General AFV Thread

[Jim Warford]

On 10/10/2020 at 7:01 AM, Clan_Ghost_Bear said:

New North Korean tank, from their parade.

They wanted to keep this thing under wraps until it marched in the parade...

 

[LoooSeR]

   2015 reveal of Armata 2.0, haha.

[Stimpy75]

Ascod 2 with Israeli turret offer for the Phillipines

[SH_MM]

 

Norwegian M113 upgraded by FFG (now also with Soucy tracks).

[SH_MM]

Dragon

[MoritzPTK]

So apparently Norway is finally moving ahead to replace their old Leopard 2A4 MBTs. According to their "Long Term Defense Plan" they want to equip one brigade with new tanks.

Currently the Norwegian Army operates 36 MBTs, if they want to equip an entire brigade of their maneuver bataillons that would translate to a need for quite a big number of vehicles.

 

The main competitors seem to be the Leopard 2 and the K2 Black Panther.

 

Leopard 2 upgrade proposal which was posted somewhere in this forum already

 

South Korean K2 Black Panther (proposal for the Polish Army)

 

An upgrade for the Leopard 2 would probably come out to be much cheaper than the order of a tank which does not exist in said variant. The main challenge for the german companies in winning this contract will probably be the ability to deliver the tanks on time. Right now there are over 200 german tanks that have to be upgraded, together with other orders from Hungary, Denmark etc.

[Voodoo]

Upgrading isn't an option any more. 

 

Now, Hyundai Rotem has offered to manufacture the complete chassis and gun, while the turret and final assembly will be done in Norway. = jobs and some money back. This has been talked about as recently as this week, as Chief of the Armed Forces said that a lot of money disappear out of the country via investments. 

 

What's the possibility of Germany offerering a similar deal? 

[MoritzPTK]

1 hour ago, Voodoo said:

What's the possibility of Germany offerering a similar deal? 

Construction of new tanks? Very unlikely. KMW or Rheinmetall could offer certain integration or part assembly/construction contracts. 

But looking at recent K2 offerings... Kind of a smoke screen according to the polish insiders i've talked to. If you look at the offer that becomes quite obvious. They offer a tank which does not exist, with some parts that are also still under development. Completing all that within the timeline of 5 years including setting up production capacities is very ambitious to say the least.

[Laser Shark]

If Norway sticks with the Leo 2, then we’ll probably end up with a combination of completely new and partially new/upgraded A7s (I have seen conflicting information on how much of the old A4NOs is re-usable). These I suspect will be kept as close to the German A7V standard as possible, and only include a few changes, like the installation of Kongsberg’s ICS. This is because Norway will likely want to enter into a strategic cooperation with Germany similar to the ongoing submarine project*, and also because Norway seems more interested in off-the-shelf solutions these days.

 

* But it’s also different because the Leo 2A7V is already a done deal and now entering production, but even if Norway had gotten involved at an earlier stage, I suspect that our influence on the A7V would have been a lot smaller than the submarine project where we’re set to be the biggest spender.

 

2 hours ago, Voodoo said:

What's the possibility of Germany offerering a similar deal? 

 

If the info in this quote by Centre Party leader Trygve Slagsvold Vedum is correct, it looks like they are offering industrial incentives that are as good if not better:

 

"Norway will now buy new tanks. It is mainly between buying a South Korean tank or a German tank. What type of industrial community do you think will create as many jobs as possible here in Norway? I think there is a greater chance of achieving that with German industry than South Korean industry. But if the government manages to disprove that, then it is fine, even though everything now indicates that there will be better industrial cooperation with the Germans, says Vedum."

 

Source: https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/Qmm1yA/sp-vedums-forsvars-krav-70-nye-stridsvogner

[Lord_James]

On 10/11/2020 at 10:52 AM, LoooSeR said:

 

At this point i would expect Norks to have some form of thermal imaging sights, even Syrians are making crappy "Viper" thermal sights from Chinese parts for their tanks.

 

Drozd comparison is valid, because Drozd launches a big ass 107 mm caliber HE-frag warhead to intercept incoming shell and yet each shot is covering very narrow arc. I doubt that this launchers can throw something significantly bigger. Look at angle between tubes in each "pack" - it looks like they have nearly 35-40 degrees between each other and at 20 meters range away from the tank that placement of launchers will produce big gaps in APS coverage. And tubes on the back of the turret look like have similar size to frontal ones, they look like usjal smoke grenade launchers.

 

Thats why i think that what we see is just North Korean version of soft kill APS on K2s.

 

Maybe @N-L-M could give his impression on that question.

 

It is possible that what we see is pretty rough mock up of planned system. 

 

Might be forgetting the obvious here, but these vehicles could all be just for show. The turret roof being so... poorly crafted, the fake look of all the external sights and “radars”, and the generally sheet metal look make me question if these are actual, working turrets and not just movie props. The all-in-one look kinda reminds me of some “artists” (who’s name shall not be spoken) who throw together certain aspects of tanks and claim they made a tank better than what’s currently being used or tested. 

