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SWAT vehicle

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Metro Nashville Police SWAT Vehicles including Peace Keeper, Lenco BearCat, MD 500 helicopter, and Tactical Operations Center
A RMMV Survivor R of the State Police of Saxony in Germany

A SWAT van, SWAT truck, SRT van is a vehicle used by police departments to transport heavily armed Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) or Special Reaction Team (SRT) team members. These vehicles are often armored and can also be used to transport specialized equipment (for example, tactical equipment and breaching tools).

A SWAT vehicle may simply be an unarmored van, SUV or truck used to transport equipment or officers or used as a command post. Other more specialized vehicles may be armoured personnel carriers to allow them to be in situations where armed confrontation is likely. Early versions of the SWAT vehicles were based on production vans such as the International Harvester Metro Vans.[1]

Specialized heavy-duty commercial vehicles can be up-fitted and built solely as SWAT Vehicles, such as the Ballistic Armored Tactical Transport from The Armored Group, LLC; Mesa, Arizona currently operates one of these vehicles. The Lenco BearCat is another of these such vehicles built upon a commercial Ford F550 chassis. Lenco BearCats are currently used by various agencies such as the LAPD, NYPD and Australian Police Tactical Groups.

Ambulances and armored trucks can also be converted into SWAT vans or trucks. De-militarized Armored Personnel Carriers can be used for this purpose, as is the case with the police department of Phoenix, Arizona which uses an M113 APC as part of its inventory or the Florida Highway Patrol, which has 3 Cadillac-Gage V-150s.

References