ICP rolling out the Reva V

Integrated Convoy Protection (ICP) has brought to market the Reva V mine resistant armour protected (MRAP) personnel carrier.

The vehicle is the latest in a line of successful designs, some 400 of which is currently in service, many in Iraq, where they serve with US and Iraqi security forces. The company also recently sold 87 Reva III long wheel base 4×4 automatic vehicles to the Royal Thai Army, a first for a SA company.

ICP executive marketing director David Hirschowitz says the company only went into business in 2004, when security companies operating in Iraq suddenly found themselves facing daily ambushes and a full-blown insurgency, conditions for which their existing vehicles were wholly unsuitable.

“We embarked on a quick build programme for the companies at temporary facilities in Baghdad, in Jordan and at Newcastle in KwaZulu-Natal and shipped the vehicles to Iraq, where they were seen by US security forces who were also casting about for a solution to counter roadside bombs.”

Hirschowitz says the US military then evaluated what is now the Reva I, “which came out tops” in the test. Orders for 127, then 13 and then 18 of the vehicles followed; with more since. “Most are still running,” he adds.

Subsequent generations have also been reinforced with a double skin and deflection plates. Research and development is ongoing, and is currently focussing on ceramic armour, to better deal with explosively formed penetrators.  

One difference between the Reva and similar vehicles is the construction of the monoque hull from three moulded steel plates with two, welded along the middle top of the vehicle forming the upper hull and the third overlapping the bottom of the other two plates to form the lower hull. This doubles the thickness of the lower hull to better resist roadside bombs: in the case of the Reva V from 8.9mm to 17.8mm.

“We have no welded corners, just roundings: welds are not as strong or blast resistant, Hirschowitz adds.

Reva Vital statistics