[LoooSeR]

1 hour ago, Lord_James said:

Might be forgetting the obvious here, but these vehicles could all be just for show. The turret roof being so... poorly crafted, the fake look of all the external sights and “radars”, and the generally sheet metal look make me question if these are actual, working turrets and not just movie props. The all-in-one look kinda reminds me of some “artists” (who’s name shall not be spoken) who throw together certain aspects of tanks and claim they made a tank better than what’s currently being used or tested. 

   That is always a possibility with equipment shown on NK parades. Although it also could be a mock up of a new tank that they actually developing. 

[Scolopax]

Czech design of T-34 SPAAG armed with a 57mm cannon

 

 

[Beer]

It was basically just a demonstrator of T-34 armed with R10 dual-purpose gun which was refused in 1953 for many issues - the chassis was too small for the crew (six men) and ammo (a cart with additional ammo was needed, overall it was 200+200 rounds), the system was considered way too high and the opened turret was considered unsatifactory for a front line vehicle as well. Also the armor was considered too weak (the turret could withstand 12,7 mm ammo) but stronger armor meant less main gun ammo. Another demonstrator again on T-34 chassis followed in 1955 but was again refused. In the end the army addopted the well known PLDvK vz.53/59. 

 

 

[heretic88]

13 hours ago, Scolopax said:

Czech design of T-34 SPAAG armed with a 57mm cannon

Btw, why wasnt the Shilka adopted in the czechslovak army? It was a true masterpiece in its time, one of the best, most effective SPAAG ever designed. 

[LoooSeR]

   Azerbaijan T-90S

 

   Armenian T-72Bs with some sort of locally made either IR dazzlers or IR light sources for outdated night vision sight.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[LoooSeR]

   Italians upgrading Ariete - new engine will be 1500HP (26L->30L), new transmission by ZF.

https://thedeaddistrict.blogspot.com/2020/12/details-about-upgraded-ariete-mbt-engine.html

 

 

[Beer]

2 hours ago, heretic88 said:

Btw, why wasnt the Shilka adopted in the czechslovak army? It was a true masterpiece in its time, one of the best, most effective SPAAG ever designed. 

 

To be honest I have no idea. AFAIK ČSLA was the only WARPAC army not addopting Shilka but why is certainly a good question. We had one or two pieces but they were used only for training purposes. 

[Scolopax]

I wondered if it was a matter of manufacturing something domestically, either of foreign license or native design, but I believe all the other AA systems used at the time were purchased directly from Russia.  Worth noting that these (Strela, Osa, and Kub for example) are all missile systems though.

[Beer]

6 hours ago, Scolopax said:

I wondered if it was a matter of manufacturing something domestically, either of foreign license or native design, but I believe all the other AA systems used at the time were purchased directly from Russia.  Worth noting that these (Strela, Osa, and Kub for example) are all missile systems though.

 

In the 80' and beginning of 90' there was a serious domestic SPAAG development (STROP I and II) but it didn't resulted in serial production (for the reason of the new political and economical reality). I posted more info about STROP II here. 

 

Our army kept using a lot of AAA till the beginning of 90'. It was not only the Soviet S-60 (180 pieces) but also our own 57 mm guns vz. ČS (R10 - which is the gun mounted on that T-34 based demonstrator) (219 pieces). Both were able to operate in bad weather using radar guidance. Aside of that by the beginning of 90' we still had around 700 (!) PLDvK vz.53/59 self-propelled 30 mm AAA (30x211 ammo) but those were able to fire only in good weather and in manual fire mode. The towed PLDvK vz.53 were mostly moved to reserve in late 70'. 

 

Our western and southern border (on the iron curtain) is all created by low mountains and it was expected to be crossed by low flying aircraft and cruise missiles. Therefore I think that the massive AAA numbers were mainly intended to counter this threat. 

[Ramlaen]

 

[Laser Shark]

The Protector family, now with new designations:

 

[Bronezhilet]

Yooo @Toxn what were y'all smoking back in the days?

[Toxn]

3 hours ago, Bronezhilet said:

Yooo @Toxn what were y'all smoking back in the days?

Landmines. And bush warfare. And the fumes of late colonialism. And whatever (probably radioactive) drug the cold war was. And, you know, industrial-strength racism.

 

Honestly, given the above, us making 6x6 mad max vehicles in the 70s and 80s seems positively sane.

[N-L-M]

Per "surviving the ride", the 6x6 with 2 front axles was intended to solve the problem of losing all mobility when the front wheel hit a landmine, by just having an extra sacrificial pair up front. This extra pair of wheels however led to substantial yaw stability issues and was not successful.

[Serge]

The Sesspir.

No more than two of them were built.