Last Saturday there was opened the 6th “Double Purpose Vehicles - 2004” exhibition-conference in Bronnitsy.

The target of this exhibition was to show such vehicles that within a limited time could be transformed from civil into military trucks for attacks or defense. One of the major requirements that all such vehicles have to meet, is their high cross-country trafficability at any off-road environment.

Among the participants were famous Russian OEMs – GAZ, UralAZ, PAZ, UAZ, KAMAZ. However, KAMAZ has exhibited the largest quantity of trucks.

Among the organizers of this exhibition is Chief Armoured Vehicle Department of Defense Ministry of Russia. Its representative, Yury Kovalenko, first deputy director, lieutenant-general, comments- “ …We have a good opportunity to meet directly with the manufacturers and find out their future development plans. We can also discuss the results of acquiringing of vehicles that will be delivered to the Army next year. And besides, military attache of foreign countries are also visiting this exhibition and this will help to promote Russian vehicle to the foreign markets.”

During the half of the opening day the visitors studied the exhibited vehicle and VIP visitors communicated with the mass media reporters. Later, in the afternoon, the vehicles demonstrated their performance capacities. Each truck was to perform a certain number of maneuvers, i.e.: to rise to a 30 degree slope, to “crawl over” several 40 cm high concrete blocks, and to cross a 180 cm deep ford. It should be indicated that the road of the test field was rather rough with many large mud pools on it.

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