Military APV Gen 5

History

It was short-lived, being dropped once the longer-tailed S52 proved the better patrol car.

The S51 kept the classic three-man patrol-car layout: driver and commander side by side under a large bullet-resistant windscreen, and a gunner in a manually traversed 360-degree turret with an adjustable seat, a periscope sight boresighted to the armament and a linked searchlight; an alternative gunner's seat was fitted behind the commander. The usual armament was a 7.62 mm GPMG, with four-barrelled 66 mm smoke/illumination/CS grenade launchers available on each side of the turret. The hull resisted right-angle fire from NATO 7.62 x 51 mm ball down to 25 m, the engine and radiator were fully armoured, and the floor was reinforced glass fibre for blast and mine protection. Maximum operational weight was 3,600 kg and the road speed 120 km/h, falling to around 48 km/h cross-country. Published power figures conflict: the Radford Site quotes a power-to-weight ratio of 31.6 bhp/tonne for the Series 5, while the Jane's-derived Army Guide entry gives 134 hp and 37.8 hp/tonne for the same vehicle. What distinguishes the S51 from every other Series 5 car is its tail. Behind the crew compartment the body dropped away in the traditional short sloping boot, pierced only by a small escape hatch — adequate for bailing out, but awkward for loading equipment. The S51 body was not wasted: it was reworked, glazed and repainted white to become the S54 anti-hijack vehicle. No production figure specific to the S51 has been published. Army Guide's Radford patrol-car entry, which is written around the S52 but covers the whole patrol-car line, lists 255 vehicles across sixteen countries; that table conflates the Series 5 with earlier marks and should not be read as an S51 total.