Air Force to Roll Out Armored Vehicles for Clearing Mines on Airfields

The Air Force plans to roll out a series of revamped Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected armored vehicles designed to safely detonate mines on airfields.

The new Recovery of Airbase Denied by Ordnance vehicle is based on the Cougar, an MRAP vehicle manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems for use in urban and confined areas, according to Army Technology.

Weighing 18 tons, the new RADBO MRAP is equipped with a robotic arm that it can use to comb runways for unexploded ordnance. RADBO can then fire its three-kilowatt Zeus III laser to clear ordnance as far as 300 meters away, Air Force Magazine reported.

RADBO’s directed energy system is designed to detonate bombs, grenades, improvised munitions and other explosive devices in austere locations.

Experts at the Air Force are currently still cataloging how different types of ordnance detonate after being targeted by the laser.

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center previously announced that its Agile Combat Support directorate is on track to deliver the first 13 RADBO units by the fall of 2022.

Parsons Government Services is currently working under a $40 million contract to build two prototypes of the RADBO systems.

Tony Miranda, RADBO program manager with the ACS directorate’s Support Equipment and Vehicles Division, said that the MRAP is intended to clear ordnance preventing aircraft maintainers from performing their work in high-threat environments.

Al Bello, the Air Force’s Mobility and Vehicles Branch chief, added that detonating ordnance at a distance is safer than attempting to defuse it at a closer range.