A final note on
SOUTH AFRICA if I may…
SOUTH AFRICA/CHANGE/OLIFANT Mk-2B/UNIT 007/COPY REVISED UNIT 008/CHANGE STABILISER TO 6 vice 5/OPERATIONAL STATUS NOW KNOWN/GUN IS READY AND TESTED/POSSIBLE STORAGE OR READY FOR PRODUCTION/TANK NOT FIELDED//I’ve already proven that the
Mk-2 Series was designed to carry any of the
RB 105mm GT MGs plus the
LIW (Thanks Don.)
RB 105mm GT8 Prototype or
120mm/L52 MG. As discussed via PM I found credible information that
GIAT Industries of France calibrated with
DENEL to develop the
LIW tank guns listed above.
GIAT should ring a bell for some of you “
tank nuts” out here, they made the guns (And more.) for the French
LeCLERC MBT. It was also noted the characteristics of the
LIW 120mm/L52 are a “
close” match to the
LeCLERC MG. It is important to remember the issue/limitation here is with the
OLIFANT Mk-2 FCS though very good it’s
not as good as the
LeCLERC FCS. This is not my area of expertise per say that being said is why I requested a modest increase in the
STABILISER number. Based on the guns reported performance and pedigree should the
STABILISER number be slightly higher than requested? And within the limitations I’ve stated above, would the better gun effect any other of the numbers related to the
revised OLIFANT Mk-2B would have?
Don is a
smart man and I feel he knows I wouldn’t
waste my time on a tank that’s not operational if I didn’t see something of value in it concerning the game or the players. So
1) The tanks already in the game, yes it needs to match the hopefully revised
UNIT 008, it’s the
same tank only the gun has changed.
2) South Africa if it arms the tank with this gun, which could happen for
many reasons nothing to do with either an internal or external threat, then it’s ready to go and you “
flip the switch to on”.
3) The tank obviously can’t be “
game ready” as it isn’t now, however, I thought there was a way to allow
Campaign and Scenario designers to “
unlock it” for their use w/o it being available within the game this I see can have a more immediate impact for the developers.
Finally concerning the possibility of
adding new OLIFANT Mk- 1A/1B and now maybe Mk-2 tanks in the 2010 time frame from my last post, I came across this article for what looks like the
replacement for the
M111 APFSDS round as taken from the
ref below Para 3, Dated
18 August 2011… “The Denel-developed
M9718 105mm APFSDS round is 0.950m long, weighs 18.5kg and is fired at a chamber pressure of between 350 to 400 MPa to a
combat range of 3km. The safety range is 30km. Dispersion at 3km is within 0.3x 0.3m and
penetration is 450mm RHA. The tracer is visible to 3km.” again the older
M111 APFSDS penetration was 390mm RHA which makes the
M9718 APFSDS better by +60mm RHA. If you decide to add those tanks from
01/2010 - 12/2025 they would also retain the
APFSDS-T round as well with
PENETRATION 580mm OF RHA as discussed in the
last post for the
second entered
OLIFANT Mk-1A on.
The last couple of paras might be useful concerning the
ROOIKAT AFV ammo as well.
http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.ph...t-rooikat-ammo
http://weaponsystems.net/weaponsyste...20Rooikat.html
I mentioned that
TAIWAN has a big issue so…
TAIWAN/CHANGE/MIA1 ROC/UNIT 025/NEVER DELIVERED/FMS NOT APPROVED/CHANGE IN GAME STATUS TO UNAVAILIBLE/RECOMMEND SAME AS REQUESTED FOR OLIFANT Mk-2B BASED ON THE SAME THREE POINTS NOTED ABOVE.//All foreign countries can request U.S. made military arms via the
Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Program this includes for both donated and weapons to be paid for. This ensures that our weapons industry does not sell our weapons to foreign powers not friendly to the U.S. or that might let the technologies involved with these systems fall into the wrong hands. It also provides cover for the government in sales that could cause a
potential international political issue. All sales
have to be approved by several agencies and finally by the
U.S. State Department, Congress and by the President of the United States. A recent example of this had to do with the sale of the current most advanced version of the JAVELIN ATGW the
JAVELIN JV to the
UKRAINE which
went operational/fielded on 06/2018 and how it might affect the situation on the ground there. Those above tanks have been requested about three times since around 2000. Instead of the tanks we sold them the
JAVELIN BLK 1 and later
JAVELIN JV (
The BLK1 units were later updated to the JV.) I will provide refs that
TAIWAN is now requesting the
M1A2 ABRAMS.
Ref. 1 from
DID will bring you up to date on the current situation with the U.S. and TAIWAN arms situation and remember,
DID lists their refs at the end and with links within the articles. This is an ongoing article.
Ref. 2 has that “
grab your attention” headline that gets folks all excited out here that they’re buying it and that’s the
ONLY reason I’m posting this to provide a
possible example of how that tank made it in here in the first place. From
Ref. 3 (To include
Ref. 1) will provide better reporting.
Bottom-line no ABRAMS here yet.
https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com...ization-04250/
https://www.theepochtimes.com/taiwan...t_2587925.html
https://tankandafvnews.com/2015/05/2...0-m1a1-abrams/
http://www.defenseworld.net/news/228...s#.XD13XHdFzoo
https://defpost.com/taiwan-buy-us-m1...-battle-tanks/
(See para 7 of this ref there’s news within the news there. I've seen this info else where too.)
https://www.janes.com/article/81684/...s-mbts-from-us
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/mili...r-its-defences
Regards,
Pat
