It’s time to catch up with some of the recent posts over at the Below the Turret Ring blog. We have enjoyed following this blog over the past few months, the blog author does a really nice job describing some of the newest developments in armored fighting vehicles. We decided that rather than waiting to include these in the next installment of “AFV News from around the Net”, we would give them their own post. Click on the headline to go to Below the Turret Ring and read the full post.
The Hamza multi-role combat vehicle
The privately-owned Pakistani company Blitzkrieg Defense Solutions – and yes, that is the actual name – has developed a new 8×8 wheeled vehicle. Supposedly it is the first 8×8 vehicle developed in Pakistan. The new vehicle is known under the name “Hamza” and was officially presented at the International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS) in 2016. It should not be confused with the Al-Hamza, a local version of the M113 fitted with a 25 mm gun in a one-man-turret.Chile to upgrade Leopard 2 tanks
According to the Mönch Publishing Group, Chile is said to be looking for an upgrade of the Leopard 2A4 main battle tank (MBT) since 2013. Chile is operating the Leopard 2A4 since 2007, after purchasing an initial batch of 128 tanks for less than €1 million a piece – this low price is understood to be the result of political ties and separate contracts for refurbishment. Later the number of tanks has been increased to 140 and then to 172. The MBTs were modified to the Leopard 2A4CHL standard, which has a modified powerpack.
Challenger 2 LEP bidders downselected; tank to get new turret and new gun?
Two bidders for the life extension programme (LEP) of the British Challenger 2 main battle tank (MBT) have been shortlisted by the UK ministry of defence (MoD). The shortlisted companies will be contracted in the next few weeks for the production of two prototypes worth €25.8 million each. After a 24 month long assessment phase, the final production contract will be made with one of the downselected contenders. In case of unforseen issues, a further €7.8 million can be allocated by the British MoD. Originally the contracts were expected to be signed in October, but the project was apparently delayed, so that currently contracts are expected to be signed in December of 2016. The Challenger 2 LEP is part of the Armour (MBT) 2025 project, which is meant to ensure the Challenger 2 remaining competitive in the timeframe from 2025 to 2035.
SidePRO-RPG armor
The Swiss company RUAG is offering a wider array of add-on armor types for enhancing the protection of older combat vehicles. It offers three main families of protection products: under the SidePRO brand, armor protection systems for protection the vertical aspects of a vehicle (so the front, sides and rear) are offered, while the RoofPRO brand includes protection systems for the vehicle roof. Lastly the MinePRO brand contains protection solutions for wheeled and tracked vehicles against IEDs, anti-personnel and anti-tank mines.
. Written by Kenneth Estes, this volume looks at two of the more unusual vehicles adopted by the US Military during the cold war, the M50 Ontos and the M56 Scorpion. This book follows the same format as others in the series, being a softcover book of 48 pages. As far as we know, this is the first book devoted exclusively to these two vehicles. Ken Estes is the author of what can be fairly described as the most authoritative book on the history of Marine Corps Armor history, 
.
On July 20th, 1941, the Red Army adopted the T-60 small tank into service. This was a necessary measure, as incredible losses of tanks in the first month of the Great Patriotic War had to be replenished, and mass production of the T-50 wasn’t getting off the ground. Even if the goal of producing 10,000 tanks in 1941 was not met, large amounts of T-60 tanks entered service in October, playing an important part in the defeat of the Germans at Moscow. At the same time, an idea to modernize the T-60 was tossed around as early August, resulting in a heavier tank that was indexed T-70. What is the history of this tank?
The fighting in July-August of 1939 near the Khalkin-Gol river was the Red Army’s first real large engagement of the 1930s. The battle at Lake Hasan in 1938 was also fierce, but it was not comparable to Khalkin-Gol. Khalkin-Gol was also the first real test of strength for the Japanese Imperial Army as they, especially their tank units, had yet to face an enemy like the Red Army. During the fighting, some amount of Japanese armoured vehicles were captured by the Red Army. One of them was a Ha-Go tank from the 4th Tank Regiment, which was later closely studied in the USSR. What impression did Soviet engineers get from the Ha-Go?
