Patria and GDELS-Santa Bárbara Sistemas have announced the launch of ASCOD Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) assembly operations in Latvia.
The vehicles will be assembled and maintained at the Defence Partnership Latvia (DPL) facility in Valmiera, which opened one year ago and coincides with the fifth anniversary of Patria’s presence in Latvia.
The first completed units are expected to roll off the line in June 2026.
Under the contract signed in January 2025 between the Latvian Ministry of Defence and GDELS-Santa Bárbara Sistemas, Latvia will acquire 42 ASCOD IFVs at a total cost of €373 million. The decision followed extensive evaluations of IFV platforms throughout 2023, including functional testing and a detailed assessment of operational, industrial, and economic criteria.
The ASCOD vehicles will feature NATO-standard Level 4 armour, automatic cannons, machine guns, anti-tank systems, and advanced battlefield technologies. Designed for a three-person crew, each IFV can carry six fully equipped troops and is optimised for high-intensity, network-enabled operations.
Uģis Romanovs, Chairman of the Board at Patria Latvia and Defence Partnership Latvia, said:
“The assembly and servicing of ASCOD Infantry Fighting Vehicles mark a significant step in the development of our military manufacturing and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) capabilities in Latvia. Our experience with the production of 6×6 armoured vehicles, combined with the transfer of technology and expertise from Patria, demonstrates our ability to handle complex and precise military vehicle manufacturing, assembly, and maintenance tasks.”
GDELS-Santa Bárbara Sistemas Vice President Alejandro Page Hernandez added:
“The assembly and production of ASCOD components in Latvia will strengthen the security of military supply chains, improve delivery responsiveness, and contribute significantly to the growth of the local defence industry, while also supporting the broader Latvian economy.”
The collaboration represents a strategic step forward in regional defence autonomy and industrial resilience. Local assembly will reduce reliance on external supply chains while increasing domestic capability in advanced land systems manufacturing.
Operational deployment of the first ASCOD IFVs is scheduled for autumn 2026, signalling a new chapter in Latvia’s defence modernisation programme and the development of its national defence industry.
So evaluation,testing,manufacturing and in service all in 3 yrs not to shabby is it?perhaps we should send some of our procurement people over there to learn it can be done!
I know right, they don’t seem to need to spend billions and take decades to make a decision on a piece of equipment. Why is that?
Probably because good enough is good enough. Off the shelf is fine. They only need to defeat the Russians which is a low bar really. 40 year old Bradleys are tearing the Russians to pieces so I dread to think what a modern IFV will do.
We should definitely just select the ASCOD for the warrior replacement. 600+ vehicles at the same price scale Latvia are paying. In service by 2028.
Actually as our army has shrunk and as we also have the lethargic Boxer programme running we would probably only need 300-400 ASCOD IFVS for around £2.8-3 billion. It’s fairly low on the priority list though as SDSR has to be a maritime focussed and air force focussed forces structure. We don’t want or need to deploy large British army contingents to fight in Europe. What we need to do is secure the GIUK gap and focus on destroying the Russian navy whilst protecting the UK homelands from missile and drone attacks.
ASW, GBAD, air interception, maritime patrol and persistence are what we need
Mr Bell, you are setting what you think our NATO remit is. NATO remit is to deter and if necessary defend the entire Euro-Atlantic region. All member countries need to do this. Most of our army is assigned to NATO. It would fight on the continent. That is an armoured division and quite a bit more.
Britain: “We don’t want, or need to deploy large army contingents to the continent, we’ll focus on Norway and the North Atlantic.”
France: “We don’t want or need to deploy large army contingents to Eastern Europe, we’ll focus on our colonial empire and the atlantic.”
Italy: “We don’t want or need to deploy large army contingents to Eastern Europe, we’ll focus on controlling the med and North Africa.”
Spain: “We don’t want or need to deploy large army contingents to Eastern Europe, we’ll just focus on antagonizing Morocco.”
Germany: “We are surrounded by friendly powers and have a legacy of militarism we want to shake, we don’t want or need to deploy large army contigents to Eastern Europe, we’ll instead provide security through economic means.”
Poland and the Baltics: “Uh a little help here please?”
Deciding not to contribute to the main front of European/NATO defence because it sounds a bit hard and the narrow national interest sounds easy/intuitive is the road (paved with good intentions) to the failure of collective defence.
After the shambolic AJAX project we should not select General Dynamics, the Morpheus radio project is late and their submarine project in the US is over budget and late. The CV90 mk4 is more advanced and the supply chain will be cheaper as used by 10 countries and proven improvement.
Agree- the British army needs a new IFV, my view is that perhaps ASCOD in that it should have some parts similarities to AJAX but I’ve not got strongly held views to the idea of ASCOD. If we can find around £2-3 billion it would be money well spent to purchase an off the shelf IFV such as ASCOD or CV90- it needs a turret mounted canon- able to detect, track and engage drones and helicopters etc as well as cannister/ side of turret mounted Brimstone, an APS would be the cherry on top and you’d think would be mandatory for any and all armoured vehicles entering a combat zone.
