AMPV tests in YPG

The recently-developed Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) incorporates a long list of upgrades that make it significantly more advanced than its predecessor, the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier.

Currently, multiple AMPVs are undergoing reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) testing at U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG), with each running many miles of simulated missions across road courses featuring various terrain conditions, from paved to gravel to punishing desert washboard that would severely rattle less robust vehicles. As they traverse these courses, test vehicle operators continually verify performance of all the platform’s sophisticated electronics. Earlier tests verified the vehicle’s braking, acceleration, and steering performance on slopes and steep grades, and even through a fording basin and on a dust course tilled for maximum sediment. 

In addition to the hundreds of miles of road courses, YPG has the range space to conduct live function fire tests of the vehicle from both stationary and moving positions, and utilizes this capability as part of the AMPV testing to test the vehicle’s 7.62 mm and 12.7 mm machine guns.

Via YPG