Rheinmetall has announced it has designed and developed a new Combat Support Vehicle (CSV) at its Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence (MILVEHCOE) facility near Ipswich in Queensland.

Based on the Lynx Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) the company is offering for the Australian Army’s Project LAND 400 Phase 3 requirement, the new CSV was unveiled at the MILVEHCOE on October 18. The CSV has been designed to support the IFV force by performing an armed recovery, repair, manoeuvre support, logistics role on a common platform.

“The Lynx CSV was designed by Australian engineers and manufactured at MILVEHCOE using Australian steel and our industry network of more than 100 partners,” Rheinmetall Managing Director, Gary Stewart said in a release. “It is uniquely Australian as a “work horse” vehicle, even taking on the distinct function of a ‘ute’. The Lynx CSV is a game-changer for armies, and would enable soldiers to complete a range of missions while fully protected.”

The Lynx CSV also features additional onboard fuel capacity, a roof top mounted 5-tonne crane, an interchangeable power pack, excavation attachments including a grader blade, clam shell bucket, and rock breaker, and a remote weapons station (RWS) that can employ 7.62mm or 12.7mm weapons or a 40mm grenade launcher.

Rheinmetall says the commonality between the CSV and IFV has the potential to spawn up to 10 different variants of the modular platform, and that the CSV will be positioned for export from Australia.

It’s unclear where the Lynx CSV will fit into the Australian Army’s requirements following the April announcement that it will acquire a number of heavy engineering vehicles based on the M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams as part of its Project LAND 8160 Phase 1 Combat Engineering Vehicles requirement.