Archive: News & Articles

In 2003, the European Security Strategy was underlined with: “Europe has never been so prosperous, so secure nor so free.” in 2016 a completely different picture is drawn: the European Union Global Strategy acknowledges that the “Union is under threat,” and that “we live in times of existential crisis, within and beyond the European Union.” […]

Before the Russian-Georgian war in 2008, Russia threatened the USA and NATO members with the suspension of the CFE Treaty at the end of the year, mainly in protest against the USA’s missile defence plans in Eastern Europe. Later, at the Bucharest Summit, Putin personally warned NATO members not to grant the Membership Action Plans […]

China’s growing interest in the Arctic has become a worrying factor for the Pentagon. There is concern that as Chinese activities in the Arctic increase, so does China’s military presence in the region. This article analyses the likelihood of such a scenario, as well as possible logistic support facilities for Chinese submarines. In January 2018, […]

Recent developments in Eurasia and the Middle East require a re-evaluation of the security environment and the roles of each regional and sub-regional actor. Against the background of trends in global security politics, Russia and Turkey have become key actors in the Wider Black Sea and the South Caucasus regions, as well as in Syria. […]

Despite the flood of news stories about Russian activities in Africa, far too many Western observers still refuse to take Moscow’s African policies seriously enough. Many Western observers argue that Moscow lacks the resources to compete with either the US or China, that its interests are mainly economical, e.g. oligarchs’ enrichment, or circumventing sanctions, not […]

With Brexit the European Union has lost a voice of reason which in recent years was able to prevent the worst from happening by speaking up whenever state intervention was promoted over the market economy, and centralism over the diversity of European identities and concepts of order. Those in Europe who rejoice at the warning […]

Israel’s military assesses new approaches to future mounted combat, addressing the need to do ‘more with less’ – lighter and smaller combat vehicles that will be able to undertake more missions and capabilities, with smaller crews. In its pursuit of protection, lethality and battlefield agility, Israel has been a forerunner of innovation in armoured combat […]

Modern combat vehicles have a formidable capability to keep going, even in impossibly difficult terrain. Still, they sometimes just grind to a halt, perhaps being stuck in snow or mud, or because of a breakdown or technical fault with the vehicles. Situations such as these call for material with the ability to extract a stranded […]

The Polish Army and other branches of the country’s armed forces have an urgent requirement to modernise the fleet of multirole, high mobility, all-terrain vehicles. Due to their obsolescence, most platforms of the Polish Army, such as HONKER, UAZ469 and some Mercedes-Benz vehicles, no longer meet the requirements of the modern battlefield and no longer […]

To cope with the numerous new weapon systems that the Russian Army has fielded in recent years, the US Army has modernised its STRYKER vehicles. On 9 May 2019, over 130 weapon systems rolled through Red Square in Moscow. NATO nations were warily watching as Russia showed off its latest military hardware. As T-14 ARMATA […]

The Australian Army found itself in a situation where it was necessary to replace two major elements of its existing armoured vehicle fleet and this led to the development of Project LAND 400. The objective of LAND 400 is to acquire a Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle (CRV), an Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV), a Manoeuvre Support Vehicle […]

The Spanish MoD shocked the industry last Christmas by rejecting the offer of GDELS-SBS. A new public tender is to be announced in the course of this 2020. Waiting and waiting could still be the headline of the story about the future 8×8 armoured fighting vehicle for the Spanish Army, the so-called DRAGÓN project. The […]

Over the last 25 years, the United Kingdom has made numerous efforts to upgrade its ageing fleet of mainly tracked Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs). There have been numerous false starts including the Future Family of Light Armoured Vehicles, the joint UK/US TRACER (Tactical Reconnaissance Armoured Combat Equipment Requirement), BOXER Multi-Role Armoured Vehicle (MRAV) and the […]

Following a long uphill battle, Elbit Systems’ APS is gaining traction. Israel’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced recently the selection of Elbit Systems’ IRON FIST Active Protection System (APS) for the protection of some of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) combat support armoured vehicles. The selection followed a competitive evaluation of several APS solutions. The […]

Future wars will be fought in cities and megacities. These complex battle grounds absorb combat power like a sponge absorbs water. Military strategists from Sun Tzu to the current day have warned commanders to avoid urban combat whenever possible. Today’s megacities are the focus of political, economic, military and human power. In 2019, nearly 55% […]

It has long been assumed that chemical, biological or radiological/nuclear (CBRN) threats pose a major problem for the military and civilian response forces. The main reason for this assumption is that vehicles can be contaminated with liquid or solid CBRN materials. Some threat materials, such as persistent nerve agents, sulphur mustard, anthrax spores, and many […]

Situational Awareness (SA) involves a multi-stage process – perception of all the elements that make up the combat situation, understanding how these combine to make a whole, then anticipating how the situation can evolve in the immediate future. At first, the concept was applied particularly to fighter-versus-fighter air combat. It has long been an axiom […]

There was a time when it was considered perfectly acceptable to equip a Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV) with a rifle-calibre machine gun, assuming that such a weapon was perfectly adequate to support dismounts from an APC, or for a reconnaissance vehicle that was supposed to avoid being embroiled in combat.  Today such thinking is a […]

After Israel developed the MERKAVA Main Battle Tank and NAMER APC, the accumulated operational experience pointed to the need for an advanced 8×8 APC. This task was given to the Armoured Vehicles Directorate in the Israeli MoD, and the result is the EITAN APC. The EITAN is at the final field testing in one of […]

Medium weight armoured fighting vehicles (AFV) are equipped with a broad choice of primary weapons, ranging from 20mm autocannons to full-bore 120mm guns. Overall, modern AFVs – whether light tanks, infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), or armoured reconnaissance vehicles – are trending towards more powerful weapons than previous vehicle generations. The primary reason for this trend […]

Approaches to military operations are constantly changing, requiring military hardware to the adapt to the new conditions on the battlefield. Among the current trends are the need for the flexible reconfiguration of hardware under conditions of irregular warfare, the ability to withstand weapons used by rebels such as improvised explosive devices and anti-tank mines, and […]