Mowag

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General Dynamics European Land Systems-MOWAG in Kreuzlingen
Fire engine from 1952
Logo of Mowag AG

The General Dynamics European Land Systems - Mowag GmbH (until 31 March 2010 Mowag GmbH until 2004 Mowag motor car factory AG ) is a Swiss manufacturer of specialty vehicles in Kreuzlingen in the canton of Thurgau . Mowag used to manufacture mainly civil vehicles. It has been part of the American armaments company General Dynamics since 2003 and specializes in armored vehicles.

history

German Federal Border Guard with Mowag Sonderwagen 1, 1961
Mowag Fourgon PTT
Mowag fire engine
Mowag 3M1

Mowag GmbH (motor vehicle factory) has its roots in the body construction company Seitz , which in Emmishofen (Thurgau) manufactured bodies for passenger cars, primarily of German origin, commercial vehicles and buses from 1905 to 1930. In 1947 Mowag AG emerged from this, and Walter Ruf (1903–2002) became its vice president and managing director in 1950 . Shortly afterwards, he took over part of the company, which in 1951 led to the name being changed to Mowag Seitz & Ruf AG . After the complete takeover by Ruf, the name was changed to Mowag Motorwagenfabrik AG in 1954 .

The company got acquainted with a wide variety of vehicle types such as ambulances , fire engines , dummies , electric vehicles, scooters and caterpillars. In the civilian sector, Mowag was particularly active in the construction of fire fighting vehicles, where several generations of emergency vehicles were built based on Dodge pickups, such as the Mowag W300 . However, independently developed fire service trucks were also built. Mowag was present in Germany for decades through the development of an armored all-wheel-drive special vehicle, which Thyssen and Büssing / Henschel copied under license from 1963 and delivered to the Federal Border Police (BGS).

In addition to military vehicles, Mowag also offered civilian trucks from the beginning to the end of the 1960s. These included the Mowag M5-16F heavy-duty truck with a four-seater front steering cab and a total weight of 16 t, a trailer device for two-axle trailers with a 200 HP underfloor engine. The engine was mounted under the loading area between the front and rear axles. This enabled a compact design and a low center of gravity in the center of the vehicle. As early as 1949, Mowag was able to deliver 214 local service vehicles to the Swiss Post; the chassis of these small, compact vehicles with sliding doors was based on the Mowag T1 4 × 4.

The truck for the Swiss Post (PTT) Mowag Einsatzfourgon, of which a total of 556 were built between 1953 and 1988, also had an underfloor engine. The Furgeon were initially equipped with a V8 petrol engine, which was originally developed for a Mowag tank. Diesel engines were installed later. The yellow and silver delivery vans with a door in the front of the vehicle on the passenger side made it possible to get in and out of the vehicle and at the same time to park the vehicles very close to each other. There was a conventional door on the driver's side. It was also possible to get into the hold from the driver's cab. Some people took advantage of this fact to convert discarded Furgeons into mobile homes. The Furgeons were equipped with a trailer coupling for light two-axle trailers. Mowag developed a successor vehicle for the Furgeon. However, there was only a small series of 22 vehicles that were used by the PTT as value vans. The Swiss Post finally decided in favor of foreign standard vehicles produced in mass production.

In addition to normal trucks such as the Mowag front handlebar (an 8x4-powered four-axle truck with an M8TK diesel engine with eight cylinders, 10.8 l displacement and 500 hp and an automatic Allison five-speed gearbox), Mowag also built various generations of long iron transport trucks. These are characterized by a very narrow central driver's cab with a maximum of two seats and where the payload could be transported over the entire length of the vehicle to the left and right of the driver's cab. The cabs had front doors.

Between 1965 and 1975 Mowag built 170 electric handcarts for the Swiss Post. In the 1980s, investments were made in this product area again through the development and construction of three-wheel and four-wheel electric vehicles, which were used in hospitals, airports, municipalities, industrial companies and at the post office for a variety of transport tasks. Prototypes of electric passenger cars were also built, but could not be brought to market.

For several decades, Mowag was the sole importer in Switzerland of Dodge Ram Wagon . These were mainly converted by Mowag into all-wheel-drive fire fighting vehicles, and occasionally into police and ambulance vehicles. The sale to private individuals did not take place, but Mowag also provided spare parts for privately used Dodge Ram Wagons.

Together with AEG, Mowag built the Mowag aircraft tractor for the Swiss Air Force's Mirage fighter aircraft .

In the 1980s, Mowag built vibratory rollers for road construction. Hand-operated double vibration rollers from 900 kg to 1300 kg, tandem vibration rollers from 2000 kg to 3000 kg and four-wheel steering rollers from 4.5 t to 18 t were built.

However, the company did not fully specialize in armored special vehicles for military use until the last few years. The ambulance and fire fighting vehicle division was sold in 2000 to Tony Brändle AG in Wängi, which had been working in this area for Mowag since the early 1960s.

The main product today is the Mowag Piranha , an amphibious armored personnel carrier . In addition to the Piranha, other armored vehicles are also produced, such as the Mowag Eagle , which is based on the US Hummer , and the Duro, which comes from the off-road vehicle division of Bucher Industries , which was acquired in 2003 .

From there, Mowag also took on responsibility for supplying spare parts for Bucher aircraft tractors .

