In contrast to the German army during the Second World War, the Soviet army did not have specialised recovery vehicles or tactics for using them.…
Military history and RPG books
Category: Cold War
On 30th April 1980, terrorists stormed the Iranian Embassy in London and took twenty-six hostages. A six-day siege ensued, during which the embassy’s press attaché,…
On a visit to the National Archives, I ordered document AVIA 65/1540, “Project PRODIGAL: army vehicle with limited airborne capability”. I was expecting it to…
Introduced in the late 1960s, the SPG-9 was a light anti-tank gun mounted on a tripod. It had a four-man crew, and could be carried by two soldiers.
Rakovich’s Ride: The BMP-2 Infantry Fighting Vehicle In The Bear’s Claws, the main character, Praporshchik Vladislav Rakovich, rides in a BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle. Like…
The T-12 was developed as a replacement for the D-48 85mm anti-tank gun, and was the first smoothbore anti-tank gun to enter service, in 1961. The decision to adopt a smoothbore barrel led to improved HEAT performance, higher muzzle velocity, and longer barrel life than an equivalent rifled barrel. The kinetic energy penetrator was very long and thin, further improving penetration.
Recently, I saw a link to an Atlas Obscura article about the M65 “Atomic Annie”. The M65 was a US 280mm artillery gun that could…
Development of the Stridsvagn 103 began in 1958, led by Bofors. A contract was awarded in 1959 for two prototypes, followed by a pre-production order…
In the late 1970s, Czechoslovakia began development of a wheeled 152mm self-propelled gun-howitzer. The result was the vzor 77 Dana, which entered service with the…
In the 1950s, the British army investigated the possibility of a main battle tank weighing around 20-30 tons. Named the FV4401 Contentious, it was part…