page_title: Armoured fighting vehicle
section_title: Armoured engineering vehicle
hierarchical_section_title: Armoured fighting vehicle / Modern classification by type and role / Armoured engineering vehicle
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Eine Informationslehrübung (ILÜ) der Bundeswehr am 24.09.2012 in Bergen-Hohne Training Area.
context_page_description: An armoured fighting vehicle is an armed combat vehicle protected by armour, generally combining operational mobility with offensive and defensive capabilities. AFVs can be wheeled or tracked. Main battle tanks, armoured cars, armoured self-propelled guns, and armoured personnel carriers are all examples of AFVs.
  Armoured fighting vehicles are classified according to their intended role on the battlefield and characteristics. The classifications are not absolute; two countries may classify the same vehicle differently, and the criteria change over time. For example, relatively lightly armed armoured personnel carriers were largely superseded by infantry fighting vehicles with much heavier armament in a similar role.
  Successful designs are often adapted to a wide variety of applications. For example, the MOWAG Piranha, originally designed as an APC, has been adapted to fill numerous roles such as a mortar carrier, infantry fighting vehicle, and assault gun.
  Armoured fighting vehicles began to appear in use in World War I with the armoured car, the tank, the self-propelled gun, and the personnel carrier seeing use.
context_section_description: Modern engineering AFV's utilize chassis based on main battle tank platforms: these vehicles are as well armoured and protected as tanks, designed to keep up tanks, conduct obstacle breaching operations to help tanks get to wherever it needs to be, perform utility functions necessary to expedite mission objectives of tanks, and to conduct other earth-moving and engineering work on the battlefield. These vehicles go by different names depending upon the country of use or manufacture. In the United States the term "combat engineer vehicle (CEV)" is used, in the United Kingdom the term "Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE)" is used, while in Canada and other commonwealth nations the term "armoured engineer vehicle (AEV)" is used. There is no set template for what such a vehicle will look like, yet likely features include a large dozer blade or mine ploughs, a large calibre demolition cannon, augers, winches, excavator arms and cranes, or lifting booms.
  Although the term "armoured engineer vehicle" is used specifically to describe these multi-purpose tank-based engineering vehicles, that term is also used more generically in British and Commonwealth militaries to describe all heavy tank-based engineering vehicles used in the support of mechanized forces. Thus, "armoured engineer vehicle" used generically would refer to AEV, AVLB, Assault Breachers, and so on. Good examples of this type of vehicle include the UK Trojan AVRE, the Russian IMR, and the US M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle.
caption: A German army Rheinmetall Keiler. It uses a heavy-duty rotor-powered mine flail, which causes mines it comes in contact with to safely detonate.
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