New Entries
♆ 26/03/2025
T-155 Fırtına
Turkey looked to replaced its now obsolete (even ugraded) T-44 and T-52 self propelled guns, by building a modified licensed K9 from Samsung Techwin designated the T-155 Firtina (Storm). Development started at MKEK in 1995 and its mostly the opposition from germany to deliver critical components that led authorities to look after South Korea instead. The T-155 Firtina is however built locally with many domestic components, including Aselsan for the fire control and many sub-systems. It capable of automatic fire, rapid fire at calaculated trajectories to fall at the same point, and the 52 caliber barrel, while compatible with a large array of NATO rounds, is capable of 40 km without assistance. So far 280 had been produced, now gradually replaced by the Firtina 2.
♆ 21/03/2025
Alvis Scorpion 90 (1987)
A fork of the Alvis 101 family (with the Cougar, Sabre, Salamander...) the Scorpion 90 or "Scorpion 2" was a version armed with the long-barrelled Cockerill Mk3 M-A1 90mm gun designed for the export market. It met success as a specific version ordered by Venezuela and Indonesia in the late 1980s and 1990s. By June 1988, Venezuela ordered 84 and from 1995 to 1997, Indonesia ordered two batches of Scorpions from 1992.
♆ 18/03/2024
M22 Locust (1942)
The M22 Locust, officially Light Tank (Airborne), M22, was an American-designed airborne light tank which produced to 830 machines during World War II. Development started in 1941 after the British War Office requested the US government for a purpose-built airborne light tank, light enough to be transported by gliders for British airborne forces. The War Office selected initially the connverted Light Tank Mark VII Tetrarch but it was not purpose-built and the US design was supposed to replace it. The US Army Ordnance Department selected Marmon-Herrington to design the prototype in May 1941, designated the Light Tank T9 (Airborne) to be initlally transported underneath a Douglas C-54 Skymaster and fit inside a General Aircraft Hamilcar glider... (Starter article).
WW1 Tanks & Armored Cars
Born in the Trenches, when the front became static, the idea of the tank was a resurgence of ...science fiction, when some looked at HG Wells' "land battleships" novel. In UK, development was stirred by Wintson Churchill and the Navy. In France, by an artillery officer, J.B. Estienne. And soon the world took notice. Tanks were rare and few in between still, with grand plans in 1918 that never were realized. When the front was not static, armored cars reigned supreme.
WW2 Tanks & Armored Cars
In 1939, thanks had nearly two decades to evolve at peacetime rate, though the boiling of new ideas of tactics and combined arms, with some armies more acute of these than any others. Ground combat proved absolute masters of these new ideas, the Wehrmacht, with luck and opposite incompetence. After moving to USSR, the fight moved to Africa, then to Italy and back to Western Europe at large, driving fast-paced innovation in a deadly food chain contest.
Cold War Armoured Fighting Vehicles
The atomic age started with the opposition of two superpowers, which developed deterrence but at the same time, always considered conventional warfare. Far from peaceful, this second half century, until 1991, saw gradual improvement, with a gap of twenty years before generations, towards 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation main battle tanks and a cohort of armoured personal carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, and many specialized variants, wheeled and tracked.
Modern Armoured Fighting Vehicles
As the recent conflict in Ukraine shows us, the tank is still useful in the frame of a conventional war. However drones unexpectedly showed deadlier as well as artillery. Between 1991 and 2025are we really seeing a radical transformation of ground warfare ? One thing is sure through for all generals: The main battle tank is still king of the battlefield, when well used and accompanied. From city scapes to desert, steppe, rolly hills and mountains, even coming from the sea, the tank adapted and is there to stay.