On November 19th, 1928, an unusual vehicle came out of Fort Meade in Maryland. It looked more like a race car than what it really was: a tank. The turret was absent, replaced with a Browning M1919A2 on a pintle mount. Another machinegun was installed in a sponson in the front of the hull. This was the Christie M.1928, an experimental vehicle built by John Walter Christie’s new company, the US Wheel Track Layer Corporation. Christie called his brainchild “M.1940”, implying that this was a design ahead of its time. The main feature of the tank was the independently sprung suspension, known as the Christie suspension today.
The late 1920s were a dark time for British tank building in general and the Vickers company in particular. Sir George Thomas Beckham, the company’s chief designer, died on May 9th, 1928. Order for new tanks began to decrease. New designs, the A1E1 Independent and A6 Medium Tank, were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Vickers received their first overseas order, selling a Medium Tank Mk.C to Japan. The next foreign sale was a Medium Tank Mk.D to Ireland, plus the Medium Tank Mk.II piqued the interest of some foreign buyers. This pushed the company, united with Sir W.G. Armstrong Whitworth & Company into Vickers-Armstrong Limited in 1927, to work on creating tanks purely for export. The result of this work was the Vickers Mk.E, a tank that cemented its creators and the Vickers company in world tankbuilding history.
The Swedish military waited for a long time to get respectable results out of their tank industry. Sweden began working on its own tank in the late 1920s, but it took almost 10 years to see satisfactory fruits of their labour. Thanks to the fact that the Germans were using Swedish industry as a test lab for their own experiments, Sweden gained rich tank building experience by the second half of the 1930s. The Lansdverk L-60, developed under German engineer Otto Merker, became the first Swedish tank available for export. The design of the tank became the base of two similar tanks, the Strv m/38 and Strv m/39 that were used by the Swedish army.
The T-54, a logical improvement on the T-44, was designed at factory #183 in Nizhniy Tagil (the future UralVagonZavod), and was the main tank of the first post-war decade. The first T-54 prototypes were created during WWII, in late 1944 and early 1945. The tank was accepted into service in 1946, and production began that same year. The T-54 was ahead of other tanks in its class in all parameters. The design was so progressive that the Soviet Army had no need to develop a replacement for over a decade. This success can be largely explained by the fact that Nizhniy Tagil was home to a unique group of engineers who created the legendary T-34 during the war and the first few post-war years. They were evacuated along with factory #183 from Kharkov and continued working in the Urals.
The American tank building school began with building tanks based on foreign designs. For example, the first real success of American builders was based on the Renault FT. The reworked version of the tank, M1916 6-t Light Tank, became the main vehicle for American tank units for fifteen years. A foreign design was also the base of the first American medium tank accepted for service: the Medium Tank T1E1. American cooperation with Britain was even closer than with the French, resulting in the Mark VIII International heavy tank: a tank that was designed in Britain, equipped with an American engine, and built in the United States. Of course, analogous tanks were also designed in the US, but it was the designs with foreign roots that became the catalyst for the development of American heavyweight tanks.
The most numerous tank in French service in 1940, the Renault R 35, was naturally the most numerous tank among the Wehrmacht’s trophies. Many tanks fell into German hands either completely intact or damaged so superficially that they could quickly be repaired. In total, the Germans captured 800-840 Renault R 35 tanks, an impressive number, but the name change to Panzerkampfwagen 35R 731(f) didn’t add anything to the tank’s qualities. The tank’s career with its new masters was long, but complicated: it served as an SPG, an engineering vehicle, a tractor, and a mobile crane. The first use of the Panzerkampfwagen 35R 731(f) in combat was still during the summer campaign of 1940. Having quickly mastered their trophies, the Germans sent them into battle against their former masters.
French light tank development after WWI opted to continue modernizing the Renault FT. After long experiments that resulted in the Renault NC, infantry command decided to develop a tank that weighed 12 tons. This project resulted in the 14 ton Renault D1, whose size and mass was closer to a medium tank. The D1 was pursued by technical problems, and it was not very numerous: compared to the 3,500 Renault FTs that it was supposed to replace, 160 of these tanks were a drop in the sea. French commanders thought long and hard, and the result was the new Renault R 35 tank which played an important role in the defeat of France in the summer of 1940.
