Hunter AFV

The Hunter Armoured Fighting Vehicle is a tracked armoured fighting vehicle developed jointly by ST Engineering, the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) and the Singapore Army. Development began in 2006 as a DSTA project under the Singaporean Ministry of Defence, with the aim of replacing the M113 Ultra armoured personnel carriers that had served the Singapore Army since the early 1970s. The programme was previously designated the ST Kinetics Next Generation Armoured Fighting Vehicle (NGAFV).

In March 2017, ST Engineering announced that its land systems arm, ST Kinetics, had received a MINDEF contract for production and supply of the NGAFV in troop carrier, command and recovery configurations. A prototype was displayed at the Singapore Airshow in 2018. Deliveries began in 2019, and the vehicle was commissioned in June 2019 under the Hunter name, with the 42nd Battalion, Singapore Armoured Regiment as the first operating unit. That battalion was declared operationally ready in March 2022. The armoured recovery variant was unveiled on 18 February 2022, and the armoured vehicle-launched bridge variant (HT-AVLB) was unveiled and commissioned on 9 November 2022 at the 55th anniversary event of the Singapore Combat Engineers; it is replacing the AVLB based on the SM-1, the last AMX-13 derivative in Singapore Army service. In September 2022 the Singapore Army conducted the first overseas live-firing of the Hunter at Oberlausitz, Germany, including firing of the SPIKE-LR2 anti-tank guided missile.

The Hunter uses a tracked chassis and is operated by a crew of three: commander, driver and gunner. It is powered by an MTU 8V-199 TE20 turbocharged diesel coupled to an HMX3000 hydro-mechanical infinitely variable transmission, with in-arm hydropneumatic suspension supplied by Horstman of the United Kingdom, now part of Renk. Armament consists of a remotely controlled Rafael Samson turret mounting a 30 mm Mk44 Bushmaster II cannon with a 200-round magazine of 30×173 mm ammunition, two SPIKE anti-tank guided missiles, a 7.62×51 mm coaxial machine gun and eight 76 mm smoke grenade launchers.

The vehicle is fitted with an integrated combat cockpit in which commander and gunner share a common set of controls, and a drive-by-wire system permitting the commander to assume driving functions without changing position. Commander and gunner have independent sights. An all-round surveillance system with 360-degree coverage supports closed-hatch operation, and a laser warning system is fitted. The Hunter carries the Army Tactical Engagement and Information System (ARTEMIS), a command and control system providing wireless data exchange between vehicles and formations and integrated with the remote weapon station for target information sharing, alongside a Health and Utilisation Monitoring System (HUMS) for predictive maintenance.

Variants comprise the base armoured fighting vehicle, command vehicle, armoured recovery vehicle, armoured engineer vehicle and armoured vehicle-launched bridge. A light tank derivative fitted with a Cockerill 3105 turret and 105 mm gun was offered in 2018 for the United States Army Mobile Protected Firepower programme by a consortium of ST Engineering, SAIC and Cockerill Maintenance & Ingénierie, and underwent trials at the Nevada Automotive Test Center. It was rejected in favour of the General Dynamics Land Systems entry that became the M10 Booker; the programme was cancelled by the US Department of Defense in May 2025.

The Hunter is operated by the Singapore Army.