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Danto (Tapir) 6×6 armored personnel carrier

The Danto (Tapir) (6 × 6) is an armored personnel carrier developed to meet the requirements of the Guatemalan Army. It is used as a support vehicle, armed with a 20 mm cannon as a complement to self-transported armament such as the 12.7 mm M2HB machine guns and the 106 mm recoilless M40 type cannons. The decision to build a prototype vehicle was made in 1992 and this was designed and built by the Guatemalan War Material Service with the first copy being completed in 1994. By the end of 2002, the production of 10 vehicles had already begun in a period of six months.

The base vehicle was the M809 5 Ton Truck with an armored body. The Danto could be used for a number of roles including as an APC, convoy escort, reconnaissance and transport. Danto means "Tapir" in Spanish. The Danto (Tapir) (6 × 6) armored personnel carrier was developed to meet the needs of the Guatemalan Army for a support vehicle armed with a 20mm cannon to reduce the gap between the 12.7mm M2 machine gun Heavy and the 106mm blowback rifle.The M40 decision to build a prototype vehicle was taken in 1992 and later this was designed and built by the Guatemalan War Materials Service with the first example being completed in late 1994. As of 2002, it was understood that production had not yet started, but, if put into production, 10 vehicles could be built in a six-month period.

The Danto essentially consists of a US-supplied M54A2 5-ton (US) (6 × 6) truck chassis fitted with an armored steel body, which is 8mm thick on the front, side and rear. With the floor being 15mm thick. The armored engine compartment is in the front and rear of this are the commander and driver which are provided with 50mm thick bulletproof windows to their front and sides troop compartment. The armor extends to the rear and on each side of a two-part door, the bottom side down to form the one-step opening with the top of the opening at the rear.

There is also a door at the rear of the hull and a single roof hatch.Internally, the troop area is divided into three compartments that can be separated by armored doors to limit damage if the vehicle is hit. Mounted on top of the hull is a Swiss Oerlikon Contraves GAD-AOA-one man manually operated turret with an armed Oerlikon Contraves model GK 204 20mm guns. This turret can be traversed through a full 360 °, with the weapon elevation -12 to 70 °. It is believed that vehicles that have a new hull design with the chassis and lowered by 1 m between the front and rear axles, while the vehicle height would be lowered by around 0.5 m. Reducing the length of the hull would reduce the overall weight of the vehicle.

The tapir, also known as tixl in the Q'eqchi 'language, is the largest land mammal in the Central American region. It is the only native species that belongs to the Order Perissodactyla, the same one to which horses and rhinos belong. The tapir is characterized by having an elongation of the upper lip in the form of probocis. It has a robust body 2 meters long by 1.5 m high. The hands have 4 fingers (one of them vestigial and not always marked on the footprints) and 3 fingers on the legs. Adults are generally brown in color with a lighter color on the chest and neck. The young are reddish with white spots, which are lost as they grow.

The tapir is a herbivore that feeds primarily on leaves, but also includes young branches, stems, flowers, fruits, seeds, and bark from a variety of plants including grasses, shrubs, lianas, aquatic plants, palms, and trees. The tapir generally live in tropical forests, in places where there is sufficient availability of water. It is found from the humid tropical forest at sea level to cloud forests at altitudes above 2,000 meters. This species has been reported in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador.

In Guatemala the species was present in the lowlands and cloud forests of all slopes, but in the 1950s it became extinct from the Pacific slope (south coast and volcanic chain). It is currently present in Petén, Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz, Quiché, Izabal, El Progreso and Zacapa.