Ivorian Army Weapons and Equipment List (2026): Who Built the Arsenal

Côte d’Ivoire fields no main battle tanks. Its heaviest armour is a growing fleet of Chinese wheeled fire-support vehicles and MRAPs, bought in waves since 2022 to fight a jihadist spillover from the Sahel along the northern border, with Turkey, South Africa, the United States and the UAE each supplying a separate protected-mobility niche alongside an ageing French and Soviet-era core.

In short: China’s NORINCO is now the Ivorian Army’s single biggest active supplier by recent delivery volume, with VN-22B 105mm wheeled fire-support vehicles, WZ-551 armoured personnel carriers and VP11 mine-protected vehicles all paraded since 2024. Türkiye’s Otokar Cobra II has been in service since 2021-2022 and remains the most widely confirmed MRAP in the fleet. South Africa’s DCD Springbuck and the US-funded OTT Puma M36 — originally built for Niger and rerouted to Abidjan in 2025 — add a third, Western-aligned layer. Underneath all of it sits a French- and Soviet-origin legacy fleet — AML-90 reconnaissance cars, BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, BM-21 Grad rocket launchers — that pre-dates most of this diversification by decades. Global Firepower’s 2026 index puts Côte d’Ivoire’s total armoured-vehicle count at 1,328 in stock (664 held at readiness) against zero main battle tanks, zero self-propelled artillery, four towed howitzers and six multiple rocket launchers — a force built for counter-insurgency and border protection, not armoured manoeuvre warfare. This is the full breakdown of what the Ivorian Army actually holds, system by system, and who built it.

Tanks and wheeled fire-support vehicles

Côte d’Ivoire has never fielded a main battle tank, and Global Firepower’s 2026 index ranks it last in the world (145th of 145) on that metric, alongside roughly a dozen other Sub-Saharan states that have skipped tracked armour entirely. Its closest functional equivalent is China’s NORINCO VN-22B, a 6×6 wheeled vehicle mounting a 105mm gun that Jane’s describes as the most powerful combat vehicle currently in Ivorian service. At least nine were shown at the 1st Armoured Brigade’s contingent during the 7 August 2024 independence day parade in Abidjan, alongside nine WZ-551 vehicles (eight fitted with 30mm-gun turrets). Army Recognition separately reported that Norinco had completed an unspecified further delivery of VN-22B vehicles, making Côte d’Ivoire the second West African customer for the type after Senegal.

IFVs, APCs and MRAPs

This is the category that has grown fastest and diversified the most since 2022, as Abidjan has rearmed the 1st Armoured Brigade and stood up a new rapid-intervention formation, the Lightning Combined Arms Tactical Group, specifically to counter jihadist infiltration from Burkina Faso and Mali.

Artillery, mortars and rocket launchers

Côte d’Ivoire’s tube and rocket artillery is thin and almost entirely inherited rather than recently purchased. Global Firepower’s 2026 index records zero self-propelled artillery, four towed howitzers (two at readiness) and six multiple rocket launchers (three at readiness) — figures broadly consistent with open-source equipment trackers, which is one of the few areas where independent sourcing converges.

Air defence and anti-tank weapons

Côte d’Ivoire has no medium- or long-range ground-based air defence system of any kind — only a handful of towed anti-aircraft guns and shoulder-fired missiles, mounted in some cases on Toyota Land Cruiser 79 pickups for mobility rather than fixed-site defence. No confirmed dedicated anti-tank guided missile has been documented in open sources; a tank destroyer “7+” category appears on some aggregated equipment lists but without naming a specific system, and it most likely refers to the VN-22B listed above rather than a separate ATGM. Small arms are a mixed French-, Soviet- and NATO-pattern inventory (FAMAS F1, AKM, AK-74, H&K G3, Type 56) standardised across the force and summarised here as a single line rather than broken out system by system.

