HISTORY

most likely the former US Army UH-60A serial

number 80-23439 which later received the civilian

registration N60FW and was modernized by Ace

Aeronautics company from Alabama. After a long

diplomatic pressure, Germany, USA and the Great

Britain committed to deliveries of the modern

tanks Leopard 2, Abrams and Challenger 2. Other

countries joined the effort to deliver Leopard tanks,

Poland in the first place. Training of the Ukrainian

tank crews began in Germany, Poland and Great

Britain and during our reporting period the first

Leopard 2A4 tanks arrived in Ukraine from Poland.

After this delivery the discussion started about

deliveries of fighters and long-range missiles.

We will talk about this next time.

Russian improvisations

While the stream of the modern armor is coming

to Ukraine increasing variety of the emergency

modifications appear on the Russian side. In a year

of fighting Russians lost more than 1700 tanks, 2100

AFVs and further 1000 armored personnel carriers

and other armored vehicles. Moreover, these are

all the losses documented on the Onyx server by

photographs and videos, the actual losses will be

even higher. The high losses lead to the deployment

of the artillery tractor MT-LB, originating in the

1950s, in the role of an AFV. It had not been intended

for the first line employment therefore it features

weak armor (maximum 10 mm on the hull) and

light armament (one 7.62 mm machine gun).

To increase the firepower of these vehicles the

Russians started to install the naval AA cannons on

them, which were removed from the old warships

rusting in the ports. Part of the modifications are

2M-7 turrets carrying 14.5 mm caliber twin machine

guns which in 1950s had been installed on the small

torpedo and patrol boats.

The 2M-3 turrets carrying the 25 mm caliber twin

cannons promise better firepower. This weapon

was produced during 1953–1984 in the Soviet Union

and was installed on patrol ships, minelayers or

landing crafts. Only the Soviet Navy used 25 mm

caliber 110-PM cannons. Their rate of fire was up to

300 rounds per minute, horizontal range 2.5 km and

vertical range 1.7 km. However, their installation on

Russian MT-LB with 2M-7 naval turrets with two 14.5 mm caliber machine guns.

MT-LB with barbette and

2M-3 turret with a pair of

25 mm caliber guns, which

the Russians removed from

the old ships.

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INFO Eduard

April 2023