The Wehrmacht’s pincer closed around Vyazma on October 7th, 1941. Soldiers of the West and Reserve Fronts, about 600,000 men, were trapped in side. On the next day, Commander-in-Chief I. Stalin sent a telegram to Lieutenant-General M. Lukin, the commander of the surrounded forces. It began with the words “If you don’t break through, I will have nothing and no one to defend Moscow. I repeat: nothing and no one!” The chief wasn’t joking. A new line of defense had to be built between the Germans and Moscow after the West and Reserve Fronts fell. This cost time, time that the enemy wasn’t about to donate. Precious days and hours were won in fierce battles. The battle for the Maloyaroslavl fortified region (37th UR) was one of them.
When one thinks of the German blitzkrieg and its weapons, one first thinks of tanks and airplanes. Meanwhile, the 3.7 cm Pak anti-tank gun could very well be one of the symbols of the early war. First used with great success in Spain, forcing its enemies to develop tanks with shell-proof armour, it ended up as a useless “doorknocker” against T-34 and KV tanks. What is the history of this little cannon? Soon after tanks appeared on the fields of WWI, the issue of fighting against them was raised. Germany was particularly sensitive to its rapid resolution, and several anti-tank measures were quickly developed, which were inherited by the post-war Reichswehr. In the mid 1920s, it was obvious that these measures were obsolete, and it was necessary to design a new gun that could fight against tanks.
Polish armoured forces were pitted against the Panzerwaffe, one of the main instruments of German strategy. Even though battles in September of 1939 showed that the light 7TP tanks could resist German tanks on a technical level, but the numerical difference left no chances for Poland. It was already clear during WWI that wars of the 20th century will be “wars of the motor”, both in the air and on the ground. However, this did not mean that all nations hurried to fill their arsenals with aeroplanes and tanks. Losing nations were prohibited from having them by peace treaties.
As the mild-mannered Private Godfrey in the hit TV show and film Dad’s Army, actor William Arnold Ridley won a place in the nation’s hearts. He actually served in the Home Guard for real in the Second World War after being evacuated from Dunkirk as the Germans pushed the British back across the Channel in May 1940. But even before that time, Ridley has seen action in the trenches during the First World War with the Somerset Light Infantry.
IRBIL, Iraq — As they battle to hold on to the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, Islamic State militants have added a new weapon to their arsenal: tanks made of wood. The life-size replicas are intended to confuse air support from the U.S.-led coalition backing the Iraqi ground offensive for the city, commanders said. Although they may look far from realistic when viewed from close quarters, it’s harder to tell what they are made of from the sky. Iraqi forces discovered a building used to manufacture the decoys when they retook the village of Sada, north of Mosul, last week. In addition to three fake tanks, they found five wooden Humvees.
WARSAW, Poland — Romanian Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos has announced that the country’s Defence Ministry is planning to award a contract for the delivery of armored personnel carriers (APC) to Germany’s Rheinmetall Defence. The company is to team up with a state-run Romanian manufacturer and launch a plant in Romania that will produce the APCs. “There will be a partnership, a Romanian-German joint venture, which will allow Rheinmetall to obtain the contract from the Ministry of Defence and build an armored personnel carrier that will be first supplied to the Romanian military,” Ciolos told local broadcaster Europa FM in an Nov. 17 interview.
The Brazilian Army’s Logistics Command (CoLog) will award Iveco Latin America a contract for 1,580 serial production VBTP-MR Guarani 6×6 amphibious armored vehicles on 22 November, the service’s Projects Management Office told IHS Jane’s . The fleet, to be delivered from 2016-35, will comprise troop transport, communications, command post, ambulance, and 120 mm mortar vehicles. CoLog is buying the platforms in batches of 723, 547, 275, and 35 vehicles, as well as associated equipment and services totalling BRL5.9 billion (USD1.76 billion). Several will be armed with manned protected weapon mounts and ARES Aeroespacial & Defesa’s REMAX and UT-30BR remote weapon stations.
Morocco has taken delivery of a consignment of 155 mm M109A5 self-propelled howitzers, local media reported on 21 November. The reports were accompanied by photographs showing at least 12 M109s that had been unloaded at Casablanca’s port. The US Excess Defense Articles database shows that Morocco has requested 70 surplus M109A5 howitzers. Morocco is already an M109 user, having imported 42 M109A2 howitzers from Germany in 2008, as well as three M109A3s and a single M109A4 from the United States in 2013, according to the UN Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA) information.
