The Jamaica Defense Force (JDF) has bolstered and upgraded its fleet of Thales Bushmaster Protected Vehicles. The purchase of 6 additional Bushmasters, 3 troops carrier and 3 ambulance versions, brings its fleet to 18, significantly strengthening the JDF’s ability to fight crime while simultaneously keeping its soldiers protected and comfortable. This substantial purchase confirms the Bushmaster’s outstanding performance in JDF services over the past five years.
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Thales Bushmaster Protected Vehicle (Picture source: Army Recognition)

The Bushmaster is an 11-tonne, 4x4 blast and ballistic protected mobility vehicle with a 4-tonne payload. This multifaceted, combat-proven vehicle is specially designed to protect and transport up to ten people in extreme environments and hostile territory. The Bushmaster saves lives on and off-road, providing an excellent balance of protection, mobility, space and cost that is well proven in service to many nations around the world.

The new vehicles for Jamaica offer special features including fully integrated Auxiliary Power Units (APUs) that provide power and supplementary air conditioning when the engine is off. This allows static vehicles to maintain a comfortable temperature in the hot Jamaican climate. As the ambulance versions will give soldiers the ability to evacuate and treat injured police officers under the protection of the Bushmaster rather than having to deploy vulnerable unarmored vehicles into dangerous situations.

The Thales Bushmaster is a highly mobile, ballistics, mine and improvised explosive device (IED) blast resistant Protected Mobility Vehicle (PMV). Bushmaster has an established family of modular armoured vehicles offering high levels of protected mobility for combat, combat support and combat service support troops across a diverse range of mission profiles including troop movement, command and control, engineer support and ambulance variants. Bushmaster has protected and saved lives during numerous incidents including offensive operations, ambushes and roadside bombings involving IED, FSP and RPG attack and comes with a range of field upgradeable protection packages depending on the threat environment. The Bushmaster’s large internal volume within its monocoque body has open architecture that can be easily adapted to meet multi-role requirements even in the field. Externally Bushmaster’s FOV has been designed with a modular approach allowing reconfiguration, and simplicity of repair with high levels of interchangeability between variants.