New Entries
♆ 04/10/2024
PTS-2 (1985)
The Soviet PTS-2 is a tracked amphibious transport vehicle developed during the Cold War by the Soviet Union. It's a versatile military vehicle designed to carry troops, equipment, and supplies over water and rough terrain. The PTS-2 was an upgrade to the earlier
PTS-M series, only used now by Russia (16 lost) and Ukraine. The PTS-2 like its precedessor is capable of traversing rivers, lakes, and marshy terrain with up to 12 tons cargo. In addition to 6-10 tons trucks it could carry up to 75 soldiers with full gear. Only a few were produced until the fall of USSR. Its current replacement is the PTS-4 accepted in 2011, based on the T-80 MBT drivetrain with T-72 components.
♆ 27/09/2024
M1126 Stryker's updates: Loosely based on the LAV-III and manufactured by GDLS it shared very little components. Nearly 5,000 made from 2002 and constantly improved, as the cornerstone of the US Army's Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT). They saw heavy action in Iraq and Afghanistan , rising concerns about their suvivability against RPG, mines and IEDs which prompted a serie of upgrade packages, the most obvious being the Slat armour kit, as well as the StrykShield situational awareness kit. First of a serie of updates on this long post, with all variants.
♆ 20/09/2024
FV 438 Swingfire
The FV438 Swingfire was an armoured anti-tank vehicle derived from the FV 430 series, a conversion of the FV 432 armoured personal carrier to accommodate a twin Swingfire anti-tank guided missiles launcher, with its reload system and 12 more missiles thanks to its two firing bins. It was introduced in the early 1970 in the British Infantry Regiments and Royal Armoured Corps, then after the 1977 reform to the Royal Artillery, then passed onto ATGM troops in Armoured regiments in the early 1980s. The FV 438 never saw action (but the missile was) and was phased out in 1985.
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 2024are 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.