Russia cheating at Tank Biathlon 2015?

Just stumbled upon this gem at another forum:

The Chinese website Guancha.cn Russia did it's best to manipulate the Tank Biathlon 2015 for an outcome in favor of the Russian army. The following claims were made by the Chinese news website:

• The Chinese delegation was told that a 40 metres river had to be crossed. As a result the Chinese team went with a total of 50 metres of pontoon bridges to Russia. They were "speakless" when discovering that the river to be crossed had a width of 60 metres.
• Russian forces also had faulty bridge equipment, but simply ignored the normal rules of crossing a river; they aligned their bridges under sub-ideal conditions directly in the river - their tanks had to wade several meters into the river to enter the bridges.

Russian forces crossing their pontoon bridges

• During the IFV competition, there were problems with reloading. Not exactly sure what it says in the article (bad translation), but it seems that Russia didn't agree on accounting the higher rate of fire and the higher reload speed of the Chinese IFV.
• The rules of the NBC trials of the Tank Biathlon were changed, but the Chinese team wasn't informed of any changes. As a result a 45 second punishment was added to the team's time.
• The amphibious troop transport competition for which the Chinese team brought their ZBD-05 IFVs was canceled without explanation. The Chinese considered their ZBD-05 to be greatly superior to the Russian BTR-80 in this task.
• The Chinese PLL-05 self-propelled howitzer managed to beat the Russian counterparts, but for reasons of balancing the performance of crew to that of the equipment, a perfomance modifier was used, which resulted in the parity of the performance of both systems.
• Several "aggressive rule changes" were made during the infantry/paratrooper competitions to negate the poor performance of the Russian soliders.

There are many more claims in the article, but I don't speak Chinese and it's cumbersome to decode what Google Translator outputs...

Do I believe the Chinese claims? I am not sure. They are probably exaggerated, but there might be truth in them. Maybe the Chinese are simply "sore loosers" who are trying to find an excuse for their poor performance. However the Chinese claims are not hard to believe, based on what I have heard and read about Russian competitions and the protectionism of Russian defence industry and their army.
I think it's save to assume that the ZBD-05 has better amphibious performance than a BTR-80. The mix-up with the river width might have been a mistake however, just like it could have been a mistake to not inform the Chinese team about changed conditions.

This reminds me of the Canadian Army Trophy - in 1987 the US won with their M1A1 Abrams tanks, but they received heavy criticism from the other competitors? Were the European teams "sore loosers"? I don't think so. The US team did operate with open hatches - as only team. In the conditions of the Cold War, where every tank was expected to operated under full NBC protection (and CAT should simulate the crew and vehicle performance in Cold War) this is for sure bad behaviour.

Source: Guancha.cn (chinese)

German armor sales process

Recently

The Brazilian armed forces are expecting the final delivery of former German Gerpard self-propelled anti-air guns (SPAAG). Back in Novembre 2011 the Gepard was presented to the Brazilian army, where it managed to score several direct hits against remotely operated model aircraft (with a wingspan just above 1 metre) used by in Brazil to represent airplanes at longer ranges. The previously used 40 mm Bofors gun failed at achieving direct hits and required a larger amount of time and ammunition to destroy the aircrafts.

A total of 32 Gepard 1A2 SPAAG were ordered by the Brazilian army. The last 8th were shipped in the first week of August in Germany and are scheduled to arrive 20 days later in Brazil.
The Gepard is based on the Leopard 1 chassis, which is already operational within the Brazilian army.

Source: Jane's IHS

Meanwhile the Croatian army received the first of 12 Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled guns (SPG). All vehicles are former German ones, which were bought by Croatia in 2014 for 14€ million. The total budget of the Croatian army to buy, support and modernize the Panzerhabuitze 2000s is 41€ million. It is expected that all 12 PzH 2000 will be operating in 2016.

