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| sk-105 kurassier tank destroyer |
Brazilian Marines are assembling a unique armored force that will rival many of the army forces in the region, should be more than capable in any peace keeping role and is laying the foundation for a formidable future force.
Currently they're ...
* Updating their M-113's with the assistance of Israel Military Industries.
* Acquiring 26 AAV-7's from USMC stocks that will be upgraded to the latest version...additionally their current fleet of 26 AAV's will also be upgraded to the same standard.
* Acquiring 18 Piranha IIIC APC's. These will complement the current inventory of 12 vehicles.
* My personal favorite the SK-105 will be upgraded with a new fire control suite and turret stabilization system (I'm intrigued by this vehicle for the simple reason that its a light tank in a world that doesn't have them. The weight savings, matched with its 105 mm gun in my mind makes it ideal for the Marine role...if heavier armor is needed then they can be augmented by Army units).
What's driving this modernization and enlargement? The Brazilians are planning for a second Marine Fleet.
A force of 21,000 men has a respectable amount of armor attached. I'm impressed.
It's a french made AMX 13 ... Your Dod will never buy that !
ReplyDeleteWe decomissioned the last of this tank in 1985..
yeah but its still being produced today by General Dynamics Europe.
DeleteIt uses almost the same turret from the AMX-13 but it's an Austrian chassis and built as a tank destroyer vs the AMX-13 light tank. Unlike the AMX-13 the Austrian vehicle was only fielded with a 105mm and I believe carries 10 more rounds than the AMX-13. I'm curious if anyone knows if Brazil uses the original French G1 or the US M68 (L7) 105mm?
DeleteAs an aside the original 75mm on the AMX-13 was derived from the German WWII 75mm(L70) which is widely regarded as the best tank/anti tank gun of the era. It ate T-34's for lunch. Interestingly enough this same gun couldn't penetrate the T-55 from the front (Israel dumped it's AMX-13's after the 67 war), the 90mm version wasn't a high velocity gun and relied on HEAT rounds, and the French never operated the 105mm export version. The turret could fire all 12 ready rounds in 1 min from the revolver semi auto loader but then you had manually reload the magazines which is probably why this type of turret never caught on.
Oscillating turrets were also difficult to seal against NBC threats, which counted against them especially in the '60s, and then autoloader technology just caught up to where they weren't particularly needed anymore.
DeleteYou could manually reload after the magazines were expended but the rate of fire was very low.
From what I remember it took about 15 min to reload the magazines from outside and about 30 min from inside the vehicle. In either case the turret was limited to a 12 round engagement and then you had to find a safe place to reload.
DeleteThis is why it's best classified as a tank destroyer. Operating it as a light tank, with it's 12 round limitation, isn't the best idea in the world for a meeting engagement.
12 rounds would be suitable for a meeting engagement. we're talking about a light tank, not an MBT. it isn't expected to slug it out with the bad guys ...isn't that why the Army uses M1 Abrams in Calvary so that they can fight for info?
DeleteIt's certainly why they used to have tanks in recon units but armored cav isn't part of the Army anymore. They turned the last regiment into a stryker brigade.
DeleteIn my view you really don't want a single min of main gun fire in a meeting engagement. Especially when this limitation has to be in the front of your mind and instead of seeking to maneuver to defeat the enemy you're worried about escaping the contact to seek 15 safe min for the crew to exit the vehicle in order to reload the magazines.
I suppose Brazil uses the original French 105 G1. This link is about the armoury inventory of Latin America`s countries. There`s one mention about the Giat gun at page 6.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ecsbdefesa.com.br/fts/balan%E7o_2003.pdf
this is still a light tank despite being a tank destroyer. In french army his role was the same : it's just terminology differente.
ReplyDeleteWe finally mounted 4 SS11 missiles around the gun, like on your bradley, to improve his destruction power on tanks.
That was an era where soldiers were expendables, efficacity was prefered over protection.
That seems quite desaperate to us, how we prepared to fight against thousands of soviet tank with no hope to survive..