Combat engineering vehicle

A military engineering vehicle is a vehicle built for the construction work or for the transportation of combat engineers on the battlefield. These vehicles may be modified civilian equipment or purpose-built military vehicles.

Military engineering can employ a wide variety of heavy equipment in the same or similar ways to how this equipment is used outside the military. Bulldozers, cranes, graders, excavators, dump trucks, loaders, and backhoes all see extensive use by military engineers.

Military engineers may also use civilian heavy equipment which was modified for military applications. Typically, this involves adding armour for protection from battlefield hazards such as artillery, unexploded ordnance, mines, and small arms fire. Often this protection is provided by armour plates and steel jackets. Some examples of armoured civilian heavy equipment are the IDF Caterpillar D9, American D7 TPK, Canadian D6 armoured bulldozer, cranes, graders, excavators, and M35 2-1/2 ton cargo truck.

Militarized heavy equipment may also take on the form of traditional civilian equipment designed and built to unique military specifications. These vehicles typically sacrifice some depth of capability from civilian models in order to gain greater speed and independence from prime movers. Examples of this type of vehicle include high speed backhoes such as the Australian Army's High Mobility Engineering Vehicle (HMEV) from Thales or the Canadian Army's Multi-Purpose Engineer Vehicle (MPEV) from Arva.

The main article for civilian heavy equipment is: Heavy equipment (construction)

Typically based on the platform of a main battle tank, these vehicles go by different names depending upon the country of use or manufacture. In the US the term "combat engineer vehicle (CEV)" is used, in the UK the term "Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE)" is used, while in Canada and other commonwealth nations the term "armoured engineer vehicle (AEV)" is used. There is no set template for what such a vehicle will look like, yet likely features include a large dozer blade or mine ploughs, a large calibre demolition cannon, augers, winches, excavator arms and cranes or lifting booms.

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