Development
The first prototype of the MX-8 was manufactured by Steelcraft in 2005 under the Philippine's Self Reliant Defense Posture Law. Steelcraft also manufactured the first Philippine-made armored personnel carrier, the Hari-Digma (Filipino, "King of Battle") and also its variant, the MX-1 Kalakian. The MX-8 is to fulfill a role that the larger Cadillac Gage Commandos and LAV-300s in service with the Armed Forces of the Philippines could not, and that was to provide small, armored and armed escorts through rebel-infested jungles. Though not officially used by Steelcraft, or the Army, Barako ("Wild boar") is the nickname given to the vehicle by members of the Philippines Defense Forces' Forum. Designed to be low-cost, yet effectively durable for the price – protection is equivalent to that of a Simba – a single unit costs roughly Php 6.8 million, around USD 150,000.
Currently, the MX-8 is in its second prototype form after the first went through testing at the Light Armored Division's Research and Development Command with significant changes done to the frame and power train after the RDC's testing and evaluation found several potential problems arising from the prototype's design. The second prototype gets rid of these problems, and is currently awaiting to be transferred to the RDC for further testing and evaluation.
Read more about this topic: MX-8 Armored Escort Vehicle
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“The man, or the boy, in his development is psychologically deterred from incorporating serving characteristics by an easily observable fact: there are already people around who are clearly meant to serve and they are girls and women. To perform the activities these people are doing is to risk being, and being thought of, and thinking of oneself, as a woman. This has been made a terrifying prospect and has been made to constitute a major threat to masculine identity.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)
“Such condition of suspended judgment indeed, in its more genial development and under felicitous culture, is but the expectation, the receptivity, of the faithful scholar, determined not to foreclose what is still a question—the “philosophic temper,” in short, for which a survival of query will be still the salt of truth, even in the most absolutely ascertained knowledge.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“I can see ... only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen.”
—H.A.L. (Herbert Albert Laurens)