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Germany will supply Ukraine with armored personnel carriers and a Patriot missile battery, the government said Thursday. The announcement came in a joint German-U.S. statement after Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden. Germany's decision to supply Marder armored personnel carriers comes after France said it will soon hold talks with Ukraine to arrange for the delivery of armored combat vehicles. France's presidency said that will be the first time this type of Western-made wheeled tank destroyer will be given to the Ukrainian military.

After a Century, Has the Age of the Tank Passed? – As Russian losses in Ukraine mount, the main battle tank (MBT) could soon join the battleship in the boneyard of military history. While a true game changer when the first tanks rolled across the battlefields of Europe during World War I, these metal behemoths could be just the latest weapon from another era whose time has passed. The truth is that from the introduction of the tanks at the Battle of the Somme in September 1916, enemies have looked at ways to counter the armored platforms. In the final...

DRAMATIC footage shows the moment a column of Russian tanks is destroyed by a Ukrainian ambush near Kyiv. The attack reportedly claimed the life of yet another senior Russian commander as Vladimir Putin’s forces press in on the capital city.

Video, You Tube link to follow. A 30-second video released on Friday went viral, after it shows a Ukrainian citizen trying to stop a Russian armored convoy moving towards a Ukrainian city at risk of of his life. The video was shared on social media by Ukrainian news network HB, and soon garnered millions of views worldwide, with many comparing the brave Ukrainian citizen to a Chinese student standing in front of tanks in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989. The video shows the man, whose identity is unknown, standing in the middle of the road while the Russian armored...

British troops arrive in Estonia transporting military equipment and tanks

Two suppliers are competing for the tender, and the choice is between Leopard 2A7 from German Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) and K2 Black Panther from South Korean Hyundai Rotem. The outgoing government has not set aside money for new tanks in the proposed state budget, but the signing of the contract is planned for 2022. The new tanks will not be delivered until 2025 at the earliest. Until then, the Armed Forces must manage with the approximately 40-year-old Leopard 2 tanks that were bought used from the Netherlands in the early 2000s.

This 1941 M3 Stuart tank is a riveted-hull light tank that was produced in November 1941 and reportedly sent to Australia for training purposes until 1946. It remained in the country until it was acquired by the current owner in 2018 and reimported to the US. The tank is powered by a replacement gasoline-powered 668ci Continental W-670 seven-cylinder radial engine that sends power to the tracks via a four-speed manual transmission. Equipment includes a manually rotating turret, a de-milled M22 gun with a shoulder mount, a Mark 19 radio set, and canvas seatbacks. The fuel lines and filters were replaced...

After seeing his friends get cut down from the West Wall to the Bulge in their M4 Sherman tanks, elite gunner Clarence Smoyer is assigned the experimental T26 Pershing, armed with the 90mm gun he needs to keep his buddies alive. But with the new tank comes a deadly new role that culminates in a legendary tank duel at the Cologne cathedral. We now present to you the official trailer for Spearhead, the new book by Adam Makos, the bestselling author of A Higher Call.

Oldest Roman body armour found in Germany Archaeologists have discovered the oldest and most complete Roman body armour at the site of the  Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in Kalkriese, Germany. Before this find, the earliest known examples of Roman lorica segmentata — iron plate sections tied together — were found in Corbridge, UK, and date to the 2nd century. Those were fragments. The Kalkriese armor is a complete set, and includes an extremely rare iron collar used to shackle prisoners.More than 7,000 objects have been found at the Kalkriese battlefield site, from weapons to coins to items of everyday...

On January 3, 2020, near Baghdad's airport, a U.S. air raid targeted Qasem Soleimani, commander of Quds Force, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (“IRGC’s”) terrorist arm. He was killed instantly. To understand how important this is, one needs to understand who Qasem Soleimani (1957-2020) was. Soleimani, a one-time construction worker and weightlifter, joined the IRGC after the 1979 revolution and soon headed one of the IRGC’s main cadres. Khomeini assigned Soleimani to suppress a Kurdish movement in Mahabad, Western Azerbaijan. Soleimani's brutality earned him command over a Quds Guard Corps unit in Kerman. The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) gave Soleimani opportunities...

White-bellied tree pangolins are being hunted illegally in large numbers in West Africa. Photo courtesy of Justin Miller/Pangolin Conservation ========================================================== ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Researchers from Florida and Illinois are leading a global effort to understand and protect the world's most trafficked mammal -- the little-known pangolin. Also called a scaly anteater, the cat-size pangolin is hunted and killed for its scales and meat in Africa and Southeast Asia. New research includes the so-called "Pango-Cam" attached to their backs to provide crucial information about the pangolin diet and territory. Without quick efforts to understand how to breed the...