How the arsenal was built

The Ivorian Army’s equipment has moved through three distinct phases. The first is the long French and Soviet-era legacy that goes back to independence and the Cold War: Panhard AML-60/90 and ERC-90 Sagaie reconnaissance cars, VAB and Panhard M3 troop carriers and ACMAT Bastion APCs from France; BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, BTR-70/80 APCs, BM-21 Grad rocket launchers and Strela-2 MANPADS inherited from Soviet-pattern supply lines. A single 2018 batch of Belarusian-modernised BTR-70MB “Kaiman” vehicles is the only confirmed update to that Soviet-origin layer in the past decade.

The second phase is counter-terrorism-driven diversification, which began in earnest around 2022 as attacks by jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State spread south from Mali and Burkina Faso into Côte d’Ivoire’s northern border regions. A June 2020 raid on a military outpost at Kafolo, which killed 14 soldiers, is widely cited in regional reporting as the turning point that pushed Abidjan toward buying mine-protected and IED-resistant vehicles at scale rather than relying on legacy wheeled armour. South Africa’s DCD Springbuck and Husky, the UAE’s IAG Jaws and Streit Shrek, and the US-brokered Puma M36 (manufactured in South Africa by OTT Technologies, and originally built for Niger before being rerouted to Abidjan after Niamey’s 2024 break with Washington) all arrived inside this window, alongside Türkiye’s Otokar Cobra II, in service since 2021-2022 and the most consistently documented single MRAP type in the fleet.

The third and most recent phase is a shift toward Chinese combat vehicles specifically, rather than protected mobility in general. NORINCO’s VN-22B wheeled fire-support vehicle and WZ-551 APC were both unveiled at the 7 August 2024 independence day parade, alongside at least 18 VP11 MRAPs fielded by a newly formed rapid-intervention unit, the Lightning Combined Arms Tactical Group. This mirrors the broader Sub-Saharan pattern SIPRI documents for 2021-2025, in which China has become the region’s single largest arms supplier by volume. In December 2025, Defence Minister Téné Birahima Ouattara announced a draft military programming law for 2026-2030, citing “greater” and more uncertain security challenges ahead and naming sub-regional terrorism, organised crime, illegal gold mining and maritime piracy as the threats it is designed to address; the bill had not been passed into law as of this writing, and its budget and equipment line items have not been published.

Turkish systems in the Ivorian Army

Türkiye’s confirmed footprint in the Ivorian Army is the Otokar Cobra II MRAP, in service since 2021-2022 and shown with at least 20 vehicles at the 2022 parade, armed with 12.7mm heavy machine guns and in some cases fitted with electronic jammers against remote-detonated IEDs; Türkiye itself reported 26 armoured personnel carrier exports to Côte d’Ivoire to the UN Register of Conventional Arms for 2021. Nurol Makina’s Ilgaz-II has also been reported in earlier Ivorian procurement, though with no disclosed fleet size, and a newly introduced Ural 4×4 has been reported in Gendarmerie rather than Army service — a National Gendarmerie fleet, not the Army’s, a distinction the same as the one DefenceMENA has documented between Senegal’s Army-held Otokar Cobra IIs and its Gendarmerie-held Nurol Ejder Yalçın/Toma fleet. The broader pattern of African forces turning to Turkish protected mobility for its combination of speed to delivery and lower unit cost is explored in Envanter Medya’s analysis of why African countries are choosing Turkish armoured vehicles.

How many tanks does Côte d’Ivoire have?

How many tanks does the Ivorian Army have in total?

None. Côte d’Ivoire fields no main battle tanks, and Global Firepower’s 2026 index ranks it last in the world on that metric. Its closest functional equivalent is China’s NORINCO VN-22B, a wheeled 105mm fire-support vehicle rather than a tracked tank, first paraded in quantity in 2024.

How many armoured vehicles does Côte d’Ivoire have?

Global Firepower’s 2026 index gives 1,328 armoured vehicles in stock, with 664 held at operational readiness. Counting only the specific systems confirmed in the tables above — VN-22B, WZ-551, VP11, Cobra II, Springbuck, Puma M36 and the legacy French and Soviet-pattern fleet — open-source reporting supports a total in the low hundreds of named, countable vehicles; the gap between that figure and Global Firepower’s total reflects unnamed legacy stock, light tactical vehicles and the inherent limits of an index that does not itemise its sources country by country.

