155mm SpGH BIA at world premiere in DSEI London

The 155 mm SpGH BIA Project is a continuation of the 155 mm SpGH ZUZANA and 155 mm SpGH EVA product development line. The BIA development has been launched in 2021 on the base of requirements of our business partners, while in the course of development the knowledge and experience from deployment of ZUZANA in Ukraine and international training in scope of forefront presence of NATO troops in Latvia have been applied.

The development costs are the subject of trade secrets and that is why it is not more commented in here.

The objective of the 155 mm SpGH BIA Project development has been to join the advantages of 155 mm SpGHs ZUZANA 2 and EVA into compact and unique artillery system. The BIA Project leverages particular needs and requirements of the potential users we are closely communicating with:

• 155 mm armament with required technical parameters: firing range, rate of fire, ready-to-fire supply of ammunition
• high mobility and cross country manouverability
• lower mass
• crew protection
• automation of combat operation performance

Compared to 155 mm SpGH ZUZANA 2, BIA is lighter, more mobile with higher mobility while maintaining the same firepower, and compared to 155 mm SpGH EVA, BIA carries a larger supply of ammunition, has higher crew protection and also automation of combat operations.

Currently, the 155 mm SpGH BIA utilizes the latest chassis series from the original chassis supplier for ZUZANA 2 howitzers, but based on requests from potential users, work is being done to place the 155 mm weapon system on a chassis from other manufacturers. We will not specify potential new suppliers of chassis due to trade secrets, but we can state that one of the manufacturers is a purely Slovak company, which designs a customized chassis for us according to our requirements. Generally, in BIA project, we are interested in involving as many Slovak manufacturers as possible and thereby supporting the Slovak defence industries, however there are some components that are simply not produced on the territory of the Slovak Republic. We can mention at least the company MATADOR GROUP as an important supplier that directly participated in the development of design.

We are presenting the prototype of 155 mm SpGH BIA at DSEI exhibition in London with fully functional weapon system, which has already completed its first firings. In October we will present 155 mm SpGH BIA at IDEB 2023 in Bratislava. Subsequently, further firing trials will take place so that the 155 mm SpGH BIA can be sent for military tests to the country of potential customer in 2024. Obviously, we are interested in offering and introducing the 155 mm SpGH BIA into the armament inventory of the Slovak Armed Forces as well.