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