The Swedish Armed Forces will get 45 heavy recovery and technical rescue vehicles that are being produced in full Polish. It is a rare occasion that the Government of Sweden has decided to buy the specialized military equipment from outside the country from a foreign manufacturer for this particular category of such equipment.
The advanced vehicles are built and developed by the family business of Polish manufacturer – Szczęśniak Pojazdy Specjalne which has more than 30 years of experience of supplying rescue and military units. The company has unique NATO codes for commercial and governmental entities and Swedish defense authorities put this knowledge to work to trade with foreign suppliers, even those from other countries.
Built on a Scania R520 XT chassis supplied by the Swedish manufacturer, the heavy recovery vehicles are created. The 4 axle, all-wheel drive platform has a 520-horsepower motor that will tow up to 38 tons of disabled military equipment on off-road terrain and up to 70 tons on public highway.
Advanced Engineering and Polish-Swedish Industrial Collaboration
Seamless cooperation of several defense enterprises is the key to success of this project, and evaluating the results of its work are responsible for the research institutes associated with the Ministry of National Defence in Poland. The vehicle’s towing and lifting mechanisms are highly complex, operated by a custom-made hydraulic system from the Polish company, PONAR Wadowice.
The project directors say most of the parts of the vehicle were designed for this program. This includes special boom configurations that can safely lift and tow disabled armored personnel carriers directly from the battle field with the load completely stabilized.
Another feature of the design is a frame-mounted winch system from Sepson, of Sweden, for ensuring the vehicle’s stability during extreme dynamic loads. The highly technical and complex design, construction and testing of the heavy recovery vehicle was accomplished in about 12 months by engineers.
This will be for 45 vehicles until the end of 2029. The total order is the result of a four-year framework agreement that was signed with the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) in early 2025, followed by the increased order in March 2026.