I guess we find out on Monday/Tuesday when SDSR comes out what the plan is- I’m hearing a lot of the usual BS around AI and virtual/cyber defences- which is fine but isn’t going to actually engage and kill our enemies. Besides which AI falls down and is useless when human ingenuity and doing what a machine mind could never have guessed.
Mr Bell, Oh for the good old days when the army could run a competition of contenders who had made credible Bids.
Amazing what having Putin on your doorstep can do fo concentrating the mind.
Maybe because they focus on the requirement in front of them, rather than using defence spending as a way to bung money to industry with no expectation of anything delivered in return.
Funny old thing. Ascod a perfectly acceptable vehicle and then the MOD got hold of it
The Army wanted a Recce Vehicle, ASCOD is an IFV, no matter how you slice it, the base vehicle wasn’t what was needed.
Also it’s “only” STANAG 4569 Level 4, as we know the army seems to want level6 for its heavy brigades…
Dab, it was GDUK that developed the Ascod 2 IFV into a recce vehicle, Ajax…not the MoD.
Not quite true Graham, GD used the ASCOD as the basis on which to hang the response to the MODs 1200 plus ( and still evolving) requirements.
Cheers
I thought General Dynamics took over ASCOD.
I think you could right. The GD in the GDELS suggested to me that General Dynamics were involved somehow.
Cheers CR
Oooohhh look even flaming Latvia can afford to buy an “ACTUAL” IFV and not an APC… just saying.
Why not buy some, oh sorry we won’t lets get an under gunned wheeled APC and call it an IVF, because its cheaper. This vehicle would be fine if it carried 8 as it shares a lot with Ajax after all its the bases for all Ajax types. Not a complete match but many parts are the same. That would make to much sense though. Buy some thing the Army do not really want, force it on them then find out is rubbish and have spend more to fix the mistake that is the MOD way.
IVF is something very different from what you’re probably talking about…
i know, but a boxer with tiny gun is an tiny gun is at best an APC, and IVF is for fighting up to the front line, the follow through/break through and over watch and engaging other vehicles whilst delivering troops to fight. Some thing Boxer is not and never will be. Its a under gunned, wheeled very tall vehicle, a crap money saving option forced on the Army by yes men in charge.
I was a warrior driver i think can work what an IFV is, but thank you for your input. I look forward to your lecture on an IVF, Warrior was good but under gunned its main weapon was hand fed not belt fed, not stablized, no anti tank weapon system, and the base model was only defence again 14.5 mm AP.
Martin
IFV = Infantry Fighting Vehicle
IVF = In Vitro Fertilization
Not if you are dyslexic
Being dyslexic doesn’t change the meaning of acronyms.
Sincerely
A dyslexic person.
Martin. Boxer at £5.3m a copy is not a money-saving option in any regard. As far as Inf in the armoured BCTs is concerned they were AI with Warrior. The WCSP programme to upgrade WR on its own was very affordable, but obviously not at exactly the same time as the Boxer MIV programme for the Mech Inf, and the CR3 programme.
Warrior WCSP had issues but could worked its lost money, Boxer is a good vehicle but its not a IFV, yes it has a turret version but its very tall, and wheeled. And yes we can not afford Boxer/C3 and a tracked IFV. Its a muddled choice that is as always is not really what was wanted that how the MOD/Army do things time after time. Bin AS90 but do order a full replacement.
Ignore dern she/him thinks they know everything I understood what you were getting at and I agree a APC with a machine gun on is not a good enough replacement for warrior at the very least we should have done what Australia did and put a canon of some sort on it
Never claimed I know everything and have on multiple occasions stated on this forum that I do not know everything, but hey guess someone’s shat in your cereal today haven’t they?
Depending upon Austrian or Spanish requirements I understood it was produced as either an IFV or Recce vehicle. No idea how different they were then or whether things have moved on very greatly since for such definitions mind.
Kind of but not really.
Pizzaro is listed as a VCI/C which basically is like saying the Bradley is a Cavalry/Infantry Fighting Vehicle. Which means that yes it serves in the Recce role, but it really isn’t any different from the IFV version and serves in the Recce role the same way we currently are boding Warriors into the Recce role (or the Bradley when it’s the M3 Bradley). So in service, no it’s not produced as a recce vehicle.
There was a Spanish Artillery Observation Vehicle (which is not quite the same as a recce vehicle, and a role that will probably go to drones a lot more now), that was looked at being bodged into a Recce vehicle, but the AOV was cancelled after a few prototypes where build and the scout version AFAIK was never built, and there was a “ASCOD RECCE” paper design that GDLS drew up, but it was a paper design and well… pretty sure that paper design became AJAX.
It carries 6 dismounts. So not as flexible as warrior but maybe could be stretched or some such to accommodate 8 if it was mission critical. I’d like the British army to get either ASCOD or CV90 IFVS ideally with a few turret mounted anti tank missiles like Brimstone mounted on the sides.
The 40 year old Bradleys are proving terminally effective Vs all Russian vehicles so far, upto and including T90-M breakdown tanks.
Dread to think what a really modern IFV would do to the Russian army.
As long as an APS or drone protection can be fitted you’re laughing.
