The Austrians at the Enforce Tac 2024

The Enforce Tac has developed in recent years has developed step by step from a pure equipment trade fair into a defense platform. Many Austrian companies were and are right in the middle of this transformation – this year, around 30 red-white-red companies presented their product highlights in Nuremberg from February 26 to 28. When you visit a vehicle manufacturer’s stand, you expect to see vehicles. And in this respect, Achleitner did not disappoint at Enforce Tac – the Tyrolean company prominently presented its flagship, the HMV Survivor I, and was also pleased to have another Survivor on the stand right next door. There Rheinmetall presented its Caracal airborne platform (the Netherlands and Germany procured more than 3,000 vehicles last year), Rheinmetall also presented the blue version of the all-terrain vehicle; the two companies have been cooperating on sales for years.

However, the eye-catcher at the Achleitner stand this year was not the Survivor, but a passive door opening system. Developed together with a special police unit, the Insight is designed to support special task forces and special operations forces during access operations and reduce the potential danger during operations, as Achleitner Managing Director Alexander Achleitner explains in an interview with Militär Aktuell https://militaeraktuell.at/achleitner-geschaeftsfuehrer-alexander-achleitner/ Not far from Achleitner, several other Austrian companies also had their stands in Hall 7 of the Nuremberg trade fair: Firekraft Austria, MXR Tactics (the company aims to revolutionize military and government scenario training with an AI-based tool), Clawgear, Carinthia with its new loftshell technology and Funk Fuchs, for example. The large Aaronia stand also featured the Austria branch of the German drone detection and drone defense expert was also present: Managing Director Stephan Kraschansky was pleased with the many valuable discussions with customers, the interest in the topic of drone detection and defense (-> see guest commentary by Stephan Kraschansky in Militär Aktuell) remains high. A little further on, Drone Passion Managing Director Patrick Esser (-> interview with Militär Aktuell) presented his products. In addition to various solutions for detecting and jamming drones, these now also include the Airboxer from Dutch manufacturer High Eye Unmanned Aviation – Drone Passion distributes the unmanned long-range helicopter in Germany.

At the Pik-As stand, Managing Director Christina Polster (-> Interview with Militär Aktuell) technical and electrotechnical components such as relays, toggle switches, lights and technical interface components. The company has recently seen an increase in demand for its range of reading lights with integrated rechargeable batteries. Christina Polster: “If a vehicle’s electrical system fails in an emergency, a lamp like this can be a life-saving feature. It allows the crew to stay in the vehicle and not have to get out immediately and potentially expose themselves to greater danger.” The lamp is in demand from Rheinmetall, Nexter and Excalibur, among others. It is infinitely dimmable and offers camouflage light functions in red, blue and green in addition to white light.

The focus of the trade fair appearance of Austrialpin was not only the snakebite extension for the Cobraframe and the progressive “Repair and Replace” function of the Cobra FM buckle, but above all the new Cobra NG with its innovative triple-lock fastening system. The polymer buckle is significantly lighter than its metal counterparts and is also cheaper to manufacture, as Head of Sales Helmut Knoflach explained in an interview with Militär Aktuell. Also in Hall 7: Eska Gloves. The Upper Austrians were back in Nuremberg this year for the first time since 2018. The trade fair appearance was so satisfactory that the company would like to be back again next year, as Heidi Pürstinger, Head of Sales & Marketing, revealed in an interview with Militär Aktuell. With the Titan, the Vader and the Spartacus Eska had three new tactile combat gloves in their luggage. And the manufacturer is also likely to have a lot in store for the future, as the product pipeline is certainly full to bursting.

One hall further on, Fact Systems in the person of Managing Director Patrick Riedesser also reported a full product pipeline. Fact stands for “Firefight and Combat Trainer” – and the name says it all: the products on show included force-on-force training solutions as well as a drone defense simulation system (DDSS) and the T-Shock system. Controlled muscle contractions can be used to simulate direct hits and injuries, which significantly increases the realism of military training. “The body behaves differently when you’re in pain,” says Patrick Riedesser in an interview with Militär Aktuell, “but in an emergency, soldiers still have to continue to function – as far as possible – in order to survive, and that’s exactly what you can train with our T-Shock system.” With the new Thor Single Sensor, the company also had an absolute product innovation in its luggage: The device, which is only a few centimetres in size, is intended to make the simulation vests and attachments currently used superfluous in the future and contribute to a significant simplification of combat exercises. “We are thus setting a completely new standard, and interest in the product is already very high,” says Riedesser.

A few meters away, the Dornbirn-based company horntools was also present at Enforce Tac for the first time. Its product portfolio includes winches, roof racks, camping and off-road equipment as well as underbody protection for vehicles. Managing Director Tim Wardenski now wants to position himself more strongly on the defense market, as he explained in an interview with Militär Aktuell TV. in an interview with Militär Aktuell TV reveals. NXRT GmbH, present in Hall 7A, also believes it has good prospects on the Defence market in the future. The Vienna-based company has around 40 employees and has specialized in products and solutions in the field of augmented, mixed and virtual reality in recent years. For several months now, Managing Director Lukas Stranger and his team have also been in promising talks with a European army for their simulation application Meta Ride, and at Enforce Tac they were able to identify further potential customers and establish contacts. “This could actually develop into a business area for us,” says Stranger in an interview with Militär Aktuell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VMRQKC1Jj8 Stranger continues: “Meta Ride is the most mobile simulator in the world. It can be used to train processes directly in the emergency vehicle or to train convoy and blue light driving, for example.” What does it take? Nothing more than a plug-in module system that is connected to so-called sensor pads on the vehicle (whether electric or combustion engine), plus a headset. This combines the real view of the vehicle interior and the dashboard with a digital environment. The required equipment can be stowed away in a space-saving box measuring around 80 x 40 x 40 centimetres and weighs less than 50 kilograms.

The domestic industry giants Glock, Kahles, Swarovski Optik, Zero Compromise Optic, Black Trident and Steyr Arms also presented themselves in Hall 7A (-> Report in Militär Aktuell). And Florian Deuring, Managing Director of the Vorarlberg-based company Quickshield, described the advantages of his protective shield interpretation made of fiber-reinforced polycarbonate in dozens of customer meetings. The small 20×20 centimeter tool is suitable for spontaneous deployment and defense actions, for defense against slashing and stabbing weapons, projectiles, punches and dogs. Protection was – as usual – also the focus of the last stop of our big Austria report from the Enforce Tac. At Ulbrichts, everything revolved around the new Optio helmet model presented just last year. The Upper Austrian company is committed to the high protection standard VPAM and supplies not only the Austrian police but also the majority of Europe’s special police forces. There is still room for improvement in the military sector, according to Thomas Poandl, VP Marketing & Communications, in an interview with Militär Aktuell (-> Interview).