The Grizzly APC is a 22 ton armored personnel carrier manufactured and designed by Blackwater USA, specifically for urban combat.
Design
4x2, 4x4, and 6x6 versions with three different Caterpillar diesel engines are available.
Its armor, called the "Blackwater High Threat Armor Protection System" is claimed to defeat .50 caliber rounds as well as IEDs. It is constructed of AR500 steel, and incorporates angled walls and a v-hull chassis to deflect the blast waves produced by explosives. It uses Fiber-Tek® armor reinforced belly and lowers, with a fully enclosed drive train. ArmorThane® tactical coating on the interior and exterior reduces spall probability.
There are two top-side egress hatches, five gun ports (two on each side and one in rear), and transparent armored windows, capable of NIJ level 3 protection. The Grizzly makes use of forward and rear 400,000+ candle power halogen searchlights, which can be operated remotely. It also has a ringmount roof turret, capable of mounting a 12.7mm machine gun, which may be operated from a remote weapon station.
Blackwater USA submitted two Grizzly APC vehicles to the U.S. Military, with EXO Scale® anti-EFP appliqué armor from ARES Systems Group, for the MRAP II competition at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. According to the Army Times, the armor passed the testing, but the vehicle failed due to limited armor on the forward area of the of the vehicle (pictures on ARES' website shows less armor was used over the frontal area of the cab.) Blackwater had been hoping to discuss adding more armor to the forward area and threatened an automatic protest but were basically told "Go ahead and protest. We’re canceling the program anyway," according an Army Times source.
Production
The Grizzly is manufactured in a recently built 100,000 square foot factory at their training center in North Carolina. It was scheduled to begin production in April 2007. The first Grizzly was built on a commercial GMC chassis. The current versions are built on a custom chassis supplied by Seagrave Fire Apparatus, Clintonville WI.
Notes
- The Grizzly name has been used several times describing various APCs and IFVs. This page refers to the Grizzly APC manufactured by Blackwater USA. For the Canadian AVGP variant see AVGP Grizzly. For the APC being developed by the German firm, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, see the KMW Grizzly. Another is the American combat engineering vehicle, based on the M1 Abrams tank chassis.
- The Grizzly APC was featured on the Discovery Channel's show Future Weapons.
