Malaysian Armoured Corp: SIBMAS II AFSV-3000 Armoured Fire Support Vehicle

SIBMAS II AFSV-3000 2xC30

In 1983 the Malaysian Army placed an order for 196 SIBMAS 6x6 AIFVs—162 Armoured Fire Support Vehicle 90s (AFSV-90s) mounting the CSE 90 turret, and 24 Armoured Recovery Vehicles (ARVs). The SIBMAS, armed with a Cockerill 90 mm gun is used in the fire support role along with the FV101 Scorpion which, in Malaysian service, is also armed with a Cockerill 90 mm gun.

The new SIBMAS II AFSV-3000 however came with two version, one the SIBMAS II AFSV-3000 C135 and the other are SIBMAS II AFSV-3000 2xC30. Both were upgraded extensively with state-of-the-art technologies.

 SIBMAS II AFSV-3000 C135

An unmanned, double-asymmetrical turret while slightly off-center turrets are common in IFVs, the SIBMAS II AFSV-3000 2xC30 turret is on the left-hand side of the vehicle, while the main cannon is mounted on the right side of the turret and thus on the middle axis of the hull when the turret is in the forward position.

 New Turret with The fully stabilized 360° periscope

The SIBMAS II offers improvements in situational awareness. The fully stabilized 360° periscope (PERI) with 6 different zoom stages offers a direct glass optic link to either the commander or the gunner. Since this is an optical line it had to be placed in the turret center, one of the reasons why the main cannon is mounted off-center on the turret. Via an additional CCD camera the picture from this line can also be fed into the on-board computer network and displayed on all electronic displays within the vehicle. Besides that, the periscope offers an optronic thermal vision mode and a wide-angle camera with 3 zoom stages to assist the driver, as well as a laser range finder. The whole array is hunter-killer capable; the commander also has 5 vision blocks.