In 2003 Mowag became part of General Dynamics European Land Systems, making it one of the world's largest armaments groups. Mowag employs around 640 people at its Kreuzlingen location in Switzerland.

In 2004 Mowag was able to open the new Plant 2000 building and thus create new production capacities. In the same year the company, which had previously been organized as a stock corporation , was converted into a GmbH .

tank

Chain mail

The Mowag's first chain mail was the Mowag Scorpion. This vehicle was tested by the Swiss Army, but there was no series production. The last chain armored vehicle to be built by Mowag was the Trojan chain armor, which was developed in 1989 and tested in 1990 for the Swiss armored personnel carrier 2000 procurement program. However, the procurement decision was postponed due to a lack of funds in the Defense Department. As a result, Mowag decided in the mid-1990s to stop developing tracked vehicles. The Swiss Army later procured the Swedish CV90 instead of the Mowag Trojan .

Armored vehicles

Current vehicles

Piranha

Piranha 8 × 8
Stryker (American variant of the Mowag piranha)

The Mowag Piranha is a wheeled armored personnel carrier in the versions 4 × 4, 6 × 6, 8 × 8 and 10 × 10, including various equipment options such as B. an amphibious version. A total of 10,000 piranhas are currently in use worldwide.

The weight of the standard versions varies between 12.5 and 25 tons, with the payload of 3 or 10 tons still having to be deducted. Vehicles based on the piranha are used by the US armed forces under the designation LAV-25 in the US Marine Corps and as a Stryker in the US Army .

Technical specifications PIRANHA IIIC PIRANHA V
power 336 kW / 450 PS / 1850 Nm 530 kW / 730 PS / 2000 Nm
engine CATERPILLAR C9, diesel MTU Diesel + Hybridboost power
Top speed 100 km / h 100 km / h
Swimming speed (optional) 10 km / h k. A.
Empty weight 14 tons 17 tons
payload up to 8 tons up to 16 tons
Climbing ability 60% 60%

eagle

Eagle II of the Swiss Army

The Mowag Eagle is an armored reconnaissance vehicle. There are currently around 500 Eagles in action in the Swiss Army and the Danish Armed Forces . Since 2008 the German Bundeswehr has procured a total of 671 Eagle IV and V vehicles.

The internationally successful AM General HMMWV chassis forms the basis for the lightly armored Mowag Eagle 4 × 4 reconnaissance aircraft. The Mowag Eagle 4 × 4 is particularly suitable for reconnaissance, transmission, liaison tasks, border security, escort protection, police tasks etc. The complete Eagle 4 × 4 system consists of three main groups:

  • the modified chassis of the HMMWV (highly mobile multi-purpose wheeled vehicle)
  • the armored body, developed and manufactured by Mowag.
  • the 360 ​​° rotatable observer dome MBK2, also developed and manufactured by Mowag.

The Mowag Eagle IV is the successor to the Eagle. The Eagle IV is no longer based on the Hummer chassis, but is a completely in-house development by Mowag based on the Duro , with which it shares the chassis with the proven De Dion axle system .

With additional armor available as an option, the Eagle IV meets international standards for protection against ballistic weapons and mines. Optionally, the Eagle IV can also be equipped with an ABC overpressure system, a tire pressure regulation system (CTIS), cable winch, application-dependent load compartment structure, Euro 4 engine and other options.

Duro

Duro of the Swiss Army
Duro 3 of the Military Police of the Armed Forces
DURO IIIP / Duro GMTF of the Swiss Army

The Duro is an all-terrain, unarmored or armored military wheeled vehicle. The Duro was developed by Bucher-Guyer AG in response to a tender by the Swiss military and was able to prevail against a competing design by Mowag. As part of a restructuring at Bucher-Guyer, Duro production was handed over to Mowag. This was also in the interests of the Swiss Army, which already purchased vehicles from Mowag and preferred to concentrate vehicle procurement on a few manufacturers.

The name Duro stands for DU rable (permanent) and RO bust. It is used as a personnel carrier, command vehicle, logistics, ambulance, equipment vehicle and as a launch vehicle for the ADS 95 drone . The Duros are used by the Swiss Army, the German Federal Armed Forces, the OSCE and the British Army.

literature

  • Marcus Bauer, commercial vehicles from Mowag Motorwagenfabrik AG , specialist press Goldach, Hudson & Company, 1996 ISBN 978-3-85738-056-3
  • Christopher Chant, A Compendium of Armaments and Military Hardware Online

Web links

Commons : MOWAG  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b General Dynamics European Land Systems - Mowag GmbH limited liability company Kreuzlingen CHE-108.440.337 Registered on July 29, 1947 , commercial register of the Canton of Thurgau, accessed on July 5, 2019
  2. ↑ SEITZ - Emmishofen 1905 - 1930 , Swiss Car Register database, Swiss Automotive Documentation and Research Center
  3. ↑ Erich Trösch: Walter Ruf. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . November 18, 2010 , accessed June 12, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Ruedi Baumann: “Everything” that MOWAG has already moved - a detour to global success. SwissMoto. Bildpress Zuerich BPZ
  5. ^ Website of Tony Brändle AG: History
  6. ↑ St. Galler Tagblatt dated November 19, 2002: Mowag expands range - takeover of military ambulance and transport vehicles from Bucher Industries
  7. ^ The command and function vehicle Eagle. In: deutschesheer.de. Federal Ministry of Defense, September 27, 2016, accessed on September 2, 2017 .