in other countries around the world. Pearson Engineering Ltd are leading contributors to the dedicated Assault breacher Vehicle in the United States and to the British Army’s Terrier and Trojan capabilities.

With European Armed Forces now considering conflict in Eastern Europe as the next most challenging scenario for which to prepare, minefield breaching, earth moving, and gap crossing are becoming priorities for Pearson Engineering’s customers. In response, the company offers full-width and track-width mine ploughs, a broad range of dozer blades and excavators as well as an innovative bridge launch mechanism.

Pearson Engineering’s solution for agile and flexible military bridging is also based on the common interface, allowing a platform to become an assault bridge layer, only when it needs to lay bridges. As the company and their bridge launch mechanisms are entirely independent of vehicles and bridge types, customers have the full flexibility to integrate bridges of their choice with existing or new armoured vehicles. The bridges and bridge launch mechanisms can also be pooled between platform types where appropriate.

The Bridge Launch Mechanism allows the bridge to be stowed, launched, and recovered using a single system and it can be controlled from under armour. The system is lightweight and is specifically designed to minimise the impact on vehicle mobility by keeping the bridge and bridge launch system low and close to the vehicle hull.

Pearson Engineering displayed their bridge launch mechanism alongside the COBRA Variable Folding Bridge from General Dynamics European Land Systems during Eurosatory 2018. The system has also previously been demonstrated in the United States for integration with the Stryker Engineer Support Vehicle.