Bozena-5 unmanned demining vehicle clears land near power plants (video)
The Slovakian-made engineering demining machine operates in areas where it is necessary to clear the ground of explosive ordnance as soon as possible to restore critical infrastructure.
The Department of Engineering Troops of the Support Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine shared their experience of using the Bozena-5 demining vehicle and described its main characteristics.
“This vehicle saves the lives of sappers, they do not go first, but actually pick up the remains. It is efficient and fast, and if we talk about demining, it fully justifies itself,” commented a representative of the Support Forces Command on the purpose and importance of this vehicle for our engineering units.
A tracked sapper with a remote control post can cover 9 kilometers in an hour in operational mode. However, the joysticks for controlling the working stroke and the front working unit are most responsive at a distance of 300-350 meters. The demining complex covers a strip of 2.6 meters in one pass.
The engine niche of the 7-meter machine weighing 12.3 tons is equipped with a Tatra T3C-928-81 diesel turbo engine with an output of 363 hp and 1850 Nm of torque. This is a powerful and reliable power unit, but very insatiable in terms of fuel consumption. In operational mode, the average diesel consumption of this slow-moving vehicle reaches 43 liters per hour, although compared to the lives saved by the sappers, such costs are simply nothing.
This machine was especially important in restoring power supply to Slobozhanshchyna, which allowed Kharkiv power engineers to access damaged power lines and bring electricity to the homes of the region’s residents.
The combat team of one of the Bozhen, consisting of five sappers (two walking behind the vehicle at a safe distance with metal detectors to clear the area, two picking up the remains and the commander driving the vehicle) has already cleared more than 215.6 km of space in the power line area from explosive devices.
