Itchie Senior Moderator
Posts: 457
(2/11/05 12:34 am) Reply
Belgrade exhibition
An exhibition of military equipment was held in Belgrade last week. About 40 domestic arms producers were present, and some from other countries too. Croatia, Ukraine, Italy, and Canada off the top of my head but there were a few more.
Here are some pictures of equipment which was shown off there. If nothing else, it shows Serbian military industry is slowly getting back on its feet.
The most interesting thing was definitely the Munja (lightning) engineering vehicle:
It has 30mm automatic grenade launcher, and 7.62mm gun, and is supposed to be 90% invisible to radar and 70-80% to thermal vision. It can also be used as an unmanned vehicle to navigate a minefield, and can detect mines and navigate around them.
Here is an upgrade of the T-72 tank including add-on ERA, a more powerful 1000hp engine, and some other stuff:
This is not to be confused with the M-84AB1/M-2001 upgrade, which is an entirely different upgrade (and a much more advanced one). There are three tank upgrades presently going on in Serbia, the T-72 shown in the picture above, the M-2001, and a T-55 upgrade which includes a new FCS, better protection, better engine, more firepower, etc.
By the way I can now confirm that the M-2001 project is neither financed nor designed by Russia. Russia is only supplying some parts (like AT-11 missiles, Shtora active defensive suite, Kontakt-5 ERA, etc). But many parts are built/designed locally, and some in cooperation with other countries. For example the thermal imager comes from Thales. Here is a picture of the Thales poster advertising it:
Here is the M-99 Orkan:
This is an upgraded version of the M-87 Orkan 262mm multiple rocket launcher system. Range has been increased from 50 to 75 kms, accuracy has been greatly increased, better reliability, etc.
There is also a Luna-M (Frog-7) conversion set with range of 100 kms, which can deliver a cluster warhead with 288 combined bomblets, or 24 anti-tank mines. It claims FCS with high degree of digitilization, communication over secure lines, ruggedness, etc.
Here is another MRLS called Plamen-S:
I think it is an improved version of M-63 Plamen.
Bunch of other stuff was displayed, like Pracka missile, and several new infantry weapons like new M-21 assault rifle, and also this new anti-tank weapon Bumbar:
Another current project is the IBL-2000 unmanned aerial vehicle. Some information from the site about this UAV:
The first local unmanned aerial vehicle, constructed under cooperation of the Military Technical Institute from Belgrade and Utva from Pancevo, has been featured at the International Defense Exhibition PARTNER 2005. This aerial vehicle is intended for performing a wide range of tasks within patroling, data collecting and surveillance. Its advantage, as stated by the Commander Radislav Jovic, is that it can be used also for searching and rescue missions, as well as control of forest fire and various ecological accidents. The aerial vehicle flies on the programmed route, using an update navigation system, having the possibility of the route correction during the mission itself. Due to its performances, compatible with the worldwide ones, this new product of the local military industry will be offered at the worldwide market soon.
Here is one of the more interesting displays:
This is the LVB-250 laser guided bomb. Some sources claim it has been designed from reverse engineering unexploded Nato bombs (like the Paveway) but this is not confirmed. In any case, this LGB has already completed several tests so project is in full swing.
In addition the Grom-B missile was displayed. In the early 80's Yugoslavia had a project to replace its first Grom (now refered to as Grom A), which was a radio controlled missile, with a new TV guided version. This project was abandoned and AGM-65 Mavericks were bought from the USA instead. But now, the Grom-B project has been restarted. There are two versions, a TV-guided one, and a passive radar-homing one for anti-radar tasks. Firing tests are supposed to complete this year.
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