the vilcas it means wolf in Lithuanian and it's the name of lithuania's wield 8x8 infantry fighting vehicle outside of Lithuania this vehicle platform would be better known as the boxer it's a versatile modular system manufactured for lithuania's armed forces by German manufacturers however the platform is also being made in other parts of the world for their respective customers in this video we examine the vilus and the terms of lithuania's deal to buy the vehicle we'll also look at some of the controversy issues and problems connected to the platform that the country has had to deal with let's first go back in time to 2015 when the Lithuanian Armed Forces had made the decision to modernize its infantry and move up from its old m113s media reports indicated that the list of potential equipment included nine or 10 armored vehicle manufacturers we think we found all of these companies through various media reports that were said to be under consideration the pirana from Switzerland built by General Dynamics land systems Europe the lav 6.0 from the General Dynamics land systems Canada Italy's super AV built by IO France's vbci built by nexter The Finnish Patria AMV the Polish made rosomak which itself is a licensed variant of the Finnish Patria AMV the americanmade ic30 strike the Turkish fnss pars the Turkish 8x8 armor by autocard and of course the german-made boxer all of these would be fitted with some sort of cannon from a compatible manufacturer and well after examining all options it was in December 2015 that Lithuania opened talks with German manufacturers to purchase boxer infantry fighting vehicles for the country's military it was mentioned that lithuania's State Defense Council made this decision unanimously it was reported that Lithuania wanted to buy boxer ifes with Elbert systems 30mm unmanned turrets a 7.62 mm machine gun and Spike longrange anti-tank missiles the country had planned to pay 400 million to purchase 88 ifs among which 84 ifs would be used for combat operations and the remaining four for command and control the actual contract price would end up being the chief of Defense of Lithuania at the time said that the boxer ifes were the most suitable for Lithuania in terms of the provisions of its armed defense conception and operating environment the choice wasn't without controversy however Lithuanian media which is quite sensitive to any slight resemblances of corruption reported on some discrepancies in the contract and pricing as reported by 15 minutes it was widely believed for nearly a year that the German boxer would win the competition with with a German RCT3 turret and a 30 mm Cannon as well as the American Javelin anti-tank missile system however at The crucial moment a surprise happened and the State Defense Council decided to purchase the German boxer with Israeli Raphael Samson 30 Mark 2 turrets and a 30mm cannon as well as Israeli Spike anti-tank missile systems the minister of National Defense publicly stated that the machine's new Armament has reduced the price by almost a third the media was left wondering why this decision was made at the last minute without any public discussions beforehand this led to accusations of counterfeiting and price manipulation behind the scenes there was speculation that high ranking Lithuanian officers may have attempted to falsify the offers and hide the cheaper option from lithuania's president its Armed Forces chief of staff and other members of the State Defense Council a journalist had accused Ministry representative subordinate to the minister of National Defense of attempting to misinform the military the presidency and other state institutions about one of the candidates it was alleged that boxer manufacturer's proposals for two cheaper armored vehicle variants with Israeli made turrets were specifically hidden leaving only the German Puma turret which is the most expensive other technical data was also said to have been falsified nothing really came out of this controversy as it relates to the allegations and the government officials involved in the selection process however the winning Israeli equipment did cause other issues for Lithuania in December 2019 it was reported that the delivery of the new infantry fighting vehicles to Lithuania was running behind schedule due to faults identified during the Quality Control process the first two boxers were delivered to Lithuania in June 2018 and another 15 were due to arrive by the end of 2019 however the vehicles were delayed the defense Ministry explained that the is due to defects that were identified during the strict quality controls and that the manufacturer was unable to eliminate them in a timely manner even after delivery delays due to defects lithuania's Armed Forces encounter Technical and software problems with the Israeli turret addressing the issues the defense minister stated in 2022 upgrades are now being installed in vehicles delivered to Lithuania and this process will be finalized in November the delivery of new vilus infantry fighting vehicles or ifvs to the Lithuanian Armed Forces will also resume in early October in August 2022 the minister said that manufacturers had allocated additional resources for identifying and correcting defects German manufacturers had also committed to extending the warranty period for the vehicles that had already been delivered the deputy defense minister at the time was quoted as saying the platform itself has proved to be successful and of very high quality the Israeli made turret was said to have been the most problematic but the deputy Minister said I'd prefer not to disclose any details but it involve software improvements among other things almost a year later in April 2023 it was stated that Lithuania had begun to resent the slowness and delays of the order the problem had gotten so bad that vas's complaints had reached the offices of the Israeli Prime Minister and defense minister a Lithuanian public broadcaster said this in an article it was the largest arms deal in lithuania's history but it created a crisis between Israel and Lithuania which was only resolved after the intervention of senior Israeli officials following complaints from villus Lithuania accused turret maker Raphael of dragging its feet and failing to react properly to problems with the equipment it sold the turrets made by Raphael are remotely controlled and equipped with thermal imaging cameras for Target identification giving them an advantage over the combat vehicles used by Russia a former high ranking Lithuanian official said that Lithuania had to use quote all the connections we have in Israel to resolve the problem Israeli equipment makers Raphael and II acknowledged that there were problems in the implementation of the contract however they stressed that it was fully executed and that the customer was fully satisfied with the program well either Lithuania is doubling down on its problematic ifes or it has actually solved its issues ues and is confident to order more in late 2024 the defense Ministry announced that it would be purchasing an additional 27 pieces of the boxer vilcas infantry fighting vehicle in April 2023 the ministry had announced plans for purchasing over 120 more of these vehicles but apparently it decided to downsize its vilka plans but who knows maybe more will be ordered in the future but to wrap things up let's go over the Vil cuss specification and capabilities for those who aren't familiar with the vehicle produced by the German artech Consortium the 8x8 vilus are fitted with israeli-made remote Weapon Station turrets us-made 30 mm mk44 s cannons built by Northrup Grumman and Israel's Spike LR anti-tank missiles as well as other integrated specialized equipment and electronic systems it's stated that these vehicles have a maximum road speed of 103 km an hour and a weight of 35 tons the vilus has a three-person crew a commander driver and Gunner it can carry a total of six infantry in Lithuania the vilus ifvs are used by units of the mechanized infantry Brigade Iron Wolf Lithuanian Grand Duke algas mechanized infantry battalion and the grand duess peruta anulan Battalion what do you think of lithuania's decision to go with the boxer platform as opposed to all the other options on that list do you think something else would have been better let us know what you think by leaving a comment as always thanks for watching