Source: Jane's IHS

Rheinmetall has started working on a 130€ million contract for Lockheed Martin UK. The contract is about the production of 245 turrets for the Scout Specialist Vehicle (or rather it's structure bar many components chosen by the British). The weapon mount is also assembled by Rheinmetall.
The Scout SV is going to use a modified version of Rheinmetall's Lance Modular Turret System (Lance MTS). The structure of the turret is assembled in Germany. It seems to consists of steel, but contains many mounting points for composite armor panels.

Two turret structures for the Scout SV in a Rheinmetall facility in Germany

Source: Rheinmetall

Last but not least, the Royal Netherlands Army took over the first of 60 Boxer command post vehicles on the 31. of July. The command post vehicle will be the third version of the Boxer to enters service with the Dutch army. The engineering vehicle version and the cargo transport version of the Boxer will enter service in 2016.

Source: ARTEC Boxer

Tank biathlon 2015

In Russia the "Tank Biathlon 2015" competition will be held this year. Participating are not less than 13 countries:

1. Angola
2. Armenia
3. China 
4. India
5. Kazakhstan 
6. Kuwait
7. Kyrgyzstan
8. Mongolia
9. Nicaragua
10. Russia
11. Serbia
12. Tajikistan 
13. Venezuela

 Tajikistan and Nicaragua are first time participants in the competition. Except for the Chinese, which will utilize the Norinco Type 96A, all countries will use the T-72. According to Russia Today, the tanks will be in the T-72B3 configuration - this however seems to be questionable, as countries other than Russia do not operate this tank and the crews hence will be less trained on the equipment.

T-72B3 and Type 96A tanks

Each country gets a total of four tanks - one spare vehicle and three for the competition. One run at the tank biathlon will take at least 28 minutes, an increase by 5 or more minutes of the previous year's 23 minute run.

Tank/tank crew competitions have a more than half a century long history. During the Cold War the Canadian Army Trophy was a competition between the NATO forces in West-Germany.
The "Tank Biathlon" is a rather recent competition hosted by Russia. The community of Leopard 2 user countries has the LEOBEN cup.

Source: Russia Today

Ukraine receives upgraded T-80 tanks

According to Jane's IHS the Ukrainian army has taken over the first 8 T-80 tanks modernized by Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau (KMDB) on 15th July 2015 (15 days ago, I am certainly having troubles writing .

The tanks are fitted with Kontakt reactive armor and will serve for "anti-terror operations", which means that they are intended for fighting in the East-Ukraine against the separatists. Other sources than Jane's (i.e. Ukrainian sources) claimed that these tanks were for an air-mobile unit, which does not take part in any combat operations in the east of the country.

The "new" tanks for the Ukranian army

The Ukrainian ministry of defence however has stated, that these tanks will serve with n unit of the airborne forces.
Other than adding Kontakt ERA, other not further mentioned changes were done to turret and hull structure.

Source: Jane's IHS


This tanks show in which a desolate situation the Ukrainian army is - the T-80 used are outdated and the modernization is a joke. They are far worse than the modernized T-64BM Bulat or the current T-84-based Oplot tanks.
The use of Kontakt-1 ERA (which does provide only very limited amounts of protection compared to more modern ERA systems) and the retaining of the old infra-red sights certainly shows that the lack of money and/or production capacity in the Ukraine is a real problem. These tanks were "modernized" (refurbished seems to be more appropriate) to a technology level of approximately 1984!

That said, it appears that tank vs tank combat is highly limited in the Ukrainian conflict. Still viable protection against rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles is not offered by the modernized T-80 tanks.
The fire control unit of the old T-80(B) is probably accurate enough against structures and infantry, when firing from slow move (25 kmph) or from static positions..

Pakistan prefers Oplot?

According to rumors spread on the internet, Pakistan recently trialed the latest version of the Ukranian Oplot-M main battle tank and the Norinco MBT-3000. Supposedly, the results were in favor of the Ukranian tank.

