News for all things related to Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles
All we know about this Israeli vehicle is that it some sort of proof of concept vehicle dating from the period of 1999-2003. Light tanks are not a category that the IDF has traditionally been all that excited about. (source)
Update: A google image search led us to this post from the For the Record blog which sources the photo to this Hebrew language book.
Here is part 2 of Nicholas “The Chieftain” Moran’s examination of the Sherman Firefly variant.
Here is a rather striking picture of a ruptured 125 mm gun. This photo recently appeared in a thread on the tank-net.com forum. No details were provided as to the exact cause of this rather dramatic gun barrel failure.
Another installment of AFV articles from various news sources. Click on the headline to go to the full article.
The U.S. Army boasts a motorpool stacked to the rafters with 6,000 M1 Abrams main battle tanks — more tanks than some countries have soldiers. Yet for some crazy reason, Congress keeps buying more. Actually, the reason isn’t totally crazy. The U.S. only has one factory left that’s totally dedicated to the production of main battle tanks — General Dynamics’ (NYSE:GD) factory in Lima, Ohio. Sporadic demand from tank-buyers, however, keeps this factory always on the edge of having to shut down operations — at which point the U.S. wouldn’t be able to build tanks if it suddenly needed to. (A shutdown would also cost jobs in an important Congressional district.)
U.S. tanks are now roughly on par with Russian tanks, according to a top general, and the American military doesn’t have the technology to recover its former advantage. “I would not say that we have the world class tank that we had for many, many years,” Lieutenant General John Murray said during a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing on modernizing the Army. “I’ll be the optimist and say that we’re at parity with a lot of different nations.”
Russian authorities have slapped a three-year suspended sentence on a Moscow man for trying to smuggle a World War II-era tank into neighboring Kazakhstan, state news agency Itar-Tass reports. The man—whose name federal authorities did not divulge—obtained a Soviet Т-34-85 circa from 1945, from a Latvian citizen at the bargain price of €20,000, but planned to sell it off to a buyer in Kazakhstan for more than 10 times that amount.
A thousand coffee table books and countless hours of popular history programs have described the Battle of Prokhorovka, part of the Third Reich’s 1943 Operation Citadel, as the largest tank battle in history. Near the city of Kursk on the Eastern Front, hundreds of Soviet tanks slammed into the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in an enormous conflagration of flesh and metal. Prokhorovka was certainly an important clash and one of the largest tank battles ever, but it might be time to retire its description as the biggest — a claim which has been seriously questioned in recent years by historians with access to Soviet archives opened since the end of the Cold War.
If you’ve seen the blockbuster movies The Longest Day (currently on Netflix) or Saving Private Ryan, a big part of the story is how infantry fought through the obstacles on Omaha Beach (the wisdom of sending two divisions into that meat-grinder can be debated at another time). But the lack of tank support wasn’t part of the plan. In fact, it was one hell of an instance where that notorious and unwelcome Murphy’s Law put in an appearance, costing the infantry some much-needed support. It would have been their secret weapon: the Dual-Drive, or DD, tank.
The PT-76 seems like a minor oddity of the Cold War — a Soviet amphibious light tank with thin armor and an unimpressive gun. Certainly it seemed bound for rough treatment on modern battlefields full of heavy weapons and heavier tanks. But the floating PT-76 chalked up a remarkable record, carrying knife-wielding Himalayan soldiers into battle, sinking gunboats on the Ganges Delta, dueling powerful U.S. Patton tanks in Vietnam, and launching amphibious surprise attacks on both sides of the same Middle Eastern war. The first article in this two-part series will look at the origin and characteristics of the PT-76, the nasty shock it gave U.S. forces in Vietnam, and the historic countermeasure used against it.
Nicholas “The Chieftain” Moran of World of Tanks takes a look at a WWII era “Firefly” tank.
Nicholas “The Chieftain” Moran of World of Tanks talks on camera about the history of Irish armored vehicles.
Iran has revealed to the public their new “Karrar” main battle tank. As can be expected, Iranian government sources have described the new vehicle in rather glowing terms, while releasing few details. According to Defense Blog.com, the Karrar appears to be an upgraded T-72S, modified with a new turret and improved armor and electronics. According to the Iranian Mehr News Agency, the new Karrar tank is “100 percent Iranian made” and is “superior to the Russian-made T-90MS in certain aspects.” Iran had been exploring the option of purchasing T-90 tanks from Russia, but says that their ability to produce the Karrar makes purchasing tanks from foreign countries unnecessary. As might be expected, Russian news source Sputnik International was quite to jump on the Iranian comparison to the T-90, declaring that “Iran’s newest tank is no match to Russia’s T-90” Meanwhile, Western media sources have chimed in, including articles in the National Interest and Popular Mechanics.
