Here is a collection of some recent articles and videos concerning tanks and AFVs that are circulating the internet. Click on the headline to read the full article.
DefenseNews.com – Turkey Mulling Upgrade to Leopard 2s, M60s
ANKARA—Turkey’s military and procurement officials are mulling the options of upgrading hundreds of German-made Leopard 2 and U.S.-made M60 main battle tanks.
One senior procurement official familiar with the program said that about 100 Leopard 2s and 300 M60s would go through an upgrade program. Industry sources say such upgrades would cost Ankara anywhere between $2 million to $3 million per tank. A bunch of 300 to 400 tank upgrades will have a total cost of more than $1 billion. They say Turkey’s defense procurement agency, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM in its Turkish acronym) would most likely award the Leopard 2 upgrade contract to the German Rheinmetall’s three-partner, Turkey-based venture, RBSS. Rheinmetall’s partners are the Turkish armored vehicles manufacturer BMC and the Malaysia-based Etika Strategi.
DefenseNews.com – Italy’s New Centauro II Tank Shown Off in Rome
ROME — Italy’s new tank, the Centauro II, was shown off at a military test range Wednesday, as the country’s Parliament continued to decide whether to fund the vehicle. Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff Lt. Gen. Danilo Errico and Leonardo CEO Mauro Moretti were among guests who gathered Oct. 19 at the Cecchignola Army range on the fringes of Rome to watch a prototype of the wheeled tank being put through its paces. The Army hopes to buy 150 of the vehicles, which is built by a joint venture between Leonardo and Italian truck-maker Iveco.
The Local.de – Two injured after army tank falls 50 metres in Alps
The 31-year-old was airlifted to hospital in Munich in a helicopter after the crash, police reported on Thursday. The 24-year-old driver of the tank was also lightly injured. The crash happened in the mountainous Tyrol region of Austria, where the soldiers were on exercise on Wednesday evening. The driver reportedly lost his way in thick fog and the tank rolled over several times as it fell down the hill. A recovery crane was brought in to the crash site, and only after it had recovered the tank could the two men be freed.
The Daily Telegraph – Army corporal shot dead after driving tank from Holsworthy to Harbour Bridge in 1986
SHOOT the deranged man driving the stolen tank or risk mass Sydney casualties. That was the strange dilemma facing police officer Ron Mason 30 years ago as he climbed on top of a stolen Army tank parked on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. “There is going to be substantial death — either to motorists or train passengers or even in the harbour — if I didn’t shoot him,” retired detective superintendent Ron Mason told The Daily Telegraph on the incident’s anniversary.
CantonRep.com – Tank comes to Clinton
CLINTON Forty-two tons of steel flew through the air Saturday as the Ohio Veterans’ Memorial Park took possession of its newest relic — an M60A1 tank. A crane gently placed the hulking tank onto a decorative rock garden a few paces from the park’s display of a 1963 Cobra AH-1F helicopter. A VFW post in Defiance donated the M60A1 “Patton” tank to the park. “It actually was going to be melted down for scrap because they had no place to put it,” said Ken Noon, president of the not-for-profit Ohio Veterans’ Memorial Park.
came out last month without us doing a book alert on it. This is a 328 page hardcover from Helion and Company authored by Roger Salmon.
Several news sources are reporting that the UK is seriously considering the purchase of 800 German-built Boxer 8×8 multi-role armored vehicle. The deal would be worth 3 billion Pounds, each vehicle costing 4 million Pounds apiece. Reports note that the British MoD are attempting to fast track this purchase by making it a single-source contract, effectively cutting out competitors such as the Patria of Finland, Nexter Systems of France and ST Kinetics from Singapore. The urgency of this purchase is said to be the result of fears of a further drop in the value of the British Pound due to the economic effects of the Brexit. The Boxer would replace the cold-war era FV430 series and the CVR(T) series. Attempts have been made to replace these vehicles several times in the past, resulting in failure due to budget cuts and internal disagreements about requirements. This new plan to purchase the Boxer also has critics. According to 
by Michael Green.
ROME — The Italian army is a step closer to acquiring new tanks and assault helicopters after plans for the purchases were submitted for parliamentary approval. On Oct. 11 the defense commission of the lower house of the Italian parliament began debating plans by the Italian military to buy the Centauro II tank and an updated version of its A-129 Mangusta helicopter. The Centauro II is a wheeled tank which boasts improvements on the Centauro tank already in service with the Italian army. The commission, which has until November 8 to offer an opinion on the purchases, was once just a rubber-stamping operation for military investments, but under 2012 legislation was given more influence over acquisition.
Declining defense budgets along with 15 years of battling terrorists and insurgents have left a more lightly armed Army with the prospect of facing columns of Russian tanks if war erupts in Europe. And even as Fort Carson troops train to be the first to fight if the nation heads to war overseas, politicians and pundits are debating whether the formations we’ll send are strong enough to be more than a speed bump for America’s potential enemies. “The short answer is, no, they are not a replacement for heavy forces for a fight in Europe,” said Steve Bucci, a defense expert for the right-leaning Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.
As a nation that produced exceptionally poor tanks during World War II, Japan during the postwar period had quite a reputation to overcome. Wartime tanks such as the Type 97 “Chi-Ha” were a decade or more behind the rest of the world during a period of exceptionally quick tank development. As Japan rebuilt industry and specialized in cars and trucks, it also built up a cottage tank industry to replace American M4A3E8 and M24 tanks donated to the Ground Self-Defense Force. The Type 61, Type 74, Type 90 and now the Type 10 tanks have all been credible designs more than capable of turning the tanks of Japan’s potential adversaries into smoldering scrap. Remarkably, each design bears little in common with previous versions.
TALLINN, Estonia, Oct. 11 (UPI) — An initial batch of CV9035 infantry fighting vehicles purchased by Estonia from the Netherlands have arrived in the Baltic nation. The 12 vehicles, together with an armored recovery vehicle, arrived by boat and were being transported to the 1st Infantry Brigade at Estonia’s Tapa Army Base. Estonia signed a contract with the Netherlands for the purchase of 44 used CV9035NL IFVs and six Leopard 1 tank-based support vehicles in late 2014 for 113 million euros. All the vehicles, which will be delivered by 2018, are to undergo maintenance and repairs before arriving in Estonia, the Estonian Ministry of Defense said.
The Army is fast-tracking an emerging technology for Abrams tanks designed to give combat vehicles an opportunity identify, track and destroy approaching enemy rocket-propelled grenades in a matter of milliseconds, service officials said. Called Active Protection Systems, or APS, the technology uses sensors and radar, computer processing, fire control technology and interceptors to find, target and knock down or intercept incoming enemy fire such as RPGs and Anti-Tank Guided Missiles, or ATGMs. Systems of this kind have been in development for many years, however the rapid technological progress of enemy tank rounds, missiles and RPGs is leading the Army to more rapidly test and develop APS for its fleet of Abrams tanks.
BAE Systems will be handing over the first of 29 Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicles (AMPV) to the US Army in December. As of early October, one vehicle has been completed with nine vehicles on the production line, the company announced Friday. These vehicles will be put through some 7,500 miles of contractor trials and 21,000 miles of US Army trials.
1A5 – The Ultimate Leopard 1. This Model Foto Focusreference books includes colour full-view and walkaround captioned photos of the last Leopard 1 introduced into the Bundeswehr.
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