Armoured personnel carrier
armored vehicle classification designed for troop transport
An armoured personnel carrier (APC) is a broad type of armoured military vehicle designed to transport personnel and equipment in combat zones. Since World War I, APCs have become a very common piece of military equipment around the world.
According to the definition in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, an APC is "an armoured combat vehicle which is designed and equipped to transport a combat infantry squad and which, as a rule, is armed with an integral or organic weapon of less than 20 millimetres calibre." Compared to infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), which are also used to carry infantry into battle, APCs have less armament and are not designed to provide direct fire support in battle. Infantry units that travel in APCs are known as mechanized infantry. Some militaries also make a distinction between infantry units that use APCs and infantry units that use IFVs, with the latter being known as armoured infantry.
History
In the spring of 1900 Lord Roberts ordered six armored road trains for use in South Africa; in December 1901 four armored road trains were delivered after testing. Each train was pulled by a John Fowler & Co steam tractor, with three armored wagons that could be used to carry troops and supplies. These engines had their armor removed after being delivered, and were used by the Imperial Military Railway.
One of the first armored vehicles to be used in combat was the Spanish Schneider-Brillié, which saw action in Morocco. It was built from the chassis of a Schneider P2-4000 bus and could carry 12 passengers.
“Armoured personnel carrier” enters the record as armored vehicle classification designed for troop transport. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Armoured, personnel and carrier can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Armoured personnel carrier” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.