Probably the best description currently available online is from the blog Under the Turret Ring in their March 12 post Production version of the Karrar MBT unveiled (updated). As usual, this blog provides a rather sober and well-informed analysis of the topic. Also worth checking out is the thread on the Karrar over at Sturgeon’s House forum.
News articles on the Karrar (listed by country):
Iran – Mehr News Agency: Iran unveils highly-advanced Karrar Tank
Iran – PressTV: Iran unveils world-class indigenous tank
Russia – Sputnik International: Despite Striking Resemblance Iran’s Newest Tank is no Match to Russia’s T-90
USA – The National Interest: Iran’s ‘New’ Karrar Tank: “One of the Most Advanced Tanks in the World”?
USA – Popular Mechanics: Iran’s New Tank Is a Whole Lot of Meh
USA – Froxtrot Alpha: Iran’s New Tank Makes Lofty Claims It Hasn’t Backed Up
The blog Below the Turret Ring has written a new post taking a look at some of the latest upgrade projects for the Leopard 2 MBT.
In April 2015 the German Army announced it’s plans to increase the operational Leopard 2 fleet by 103 tanks. Since then not a lot has happened, as revealed in official documents and in newspaper articles from the Februrary of 2017. At least some of the tanks are currently owned by the German defence industry, so the government has to buy them back – but no contract has been signed within nearly two years of planning. The Leopard 2A4 main battle tank (MBT) is an improved version from the mid/late 1980s of the original Leopard 2 tank. By modern standards it has outdated armor, a short gun with inferior armor penetration and range, while lacking of modern electronics, optronics and relying on the more dangerous hydraulic systems instead of using electric drives.
Leopard 2 tanks in long-term storage
Original reports from last year expected 84 of the new tanks to be upgraded to the Leopard 2A7 or the improved Leopard 2A7V configuration. The costs for buying and upgrading the tanks are expected to be about 760 million Euros, the contract might be signed before summer of 2017; if not the whole program might be delayed by another year due to the German elections in September 2017. The reason for the current delays is a disagreement between the two companies Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) and Rheinmetall. Current workshare plans see about a third of the work (and the money) going to Rheinmetall, but the company demands more. Rheinmetall acquired the military division of Maschiennebau Kiel (MaK) in 1990, which was responsible for manufacturing 45% of all German Leopard 2 tanks. Rheinmetall is also a major subcontractor for the main armament, delivering the L/55 smoothbore gun for the tank.
It’s a double dose of Steven Zaloga today for those that collect Osprey Books titles. In addition to his new Duel book on the BT-7 and Pz 38, today also saw the release of his new title in the New Vanguard Series: Early US Armor: Tanks 1916–40 (New Vanguard)
Publisher’s Description:
Between the two world wars, the United States contributed significantly to the evolution of the tank, a weapon invented by the British and the French seeking to break through the lines of German trenches. From the employment of the French Renault FT and British Mark V during their involvement in World War I, the United States branched out with its own indigenous designs, including the M1 Cavalry Car and the M2 Light and Medium tanks, the precursors to the Stuart and Grant tanks of World War II. Tank designers in this period faced unique challenges, and the story of early American armor is littered with failures among the successes.
Featuring previously unpublished photos and fully illustrated throughout, Early American Armor (1): Tanks 1916–40 is essential reading for anyone interested in American armor, or in the development of tank design.
Early US Armor: Tanks 1916–40 is available from Amazon here.
Osprey books has released a new entry in the Duel Series of softcover books. Panzer 38(t) vs BT-7: Barbarossa 1941 (Duel)
Publisher’s Description:
The tank battles in the Soviet Union during the summer of 1941 were the largest in World War II, exceeding even the more famous Prokhorovka encounter during the Kursk campaign. Indeed, they were the largest tank battles ever fought.
This book examines two evenly matched competitors in this conflict, the German Panzer 38(t) and the Soviet BT-7. Both were of similar size, armed with guns of comparable firepower, and had foreign roots–the Panzer 38(t) was a Czechoslovak design and the BT-7 was an evolution of the American Christie tank. With full-color artwork and archive and present-day photography, this absorbing study assesses the strengths and limitations of these two types against the wider background of armored doctrine in the opening phases of Operation Barbarossa.
Panzer 38(t) vs BT-7: Barbarossa 1941 is available from Amazon here.
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