The Honker has aroused and still arouses mixed feelings, especially among soldiers who used to ride inside it, either during field exercises in Poland or during military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Most of the users and representatives of the public are also aware of the fact that this is an outdated design that has nothing to do with the realities of the modern battlefield. The Polish army, although somewhat sluggishly, is getting ready to replace the Honker fleet with newer designs. The first of the good (?) signs was the adoption of the new Ford Rangers into the army - we wrote about it HERE.
A few days ago, information about testing of a prototype of a potential new successor to the HONKER, the AH 20.44 vehicles made by the Autobox company from Starachowice, appeared on the Internet.
The official presentation of the vehicle is going to take place during September MSPO 2021 fair in Kielce. Publicly available data shows that in the course of the ongoing tests, the vehicle has already covered 3,000 kilometers in various terrain. It can accommodate up to 9 soldiers, and its construction is characterized by a monolithic, four-door body with robust doors, a rear load box and significant ground clearance, which translates into good off-road properties.
The power unit of the prototype is a three-liter, four-cylinder diesel which has 195 HP. It is a unit of the F1C family developed by Iveco and Fiat. The engines of this family are also available in more powerful variants, so it is possible that an engine with more HP will run under the hood of the armored version. As far as the armor itself is concerned, the manufacturer declares that the vehicle can be equipped with it thus achieving a total permissible weight of the vehicle within 5.5 tons (the base version weighs 3.5 tons).
The Autobox AH 20.44 is 4.86 m long, 2.07 m wide and 2.13 m high. The wheelbase is 2.95 m.
Sources: radar.rp.pl, moto.pl