Plenty of Bradley’s sitting in the desert that can be modified to the latest M2A4E1 standard that can be piggy backed on the US order👍
Now that would be a great idea. Probably the cheapest way to replace Warrior with a combat proven weapons system.- change out the side javelin launchers for Brimstone and add an APS and job done.
Agreed, would not take that much to stretch it, fit Ajax turret, may be? and an ATGM system, has to better than very tall under gunned, wheeled Boxer. And regardless which is picked APS would have to standard on all.
The boxer already has a turret module with 30 mm cannon, why would you waste money developing another version?
Because every user of it is finding that its off-road performance with the turret, rapidly results in a recovery operation. And I think Martin is talking about Bradley, not Boxer.
Mr Bell, it is mission critical for an IFV to carry an Infantry section of 8 men!
To be fair the army is not calling boxer an IFV, they are simply abandoning having IFVs for their heavy brigade infantry….
What they are going for instead is a very heavily protected APC.. but although we all slate boxer as only an APC..make no mistake it’s 40 tons for a reason and that is because it’s the second most protected infantry transport around….the only thing better is where the Israelis, nutters that they are have turned some of their redundant MBTs into APC.
Now I think it’s a mistake to take away the armoured infantries section cannon, but you cannot fault the protection box gives its dismounts as it gets them into position. I also think that if your doing combined arms with MBTs you should have tracked fighting vehicles for your infantry..but France on the other hand is very happy having wheeled IFVs.
So then the let’s have some comparison
Warrior..tracked, cannon..all strengths but its big weakness, poor strategic mobility ( it’s tracked) and is its protection.. Stanag level 3 against Kinetics and 2 against blast basically it’s not the best vehicle to be taking 155mm fire in and its armour will probably fail to a heavy machine gun with AP…. that’s not up to modern NATO baselines which is STANAG 4.. with upgrade kits I imagine it’s level 4.. big plus would be a refit and lifex would be cheap as chips at around 2.5million a vehicle..
French ivbc2 strength it’s got a good cannon,it’s only 30 tons, good strategic mobility, weakness wheeled, and it’s only Stanag 4 ( although that’s probably neutral as it’s NATO standard ) so it will possibly fail if fired at by a 14.5mm machine gun within 200m. It’s also meant to support MBTs regiments without tracks…
Puma ( new German IFV, strength ) tracked, cannon, although its standard protection is Stanag 4 ( sort of OK) it can be upgraded to STANAG 6 weakness:costs is insane..1.5 billion for 50..that’s 30 million each including service contract but that’s bonkers it’s more than an Abrams MBT.
Boxer.. strengths modern, really good strategic mobility ( part from weight of 40 tons).. and the best base protection of anything out there..stanag 6 ( you can shoot 30mm APDS at it (its essentially as good as some MBTs) weakness it’s not got a cannon and it’s wheeled..it’s also expensive at 6million ish a pop…
Personally I think the army should refit its warriors at about 2.5million a pop ( around 250 of them ) so it’s got a reasonable tracked IFV for the heavy brigade Armoured infantry.
Box makes a profoundly good vehicle for a Mec infantry, especially if it’s fitted with an auto turret that can provide decent direct fire support ( say a belt fead 40mm grenade launcher ). Because it if equipped for direct fire it’s got the protection to stick around and provide it.
Then it needs to get a cheap ( 1 million each ) Stanag 4 APC for everyone else.
When you only intend to roll 5 miles into Gaza the logistics burden of your IFV’s being MBT chassis is maybe less of a worry….
I would say that the GMG will probably end up on top of Boxer, as it tends to end up on top of anything that mounds GPMG/HMG at some point.
Although GMG is limited. Range, penetration (even against foliage) is limited. But devastating against dismounts or if you need to lob it over cover. Hence we used to mix HMG and GMG as the main armament on WMIK and Jackal.
Those 40t do not protect against a drone. It is like having a 380mm armor in a battleship in aircraft carrier era. Aircrafts hits around the armor are enough to sink the battleship.
In regards to strategic mobility. I wonder how changing the steel tracks to the Soucy band tracks on the CV90 MkIV will change its overall mobility? I was in Afghan when the Norwegians were trialling the band tracks on their CV90s. They said it was like chalk and cheese. The tanks were so much quieter internally and externally. They also said the ride was much nicer as well. For longevity they expected the tracks to deteriorate quite quickly, due to the hardness and the sharpness of the stones that made up the majority of roads. Though they found the tracks lasted a lot longer than expected. They did have two incidents with damaged band tracks, both damaged by an IED, which blew the track off and one of the road wheels off. The track was non recoverable. The other was a smaller device and only parted the track, damaged the road wheel, but it was still usable. With the first the crew fitted the rolled up spare, no need for engineering support. With the second they used a splice kit which re-joined the track and were running again within an hour.
I have often wondered why the Ajax series has not used band tracks, as it may solve a lot of the problems.
Valmiera in Summer, bliss!
Well done Latvia.
If you search ascod on twitter( posted by one Nicholas or the other) there are images of a recent (ISH) version that can carry 8 dismounts