The British Army's new fleet of Iveco Panther vehicles are being coated with a brand-new paint-system specially developed by Akzo Nobel Aerospace Coatings (ANAC).

The system comprises two ANAC water-based primers - Intergard® 10206 and Intergard® 10207 - plus an Intergard® 10212 water-based finish-coat which is both chemical-agent resistant and infra-red reflective.

The new system is approved to defence standards 80-208 and 00-72, and is currently the only water-based coating in the world that is approved by the latest chemical-agent decontamination-test method (Stanag 4360 issue two). Because it is water-based, the paint also meets strict current guidelines on VOC emissions.

The 12-month project to develop the paint system was carried out by ANAC in collaboration with BAE Land Systems of Newcastle, and Iveco, in Bolzano, Italy, where the first batch of 400 Panther vehicles are being constructed. Coating of the vehicles in NATO green (N285 of the BS 381C colour collection) began in July.

The Iveco Defence division is located in a region of the Italian Alps where environmental concerns are very high, and the products the company uses must therefore have as low an environmental-impact as possible.

For this reason, the selection of ANAC's water-based Intergard system was made not only for military and application reasons, but also as the result of a long and detailed evaluation of the paint system's components, and scrupulous analysis of the related technical and scientific documentation supplied by ANAC.

The main evaluation of the ANAC coatings system was carried out by Iveco's own laboratory technicians in Bolzano. Laboratory manager and chemical laboratory supervisor are enthusiastic about the Intergard system: It gives excellent general performance, applies smoothly and does not need too high a thickness to achieve the desired result. The finished appearance is also extremely good.