News From Around the Web

Here are some articles from the past week or so that we didn’t think warranted being shared as individual posts.

IHS Jane’s – Israel’s Engineering Namers in first exercise

Israel’s new Engineering Namer armoured vehicles have completed their first combat drill, the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced on 2 June.  Held in the Golan Heights, the drill was the first time the engineering variant of the Namer armoured personnel carrier (APC) has taken part in a platoon-level Combat Engineering Battalion exercise.  The vehicles crossed steep anti-tank ditches and assembled a bridge for other vehicles to cross after them.

IHS Jane’s – Slovakia unveils 8×8 Corsac infantry fighting vehicle

Slovakia’s MSM Group has unveiled a new air-transportable 8×8 wheeled infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) prototype called the Corsac, which is based on the General Dynamics European Land System (GDELS) Steyr Pandur II armoured personnel carrier.  Developed by a team lead by MSM Group with partners including EVPU, Konstrukta Defence, and GDELS-Steyr, the Corsac is designed to meet the requirements of the Slovak Armed Forces and is fitted with the Turra 30 remotely-operated turret.

IHS Jane’s – Brazil receives surplus US armored vehicles

The Brazilian Army has formally received 50 tracked armoured vehicles from the US Department of Defense through the Excess Defense Articles (EDA) programme.  The fleet includes 12 M113A2 armoured personnel carriers (APCs), 34 M577A2 command post vehicles, and four M88A1 recovery vehicles.  These vehicles, all formerly fielded by the US Army, are to soon be moved from Anniston Army Depot in Alabama and Sierra Army Depot in California to New York, and then shipped by sea to Paranaguá in Brazil by US firm Tigers Global Logistics, the Brazilian Army told IHS Jane’s on 2 June

Bangkok Post – Tank order latest push for closer China ties

Two years since it took office, the military regime has continued to strengthen ties with China, especially through closer military cooperation. The push for closer ties as guided by the regime’s “big brother”, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwon, is signified via the arms purchase that covers 28 main battle tanks, the Model VT4, worth US$4.9 million (178 million baht). There is a plan to buy more for three battalions.

The National Interest – Inside the US Army’s Lethal New M1A2 SEP v.3 Abrams Main Battle Tank

General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) will start to deliver the first production M1A2 SEP v.3 Abrams to the U.S. Army starting in 2017. Out of a total of nine prototypes built, the company has delivered seven prototype tanks for field-testing at the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona and the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. “Testing commenced in Jan. 2015 and ends in Mar. FY2020,” said Donald Kotchman, General Dynamics Land Systems’ vice president for tracked combat vehicles in a statement to The National Interest. “Prototypes are currently in reliability test and performing well.”

Russia Beyond the Headlines – Soviet tanks in WWII: Correcting the errors of the first 2 years

Following the German invasion of June 1941 it took a long time for the USSR to recover from the miscalculations made in the pre-war years, and it cost the country vast losses in infantry and materiel. But by the third year of the war many of the errors had been fixed, and the Red Army had got rid of its massive unwieldy machines, leaving it with a 100-percent modern mechanized force.  But while the tank divisions could now boast better motorization and better-trained crews, problems still remained, the most important of which concerned tactics for using the armored forces. Here the Soviet generals still had a lot to learn.

NBC News – Jelly Belly Family Sued After Man Accidentally Crushed by WWII-Era Tank

The family of a man crushed to death by a World War II-era tank is suing the Jelly Belly chairman and the tank driver over the accident last summer on the candy maker’s California estate.  The lawsuit, filed last week in California Superior Court, claims negligence and wrongful death after Kevin Wright, a 54-year-old contractor, was run over on Aug. 22.  Wright, who was hired to help maintain the family’s tank collection, was asked to hop on the vintage 1944 M5 tank owned by Jelly Belly chairman Herman Rowland Sr., the complaint says.