Does Côte d’Ivoire have Chinese military vehicles?

Yes. NORINCO’s VN-22B wheeled fire-support vehicle, WZ-551 armoured personnel carrier and VP11 MRAP were all shown in quantity at the 7 August 2024 independence day parade and remain in Army service, making China the single largest supplier of new combat vehicles to the Ivorian Army since 2023.

What is the newest equipment in the Ivorian Army?

The most recent confirmed delivery is the European Union’s 40-vehicle donation of troop carriers, pickups and recovery trucks on 3 February 2026. The most recent combat-vehicle deliveries are NORINCO’s VN-22B, WZ-551 and VP11, all unveiled at the August 2024 parade, with a further unspecified VN-22B delivery reported separately by Army Recognition.

Does Côte d’Ivoire’s Army operate drones?

Yes, though as a separate programme from its ground-vehicle fleet: Côte d’Ivoire confirmed two Wing Loong II (GJ-2) armed drones in 2026, under a contract with China’s CATIC signed in June 2024. DefenceMENA covers that acquisition in full in Why Did Côte d’Ivoire Buy the Wing Loong II?

How Côte d’Ivoire compares

A full Côte d’Ivoire military profile, covering all services together with personnel, budget and regional ranking, has not yet been published separately on DefenceMENA. For comparable West African Army inventories built the same way, see DefenceMENA’s Senegalese Army Weapons and Equipment List and Ghana Army Weapons and Equipment List. Côte d’Ivoire’s shift toward Chinese wheeled armour closely tracks a pattern already visible in Why Did Burkina Faso Buy Chinese Armoured Vehicles? and in DefenceMENA’s survey of Which African Countries Operate NORINCO VN-Series Armoured Vehicles.

A note on the numbers

Côte d’Ivoire does not publish an itemised, official equipment return, so quantities above are drawn from parade reporting (Jane’s, Army Recognition), Military Africa’s August 2025 land-forces review (itself citing SIPRI delivery data for the Springbuck and Puma M36), Ecofin Agency’s reporting on the February 2026 EU donation, and open-source equipment trackers that are not independently audited and are marked Estimated throughout. The parade-count figures for the VN-22B, WZ-551, VP11 and Cobra II have reasonably direct sourcing to specific dated events and are presented as confirmed minimums — actual fleet sizes are very likely higher, since parades typically display only a portion of a unit’s full strength. Global Firepower’s index is used only for the aggregate stock/readiness figures (armoured vehicles, towed artillery, MLRS) that open-source trackers do not independently cover, and is flagged in-line as an unofficial index rather than a primary source; its separate budget figure for Côte d’Ivoire ($18.2 million) is inconsistent with the roughly $2 billion in 2025 security-sector spending reported by Military Africa and has not been used in this article. The “tank destroyer (7+)” category on some aggregated lists most likely refers to the VN-22B rather than a separate system, but this has not been independently confirmed. This page was published on 4 November 2026 and will be updated as deliveries are confirmed.

Sources

• Jane’s, Ivorian military parades new equipment
• Jane’s, Côte d’Ivoire unveils new equipment during military parade
• Army Recognition, Côte d’Ivoire Armed Forces unveil new Chinese armored vehicles at independence day parade
• Military Africa, Ivory Coast bolsters land forces with armored vehicles to counter threats
• Military Africa, Ivory Coast boosts its military with Chinese VN22B wheeled armored assault vehicles
• Militarnyi, The United States will provide 12 M36 PUMA armored vehicles to Côte d’Ivoire
• Ecofin Agency, Côte d’Ivoire receives 40 EU-donated vehicles to support counter-terror operations
• AIP, Côte d’Ivoire: le ministre de la Défense annonce une loi de programmation militaire 2026-2030
• Global Firepower, Ivory Coast military strength (2026 index)
• SIPRI, Trends in International Arms Transfers 2025 (March 2026)