MIT researchers say that lobsters could offer a solution to the problem plaguing most modern body armors: the more mobility an armor offers, the less it protects the wearer’s body. Guo told MIT News that the idea for developing body armor inspired by lobsters arrived while he was eating one and noticed that the transparent membrane on the animal’s belly was difficult to chew. Unlike the crustacean’s bone-like outer shell, the animal’s softer tissues remained a mystery, he said. Once researchers began to dissect those tissues, they made a surprising discovery. Making significant cuts into the membrane didn’t affect the...

In May 2018, the Russian military revealed it had combat-tested its Uran-9 robot tank in Syria. The diminutive remote-control tank is noted for its formidable gun and missile armament. However, just a month later Defense Blog reported that Senior Research Officer Andrei Anisimov told a conference at the Kuznetsov Naval Academy in St. Petersburg that the Uran-9’s performance in Syria revealed that “modern Russian combat Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) are not able to perform the assigned tasks in the classical types of combat operations.” He concluded it would be ten to fifteen more years before UGVs were ready for such...

China's Ministry of National Defense (MND) on Thursday revealed that its forces are being equipped with a new lightweight tank, the Type-15. The Type-15 tank, which was first unveiled to the public at an airshow in 2016, is meant for deployment in high-altitude regions like Tibet, on the disputed border with India. The information was provided by Senior Colonel Wu Qian, spokesperson for the MND, in response to a question on the Type-15 tank. The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong-based daily, reported that Type-15 tank weighs less than 35 tonnes and has a 105mm main gun. While its...

The U.S. Army has chosen two of the nation’s largest defense contractors to compete for the service’s new light tank program. BAE and General Dynamics will each receive up to $376 million to develop and build 12 light tanks in fourteen months. After field testing, the Army will choose one design in 2022, building up to 504 Mobile Protected Firepower vehicles, otherwise known as light tanks. The U.S. Army has more than a dozen infantry brigades: light infantry, airborne, and air assault brigades of 2,000 to 4,000 soldiers that lack heavy equipment like the M1A2 Abrams tank and M2A3 Bradley...

Britain's manpower has been showcased at the Defence Vehicles Dynamics event in Millbrook - amongst them a prototype for updating the British Army's main battle tank. Challenger 2 was designed and manufactured by BAE Systems, it entered service in 1998 and its life is being extended to 2035. Two companies are bidding for the contract to do this - Rheinmetall, which is yet to revealed its proposal, and BAE Systems, which have showcased a prototype at the event. Challenger 2, Mark 2 Demonstrator, nicknamed the 'Black Knight', has been developed within the last year, with the focus on enhancing its...

The U.S. Army is concentrating its efforts on fielding a new infantry fighting vehicle. The new vehicle will replace the M2 Bradley, first fielded in 1981. The vehicle will incorporate new technologies that the Army has increasingly had to bolt onto the older vehicle, as well as be more lethal and survivable against modern threats. The M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle was introduced in 1981 as a new type of vehicle, the infantry fighting vehicle (IFV). Unlike the earlier armored personnel carrier, a lightly armored and lightly armed vehicle which merely dropped off infantry troops at the edge of the...

US Army soldiers train with an M2 Bradley IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle). Active Protection Systems that shoot down incoming anti-tank missiles must be carefully designed to avoid killing nearby friendly infantry. Even as the US Army races to install Trophy Active Protection Systems on its M1 Abrams heavy tanks, Trophy’s manufacturers are testing slimmed-down versions they want to sell the US for lighter vehicles, especially the aging M2 Bradley troop carrier. While other technologies look promising, Trophy is still the only non-Russian system that’s combat-proven to shoot down incoming anti-tank rockets and missiles. What’s more, US Army testing of the...

It’s bright orange, it’s squishy, it stretches like taffy — and it is unlike any body armor you’ve ever seen. If you were attacked with a baseball bat and you were wearing this bright orange goop under your clothes, then your attacker might as well have swung a toothpick at you — the goop will take the hit for you and absorb the strike. D3O concocted this remarkable, soft, stretchy, flexible, orange material that absorbs shock. Incorporated into their TRUST line of armor, there is a wide range available from helmets, chest, back and knuckle armor through to elbow, knee...

GRAFENWOEHR, Germany - Germany has taken the first-place trophy in the third annual Strong Europe Tank Challenge, June 3-8, 2018. The 3rd Panzer Battalion brought the Leopard 2A6 to the weeklong event. Sweden's Wartofta Tank Company, Skaraborg Regiment came in second with the Stridsvagn 122. Austria’s 6th Tank Company, 14th Panzer Battalion on the Leopard 2A4 placed third. SETC is hosted by U.S. Army Europe and the German Army at 7ATC’s Grafenwoehr Training Area to give participating nations a dynamic, productive and fun environment in which to foster military partnerships, form Soldier-level relationships, and share tactics, techniques and procedures. “I...