GDLS Cougar

     Notes: This vehicle is the reconnaissance and fire support platform of the AVGP (Armored Vehicle – General Purpose) program, and was produced from 1976-80. This is basically the Grizzly armored personnel carrier topped with a new turret using a 76mm Cockerill cannon.  In addition, the passenger space is largely taken up with ammunition racks for the gun.  The rear doors are retained, but the rear deck hatches are deleted, as are the firing ports.  The turret is larger than the Grizzly’s turret, more heavily armored, and has a hatch on the deck for the commander and gunner.  The turret is, in fact, the same one as mounted on the British Scorpion and the Australian M113A1 MRV vehicles.  As with the Grizzly, the Cougar is as likely as not to have a weapon mount for the commander by his hatch. 

     Power is provided by a Detroit Diesel 6V53T turbocharged diesel developing 275 horsepower. The engine is hooked up to an automatic transmission.  The suspension is 6x6, or 6x4 for road use, and the vehicle can surmount a 0.8-meter wall, cross a 1.2-meter trench, and ride on a 30-degree side slope or a 60-degree gradient. On each side of the turret are four smoke grenade launchers.  Armor is all-welded steel. The turret is mounted on the right center of the hull roof. Cougars were originally amphibious, propelled in the water by propellers and steered by rudders; the propulsion system proved to be troublesome and prone to breakdowns, and after a few years, was removed (though the bilge pumps remained, disabled).

     The AVGP vehicles were all retired in 2005, but continue on in police and training use and other countries’ militaries, most notably in the RCMP, where they serve on the Emergency Response Team. The Serbians operate one which they captured from a Canadian UN mission. The Uruguayans use 44 which they converted into APCs by removing the turrets and replacing them with hull plating and hatches. (The Uruguayans also operate 98 Grizzlys and 5 Huskys.) Cougars are in general veterans of several UN Peacekeeping missions.

     The WLAVLE Program replaces the sights with improved ones, mounts wider tires, improves the torsion bars, allowing an increase in gross weight, and in general refurbishes the Cougar. In addition, cracks in the aluminum turret armor were fixed.

*Hull floor AV is 5; hull and turret roof AV is 3.