The Oplot MBT in Pakistan

The Oplot-M main battle tank is made by the Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau in the Ukraine. It is protected by composite armor and heavy Duplet reactive armor along the frontal arc, while ERA protects the flanks. It is also fitted with the Varta proteciton system (an improved version of the Shtora system of the Soviet Union), which already has been adopted on the Al-Khalid.
The main armament consists of a modern 125 mm KBA-3 smoothbore gun, which is fitted with a T-80-style autoloader. The Oplot-M also features a modern fire control unit with thermal sights for both gunner and commander.
The Oplot is powered by a six-cylinder 6ТD-2 multifuel diesel engine, which provides an output of up to 1200 hp.

More detailed information can be accessed on the manufacturer's website.

The Chinese MBT-3000 was claimed to be very similar to the current version of the Al-Khalid and seen "as not much of an improvment". Given the relationship between the Al-Khalid (which started as a modified Chinese Type 90 design) and the MBT-3000 (which is a modified Type 90/Type 96 tank design) this seems to be plausible.

The Chinese MBT-3000, supposedly tested in Pakistan alongside the Oplot.

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Author's opinion: I don't know if these rumors are true, but it seems to be reasonable to choose the Oplot-M over the MBT-3000. At least the Oplot-M seems to be a more advanced and better design.
However it is rather questionable if the Ukraine is able to manufacture enough tanks for Pakstain (they already have troubles with the Thailand deal) and also wether the Ukraine is willing to agree on a local production (which seems to be demanded by Pakistan).

Low activity...

So, it seems that my attempt to create a blog and keep it running is about to end within the first two months. I have tried to find to time for writing posts, but I have only found enough time to post a few recaps of news articles (with my opinion added in a few sentences) in the past.

I actually am still trying to write more posts of higher quality,  but everytime I end up looking for proper sources - and imo sources are very important - I require lots of time (was it written in this book or that book - or was it on a website?). This results in very little progression, specifically when looking at how much I want to write (currently this blog has 20 published posts, but a further 17 are in the making...).

For some posts time is not necessarily a critical factor, but when I want to write about more or less recent news (or my opinion about the second early access phase of Armored Warfare...), not publishing the posts within a few days makes them rather useless.

Let's see what will happen here. Maybe I will write more recapitulations of news; maybe I will make longer and more detailed posts, but reduce the frequency to one or two posts a month. Maybe I will have time to focus more on AW... let's see.

China is developing a new APC

Norinco of China is developing a new armored personnel carrier with the designation "VP10". From the front it looks like a copy of the Patria AMV or the Singaporean Terrex, the spacing of the wheels and the layout of the rear compartment are however easy to distinguish.

Prototype of the VP10, without proper driver's hatch and weight demonstrator instead of a turret.

The VP10 armored personnel carrier is a 8x8 wheeled vehicle with conventional front-engine layout. Two propeller engines at the rear allow the amphibious vehicle to swim. The rear compartment is fitted with vision blocks (probably in combination with gun ports on the final vehicle) and hatches at the roof.
The rear ramp can be hydraulically operated and also includes a door as alternative exit, which is also fitted with a small window.

A version armed with a remote weapon station has been shown in Norinco video footage, but it is expected that a number of versions of the VP10 will be fitted with turrets armed with larger weaponry.

The vehicle hull is fitted with bolt-on armor, which suggest a type of modular spaced or composite armor.

According to Sputniknews, which also claim that this is the Chinese analouge to the new 8x8 Bumerang vehicle of the Russian army, the vehicle can transport 8 to 10 infantrymen, depending on version.

Same protoype vehicle, different angle of view

Source: Defence-Blog.com, Sputniknews

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Author's opinion: China keeps developing new vehicles at an alarming rate. If this vehicle is intended for export costumers or as new vehicle for the Chinese army is however unknown.
In the current VN1 8x8 wheeled vehicle, China already had a relatively modern amphibious platform.

Side-view of the already existing VN1 in IFV configuration.

The VN1 however seems to be a bit smaller than the VP10; in the IFV version it does only feature one vision block with gun port per side, the height of the vehicle is also much smaller (which also seems to be the result of lower ground clearance). So maybe the VN1 was underperforming despite being procured in larger quantities by the Chinese army?