A13 Abawen

A13 Abawen
Standard APC variant of the Abawen
Type	Infantry mobility vehicle
Place of origin	Charnea
Service history
In service	2013 - Present
Used by	Charnean Army
Wars	Fahrani Civil War
Production history
Designed	2012
Manufacturer	Akayon Corporation
Produced	2013-Present
No. built	400
Specifications
Weight	6 tonnes
Length	5.5 m (18 ft 1 in)
Width	2.4 m (7 ft 10 in)
Height	2.3 m (7 ft 7 in)
Crew	3 (+8 passengers)
Armor	14mm steel alloy 16mm ballistic glass (windshield)
Main armament	12.7×108mm heavy machinegun
Engine	4-cylinder deisel engine 195 hp (145 kW)
Operational range	750 km (470 mi) up to 1,750 km (1,090 mi) (2-4 added tanks)
Speed	125 km/h (78 mph)

The A13 Abawen (Tamashek: ⴰ13 ⴰⴱⴰⵓⴻⵏ) is a Charnean armored car manufactured by the Akayon Corporation from its primary facility in Ekelhoc. It is primarily found in the service of the Charnean Army as a reconnaissance and infantry mobility vehicle, armored personnel carrier and combat ambulance. The Abawen was intended to fill the role of a light, fast and long ranged four wheeled armored vehicle which had previously been filled by A45 Torka which had been maintained long past its planned service life due to disruptions and delays to the development of a suitable replacement. Due to its speed and range, the Abawen is particularly well suited to long distance patrols and reconnaissance missions and is used mainly by the Army's border guard and policing units. An unarmored variant known as the Abawen-M is planned to be fully adopted as the main general utility vehicle of all Army units by 2030.

History

The A13 Abawen is the end result of an on-and-off initiative between the Charnean Army and the Akayon Corporation to develop a replacement for the aging A45 Torka armored car which had been in service since the ICA's motorization drive in the 1940s. The venerable Torka served in the Agala War with distinction and proved the effectiveness of combining the modern technology of an armored car capable of carrying a heavy machinegun or automatic canon with the battle tested light cavalry tactics which had built the Tenerian hegemony over central Scipia. The Torka's design, however, had several limitations as a relatively lightly armored, open-topped vehicle. Over time, the modern cavalry tactics of the Charnean army would grow as technology advanced and military tactics evolved to incorporate new innovations. Ahoyy vertical envelopment tactics would become the bread and butter of the Charnean counter-insurgency forces, while the operation of mobile ground forces would split into light and heavy categories. While the Torka was capable of carrying heavy support weapons, it was later decided that a better armored, and most importantly much more heavily armed land vehicle should be adopted in the form of the A84 Inabarom and later the A24 Aynod, while the Torkas would remain in use for decades as the light, fast reconnaissance and transport vehicle to provide support to these heavy attack vehicles. The A45 Torkas were originally planned to be replaced in the 1980s, a plan which would be scrapped by the outbreak of the Ninvite War.

The program to develop the A13 Abawen was green-lit shortly after the outbreak of guerilla conflicts in eastern Charnea in the early 2000s, which spurred the Charnean Army to provide ample funding towards finally replacing the A45 Torka fleet. The Army's requirements for the Abawen were primarily a speed and range comparable or superior to that of the Torka, with protection against mines and IEDs and the capacity to carry up to 8 dismounts. Towards its later years in service, many Torka hulls had been modified to mount ATGM launchers and entered into service as improvised anti-tank vehicles, motivating the approval of such anti-tank capability in the new vehicle. In the end, the primary sticking point which delayed the approval of the Abawen's design was cost. Because the Army intended to order many hundreds of these light vehicles, they desired a relatively low unit cost from the manufacturer without compromising on key components like protection against chemical weapons or mines. A prototype of a sufficiently affordable armored car and general purpose utility vehicle would be completed in December of 2012, entering service early the next year. The Army designated the vehicle abawen after the Ninvite sand cat known to inhabit the deep desert far from water sources, relating to the intention of the A13 to travel deep into the desert far from supporting infrastructure.

Design

Armament

The primary armament of the Abawen is a 12.7×108mm heavy machinegun fitted to a rooftop mounting with a 360° range of motion with -5° of depression and +70° of elevation. The improved elevation of the machine-gun mounting serves primarily to engage aircraft, particularly rotorcraft and low-speed fixed-wing aircraft. The mounting is suitable to replace the 12.7mm machinegun with an automatic 30mm grenade launcher. This modification is intended to make the Abawen more suitable in fighting entrenched infantry positions, particularly in an urban setting, which falls outside the typical mission profile of the vehicle and is consequently rarely used. The anti-vehicle Abawen-T variant is fitted with a fully automated remotely operated turret assembly in place of the manned rooftop mounting, fitted with two ATGM launchers. This variant has no capability to reload this weapon outside of dismounting the crew and carries no other armament, and is also fitted with the standard Abawen armor protection which is inadequate for stopping heavy machinegun rounds and autocannon fire. This makes the Abawen-T suitable only only for rapid shoot-and-scoot ambush attacks against armored vehicles, as it is unable to survive return fire or engage in protracted pitched battles. For this reason, it is considered an auxiliary anti-tank vehicle and is not planned to be used as front-line tank hunter.