Russia is reportedly preparing to upgrade its Soviet-era T-80 battle tanks in order to bring them back into service. Up to 3,000 of the tanks, which entered service in 1976, will be updated to bring their combat power closer to the current T-90 model. “At present, the preparative works to start the modernisation of the first T-80BV MBTs are at a final stage,” a defence industry source told military magazine Jane’s Defence Weekly. The “overhaul and modernisation” of the tanks “will be launched next year” the source added. They said the number of tanks to be upgraded will be determined by the military.
The Pakistani government has signed an agreement with Ukraine for the supply of 200 engines to equip the country’s highly anticipated next-generation main battle tank (MBT), which is commonly referred to as the Al Khalid-Improved (I) MBT, according to Pakistani defence officials. The deal was signed on 23 November during the International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS), which is held every two years in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi. While the exact type of engine was not revealed, a senior official of Pakistan’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) told IHS Jane’s that it will be larger than the Ukrainian 6TD-2 engine generating a maximum 1,200 bhp that powers the 420 Al Khalid MBTs operated by the Pakistan Army’s Armoured Corps.
A 20-year old IDF soldier was killed when his tank overturned during an exercise on the Golan Heights shortly after midnight Wednesday, the IDF announced on Thursday morning. The accident victim was Sgt. Ido Ben- Ari from Ramat Sharon, a tank commander in the 9th Battalion of the Armored Corps’ 401 Brigade. He was posthumously promoted to staff-sergeant. Three other soldiers suffered minor injuries in the incident and were discharged from Rambam Medical Center in Haifa after receiving medical treatment. Ben-Ari’s tank brigade was taking part in a wide-scale training exercise along with the Givati Brigade and its engineering forces when the accident occurred at around 1 a.m. on Mount Shifon on the northern Golan Heights.
CUTS being planned by army chiefs would see the country’s defence force lose a third of its frontline tanks, leaving it with fewer than Serbia. The plan, expected to be revealed in the coming months, would see one of the army’s three tank regiments have all of its 56 Challenger 2s replaced with Ajax fighting vehicles. If the plan was sanctioned it would leave the country with just 40 more tanks than neutral Switzerland. The move would see the UK’s tanks drop from 227 to 170, with 112 on frontline duty while the rest would be used for training in the UK and Canada.
Several former IDF commander have come out against a bill proposal that would result in the IDF integrating women in combat roles that are currently not open to them. MK Merav Michaeli, a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, introduced the legislation that would require the IDF to design a model to fill personnel needs regardless of gender. “What the American armed forces are doing now is what the IDF was recommended to do ten years ago,” said Michaeli. “Every day that goes by without exhausting human resources is a waste of quality manpower and motivation. Instead of giving female soldiers with high motivation every opportunity, the IDF is dragging its feet because of prejudice and pressure from rabbis.”
Mainland agents tipped off Hong Kong customs about nine Singaporean military vehicles after the boat carrying them docked in the mainland port of Xiamen, prompting their seizure and impounding in the city last Wednesday, a report has claimed. Before the latest twist in the diplomatic row, Singapore stepped up efforts to recover the armoured vehicles, with a delegation arriving in Hong Kong on Friday night to expedite their release and quell the potential political fallout. Sources said Singapore would need to contact the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get the vehicles back, adding that the discovery had been reported to Beijing already and the decision on whether to release them was no longer in Hong Kong hands.
MANBIJ, Syria (Kurdistan24) – The Kurdish-led military command in the northern Syrian town of Manbij on Thursday announced they destroyed four Turkish army tanks in the western countryside of the township. In a statement, the Manbij Military Council (MMC), a Syrian Arab-Kurdish coalition allied to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said the Turkish army airstrikes and shelling had changed the course of their battle against the Islamic State (IS) since last week. The MMC statement said the Turkish airstrikes were supposed to be against IS in al-Bab town in northern Syria, but the Turkish warplanes and artillery were targeting the liberated areas around Manbij. “Our forces [MMC] blew up four Turkish tanks around the village of Sheikh Naser, west of Manbij,” the statement said.
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