The Snatch Land Rover is a vehicle in the British army which was introduced in 1992 during the conflicts of Northern Ireland, thus this vehicle was introduced for patrolling low threat-urban areas of Northern Ireland. The Snatch is based on the chassis of the Land Rover Defender (110). It has been heavily used in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

The vehicle has a range of 320 miles without having to be refuelled and has a maximum speed of 60 mph weighing in at 4.45 tonnes.

Armaments

Snatch Land Rover. See hand held weapon.

The vehicle carries no armaments however as can be seen in the picture to the right, the vehicle does give space for a soldier to use their personnel weapon to fire out of the vehicle through an opening on the roof. The vehicle carries electronic countermeasures which are there to counter IEDs which are there to stop signals from reaching their destinations.

Variants

  • Snatch-2 12v, LHD
    • Used for training purposes
  • Snatch-2A 24v, RHD
    • Widely used in Afghanistan and the rest of the world.
  • Snatch-2B 24v, RHD
    • Variant used in Northern Ireland.

Additional Information

The vehicle was heavily criticised for its use in Iraq, as it was easily defeated by IEDs while not keeping its occupants safe. An account of 37 soldiers were killed in the Snatch Land Rover, since the invasion of Iraq of 2003 with the use of the vehicle also in Afghanistan since 2001. This gave the vehicle its name by British Army soldiers an adopted name of the “mobile coffin”. Recent news on a Snatch Land Rover replacement, called the Ocelot (LPPV) has been announced by the UK Ministry of Defence. This new vehicle (Ocelot) is specifically designed with a V shaped hull to counter IEDs which the Snatch had major problems with countering.

Images