Protection

The armor protection against direct fire and shrapnel installed on the Abawen is designed to afford the vehicle protection during skirmishes with opposing infantry lacking heavy weapons or fighting vehicles or else transporting personnel behind the front line as a utility vehicle or combat ambulance where the primary threat is artillery fragments. Heavier armor fit to protect against heavy weapons was proposed but rejected early in the design process, as the added weight would severely impede the superior speed and range of the vehicle. The metal hull is constructed from 14mm of a face-hardened steel alloy primarily designed to stop small arms fire of 7.62mm diameter and lower, as well as fragments of artillery shells detonating at least 20 meters away from the vehicle. The ballistic glass has a similar protection rating, although it is more vulnerable to rifle caliber armor piercing rounds. The armor is inadequate to stop 12.7mm rounds fired from heavy machineguns and anti-tank rifles except at ranges exceeding 500 meters.

The underbelly hull is built in a convex rounded shape to deflect the blast of mines and IEDs outward to protect the crew compartment. Standard production Abawens are fitted with mountings for additional armor plating to be added to the underside of the vehicle in response to Charnean experiences with powerful underbelly bombs buried in the road during the insurgent uprisings of the 2000s. The internal compartment itself is protected from biological, chemical and radiological threats by airtight seals and a series of air filtration and aerosol capture systems used to purify outside air. The air filtering system is designed to force clean air into the safe compartment to create an overpressure condition in which the pressure inside the crew compartment is always higher than the outside in order to maintain a safe environment even in the case of a leak or small breach in the hull. The forced air circulation system is also used to facilitate cooling of the crew compartment to reduce the effects of the desert heat on the occupants.

Layout

The internal volume of the vehicle is subdivided into two separate compartments. The machine compartment is in the front of the vehicle and houses the power pack, primary fuel tanks, air filtering equipment, transmission, breaks, steering and most of the mechanical components of the vehicle. This machine compartment is separated from the crew compartment by a spaced barrier designed to reduce the transmission of vibration and noise. The crew compartment is subdivided into semi-separated driving, fighting and troop compartments to accommodate the driver and vehicle commander, the gunner, and the mounted passengers respectively. Ammunition both for the heavy machinegun as well as the mounted troops, in addition to miscellaneous equipment storage is located in the fighting compartment with additional storage under the driver and commander seats in the driver compartment. In the standard production model, the seats in the Abawen troop compartment are arranged in two rows set in the middle of the compartment facing outward to either side. This layout enables the troops to more easily fire their weapons through the sealable firing ports in the hull. The seats are modular and can be re-arranged to increase the survivability of passengers when the vehicle encounters underbelly mines. Additional fuel and water tanks can be added inside the troop compartment at the cost of removing two dismounts, extending the range of the vehicle by 1000 kilometers and greatly extending the time which the crew can endure away from resupply.

Service record

The only significant use of the Abawen in combat to date was seen during the Fahrani Civil War. A small batch of 15 Abawen variants, including 2 Abawen-T anti-tank cars were delivered by air into Fahran as part of the Charnean expeditionary force active in the civil war. The war in Fahran presented a unique opportunity to test the full combat potential of the Abawen platform in battle, as much of the fighting was taking place between militia forces which were often armed with outdated equipment drawn up from deep storage and who had little or no formal military training. Many fighting groups lacked the kind of heavy weapons, armored vehicles or air support which would be capable of easily destroying the lightly armed and armored Abawens. This enabled A13 Abawen vehicles, up-armored and fitted with 30mm grenade launchers, to engage in front line combat and push the limits of what could be done with the platform. The Abawen-Ts were shown to be effective against armored columns of the NURR regular forces drawn from the pre-war Fahrani Army, but proved to be lacking in versatility and most critically missing the ability to support dismounted infantry. One of the Abawen-Ts was confirmed to have been destroyed by an anti-tank rocket attack, while the other underwent field modifications to convert it into an ad-hoc mortar carrier. The experience cooled enthusiasm within the ICA and Akayon towards rolling out more Abawen-Ts, and set into motion a brief exploratory project to create a purpose built mortar carrier Abawen variant, although this would later be scrapped with the adoption of the A20 Akorsi and the A24 Aynod fighting vehicles which would provide for this type of vehicle.