News for all things related to Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles
This picture comes from an article on the recent Worthington Challenge 2016 in Gagetown New Brunswick. This event featured a variety of skills tests, including direct-fire gunnery of Leopoard 2 MBT’s. More photos and details of the event are available from the Ottawa Citizen.
BAE systems is showcasing a next-generation Bradley IFV demonstrator at AUSA 2016. According to IHS Jane’s 360:
The platform takes the hull structure from the BAE Systems’ Armoured Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) programme and integrates many legacy Bradley components as well as some new designs, Deepak Bazaz, BAE Systems’ director of artillery and Bradley programmes, told reporters on 3 October at the Association of the US Army (AUSA) annual symposium.
The idea is to bridge a gap between engineering change proposals (ECPs) that are underway to upgrade the Bradley fleet, to a conceptual future fighting vehicle (FFV) that the army hopes could eventually replace the fleet in the 2030s or beyond.
Video interview about AMPV Program and Future Bradley from Defense & Aerospace Report:
Here are a couple pictures, taken from tanknet.com.
Yesterday we did a quick post on the Griffin “technology demonstrator” on display by General Dynamics Land Systems at AUSA 2016. More information on this particular vehicle has become available, including an article from Jane’s IHS and a video from Breaking Defense.
Jane’s IHS 360 – AUSA 2016: GDLS unveils demonstrator for new army light tank
For the next two days, the 2016 AUSA exposition is taking place in Washington DC. This is the largest expo of it’s type in North America. We expect to see a number of news articles and photos about the new AFV technology displayed at the event over the course of this week. One of the more interesting items at AUSA 2016 is the Griffin Technology Demonstrator on display at the General Dynamics Land Systems booth. Over at the blog Below the Turret Ring, they have posted some photos and a description of the vehicle. You can read their entire article here.
A new WWII tanker memoir is scheduled for release on October 4, 2016 according to Amazon. Tank Action: An Armoured Troop Commander’s War 1944-45 by David Render (2016-06-16)
Publisher’s Description:
In 1944 the average life expectancy of a newly commissioned tank troop officer on the frontline in Normandy was estimated as being less than two weeks. David Render was a nineteen year-old second lieutenant fresh from Sandhurst when he was sent to France to join a veteran armoured unit that had already spent years fighting with the Desert Rats in North Africa. Joining the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry five days after the D-Day landings, the combat-hardened men he was sent to command did not expect him to last long. However, in the following weeks of ferocious fighting in Normandy, in which more than 90 per cent of his fellow tank commanders became casualties, his ability to emerge unscathed from countless combat engagements defied expectations and earned him his squadron’s nickname of the ‘Inevitable Mr Render’.
In Tank Action David Render tells his remarkable story, spanning every major episode of the last year of the Second World War in Western Europe, from the D-Day landings to the fall of Germany. Ultimately it is a story of survival, friendship and measuring up to the expectations of the men he commanded.
Today’s POTD comes from a comment in a post from the Facebook page WWII Tanks/armored cars. This image shows the hull of a Panther tank converted into a crane. We assume this tank was converted from one of the Panther tanks that the French army operated for a few years in the late 1940’s.
Here is another installment of AFV news from around the web. Click on the title to go to the full article.
At the Land Forces conference in Adelaide, Australia, earlier this month, a development in military tech was presented that brings auto-camouflaging tanks a step closer to reality. To find out more about the technology behind the idea, we asked Peter Murphy from the University of South Australia, who was involved in the research, a single question as part of our regular One Big Question series: What goes into making a color-changing military tank? The concept of color-changing tanks, able to change their camouflage pattern in real time in the battlefield to adapt to changing surroundings, is one of the holy grails of modern military deception. Even in the modern theatre of war, preventing initial detection by the human eye is the primary goal in deceiving the enemy.
ANKARA — In 2008, a privately owned Turkish armored vehicles producer, Otokar, signed a $500 million contract with Turkey’s procurement office, the Undersecretariat for Defence Industries (SSM) for the development of four prototypes that would become the country’s first indigenous, new-generation main battle tank. Both procurement officials and the industry viewed Otokar as the “natural contractor” for the serial production order that would follow the development deal. But things have taken a different turn since then.
Ankara’s tanks have been in the news a lot this year, whether prowling the streets of the Turkish capital in a failed coup attempt, or taking missile fire from rebel fighters on the Syrian border. Recently, Turkish armor crossed over into Syria and drove the Islamic State terrorist group from its last holdings along the Turkish border — and also fought with U.S.-backed Kurdish rebels, creating a frustrating diplomatic quandary for the White House. It’s easy to see why Turkey’s tanks are so active. The country is facing one of its worst geopolitical crises in decades, and it also maintains an enormous tank force — more than 2,400 all told, greater than the tank forces of France, Germany and the United Kingdom combined.
Tank warfare is periodically declared obsolete in the face of the latest portable anti-tank weapons and the difficulty of transporting heavy vehicles to the battlefront. Just don’t tell that to Ukraine. The intervention of Russian tanks in August 2014 into Kiev’s conflict with separatists in Eastern Ukraine reversed what was looking like an eventual government victory into a disastrous route. In January 2015, an assault by over 30 Russian tanks defeated defending Ukrainian armor and brought an end to the months-long siege of Donetsk International Airport.
Zaslonava in Vitsebsk Region is home to the 19th Guards Mechanised Brigade of the Belarusian Army, and local people have sent photos and video to the Tut.By news portal showing how tanks drive over pavements and churn up the grassy areas between blocks of flats. “Military hardware rumbles past our houses constantly, even at night. It could be one tank, it could be a whole column,” pensioner Vasil Zhernosek told the site. “The route through the village is a short cut for them to get from one tank park to another, but what about us?” Above all, he says local people are worried about their children, as the tanks pass within 150m (about 500ft) of a school. A video from the village shows a tank driving over a set of car tyres near the school before heading off across an already-damaged expanse of grass.
China has a lot of tanks. Like, eight to nine thousand of them. Who else would bother to maintain such a ridiculous number? The United States. And Russia. (Note that such counts include vehicles in storage and reserve. The numbers for tanks in operational units are lower in every case). However, the majority of Beijing’s tanks are old designs, particularly Type 59 and 69 tanks more or less directly copied from the 50s-era Soviet T-54 tank. Such is their profligacy that I once had the pleasure of bumping into one in a children’s playground in Tianjin serving the needs of the (young) people.
Here are a few videos featuring IHS Jane’s reporter Christopher Foss at DVD 2016 reporting on a few different AFVs, including the Patria AMV, the Terrex IFV, and the M777 Portee concept vehicle..
IHS Jane’s reporter Christopher Foss talks about the Challenger 2 and the British Army’s plans for the Life Extension Program.
East Coast Armory has posted a series of walk around videos on their youtube channel. These clips show some nice exterior and interior detail on three different vehicles, the M114, the M3A1 and a British Ferret. These videos may prove particularly of interest to model makers looking for reference material.
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