EE - 17 Sucuri The EE - 17 Sucuri is an armored vehicle fighting developed by Engesa at Brazil . Description . Its primary function was to hunt tanks or antitank vehicle . It was developed during the period of great development has gone through the Brazilian military industry during the 80s , several projects were presented by Brazilian companies , among which stood out clearly ENGESA S . José dos Campos ( SP ) . A company produced the EE - 9 Cascavel armored vehicles personnel carriers and armored reconnaissance Cascavel , equipped with 90mm cannon in slow speed . With emerging markets in mind , but also with the possibility of orders from the Brazilian army to a more powerful vehicle than the Cascavel but with great mobility , ENGESA drew a national battle tank and an armored vehicle but relatively unprotected well armed , capable of engaging the most powerful vehicles of surprise and use his speed to escape from being destroyed , the Sucuri . Initially the Sucuri should be equipped with a tilting tower FL - 12 that used the vehicle AMX - 13 Panhard EBR , with a 105mm cannon . Later , because the French tower was considered complex , expensive , and because of the difficulty faced by Engesa to sell the vehicle , it was decided by ENGESA to build a tower of his own , which also led to an exchange of cannon on the other , of Italian origin and based on L - 7 cannon 105mm . With this new cannon , the Sucuri - II now had chance to shoot the arrow piercing ammunition , which was most effective against armored vehicles , even heavy armored vehicles . The new tower was eventually result in a complete redesign of Sucuri transforming it into a vehicle far superior to its predecessor . With a new lower profile and better ballistic profile front . The new tower was also the result of studies Engesa for the vehicle he was studying at the moment , the medium tank EE - T1 Osorio . For a vehicle designed in the mid 80s , the Sucuri was very well equipped with periscopes for commander and gunner and a laser rangefinder , spinstabilized cannon , which can make searching for targets when the vehicle is in motion . The new engine , along with the new tower , reduced weight of Sucuri - II to 18 tonnes or 500 kg . Unless the 18500 kg the initial model of Sucuri . The Sucuri - II could be assisted very easily and its engine was easy to remove . He was but a landmark in the Brazilian military industry , because while with the other vehicles to Brazil merely copy concepts and ideas from other countries , with Sucuri - II - a light tank on a 6x6 platform - there was an attempt to innovate that was not completely novel , was at least the idea that this type of vehicle might be successful in the future , at least for the conditions of Latin America as a replacement of the vehicle of the EE - 9 Cascavel . Weapons and Armour . EE - 18 was equipped with a cannon fully giroestabilizado L7 105mm made under license by Otomelara , which can fire ammunition standard NATO can penetrate 150 mm armor to 5000 meters range . The secondary armament consists of a machine gun and 12 . 7 mm caliber and one 7 . 62 mm coaxial machine gun . The vehicle is equipped with a modern system of firefighting . It ' s armor hull and turret are welded composite armor . Shielding protects against frontal shots of 20 - 25mm and against small arms fire and shrapnel from artillery just around the whole vehicle . NBC protection system was not offered as standard . The crew is composed of four people entering and leaving through a back door which also serves to load the ammunition .