Bravia Chaimite [SEP] service entry
Bravia Chaimite
The Bravia Chaimite is an armored vehicle with all wheel drive axles built by the Portuguese company Bravia and used by the Portuguese Army in the Portuguese colonial wars in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea, from 1967 to 1974 when it ended. The Chaimite was originally an unlicensed derivative of the Cadillac Gage Commando assembled and later produced in Portugal, with a number of improvements and technical modifications.
There were two versions of the Chaimite, the VBTP V-200 and the VBPM V-600. The VBTP ("Viatura Blindada de
km/h (62 mph).
The armour of this APC was capable of defeating rounds up to 7.62 mm NATO.
The Chaimite was gradually phased out of Portuguese Army service since 2008 and replaced by the Austrian Pandur II 8x8 APC, though the last operational Chaimite armored cars were only retired in 2016.
History.
Designed in the mid 1960s for the Portuguese Army, in its original incarnation the Chaimite resembled a modified Cadillac Gage Commando, leading to speculation that Bravia had produced it under license from