Knapp Service Koblenz GmbH: Expertise meets agility

Few suppliers of wheeled and tracked vehicles for highly specialized applications can look back on as much experience as Knapp Service Koblenz GmbH. The Rhineland-Palatinate-based company is constantly pushing ahead with innovations – including extremely high-performance coating solutions for military vehicles.

When off-road vehicles or trucks for the fire department, the army, emergency services or the police roll off the car manufacturers’ production lines, something crucial is still missing: specifically the special equipment that makes them suitable for their intended use and sets them up optimally in terms of the required functionality, ergonomics and safety. Knapp Service Koblenz GmbH is an expert in this highly customized equipment with over 40 years of expertise. All installation kits - from equipment and transport brackets to radio and IT technology, including cable harnesses, roof racks, antenna mounts and flag sets - are designed and assembled in Koblenz. “We equip the vehicles according to their respective needs,” explains Mark Kuppert, Head of Development and Construction at Knapp. “We benefit from the agility of our company, which currently has 50 employees: we deliver the complete range of equipment – and that quickly.”

Knapp Service Koblenz GmbH specializes in the development, construction and manufacture of installation kits for…

Agile in making things better
Flexibility is part of Knapp’s DNA. After all, the project volume ranges from equipping a single pilot rescue vehicle or special vehicles for the GSG 9 to equipping entire fleets. “Since 2015, we have fitted around 1,500 Mercedes G 300 Greenliners with special military equipment for BwFuhrparkService GmbH,” says Mark Kuppert. This large-scale project offered the ideal opportunity to push ahead with what the company is particularly passionate about: optimizations. The Bundeswehr requested a special camouflage coating for the near infrared spectral range with corresponding approval and F9 certification – and wanted an improvement in the coating process for the equipment assemblies. “At this point, we had long been convinced that powder coatings offered clear advantages over wet painting processes in terms of cost-effectiveness, robustness, environmental compatibility and process reliability,” recalls Mark Kuppert. “But we and our production and coating partner, Koblenz-based Nick Stanztechnik GmbH, did not yet have the right powder coating on board.”

Pioneer in optimized coating processes for defense technology
This quickly changed when the two partners consulted with Brillux Industrial Coatings from Unna, Germany. With the Premium Polyester Powder 5936 in the color RAL 6031-F9, the manufacturer supplies a highly surface-hard and weather-resistant powder coating that has been tested in accordance with the defense equipment standard (VG 95211) and approved by the Wehrwissenschaftliches Institut für Werk- und Betriebsstoffe (WIWeB).

Brillux Industrial Coatings accompanied the entire changeover process from wet paint to powder coating, so that the specifications could be met perfectly within a short time, even under series production conditions. The improved degree of material utilization, the reduction of the VOC content to zero and the significant shortening in process time improve the coating processes as well as another welcome feature of the powder-coated surface: “It is very easy to install and stick on,” says Mark Kuppert happily. “This saves us the much more complex welding work for the cable duct for the antenna of the Greenliners, for example – because this cable duct can now be simply glued on the inside of a powder-coated aluminum side window.”

The future in sight

Together with Nick Stanztechnik from Koblenz and Brillux Industrial Coatings, the company has achieved significant…

The capabilities of Knapp Service Koblenz GmbH are in demand. With its recently modernized, energy-self-sufficient production facilities, which have been expanded to 9,000 square meters, the company is ideally positioned for the future and can expand its capacities. “We are growing and are ready - even for one of the biggest tasks facing the Bundeswehr in the coming years,” says Mark Kuppert. By 2027, the entire radio systems of the troops are to be converted from analog to digital. Around 17,000 Bundeswehr vehicles require corresponding new installation kits - and the Koblenz-based company definitely knows this.