The army thus developed specifications for a highly mobile, long-range wheeled armored reconnaissance vehicle, weighing less than 12 tonnes and armed with a 75 mm cannon that could fire mortar shells with an initial speed of 600 m/s.
1955 in the Aurès in Algeria - 8th Hussars / 2nd platoon / 3rd squadron
Four manufacturers were invited to present projects. At Panhard & Levassor, Louis Delagarde had already designed an armored car prototype in 1938: the AM 201. Its originality lay in replacing the tracks with 8 wheels, of which the 4 inner steel wheels were retractable. In 1945, he went back to work on his original project and improved it. The flat, 12-cylinder Panhard engine meant that an operator cab could be housed at each end. The practically symmetrical armored hull was designed for greater resistance. The Panhard & Levassor EBR armored reconnaissance vehicle was chosen by the army in 1949 and became an emblematic vehicle used from the nineteen-fifties to the beginning of the 1980s.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION…
Video: Panhard EBR, 2008, available on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4aXdDNLgUY
Photo source : mvcgfrance.org