They do produce a 73 mm RPG warhead, but that is for the BMP-1 (which uses ammunition which is partial identical to early RPGs, because it was developed from them). I'm sorry for making this mistake.
More than 300 launchers and yes, these are the third generation ATGMs, which also includes the likes of Pars 3 LR and Nag but it is not man portable. In most cases there is a follow on order, so the number is likely to be increased further or could end up replacing the thousands of older MILANs.
They are probably third generation ATGMs, but by the claims of the producers Spike is already another generation (i.e. the fourth generation) because the whole design is more or less modular scalabe (from Mini-Spike to Spike-ER). For PARS-3LR a short range and a medium range version was also planned (PARS-3MR and PARS-3SR, SR was only projected), so there is a common development in this direction. If this will really be a new generation can only show us the future. A generation can't be made up by just two members.
Hence, the order of 4,100 MILAN2T to act as interim solution. "Prior to downsizing" is a simplified statement. Offcourse, the European nations have had much larger numbers. But today we are talking about 21 years post Cold War.
And is there any proof that the stocks of ammunition have been destroyed or that all launch units have been sold? I recall that just 3 years ago there was an excersice of German reservists using Igla missiles from old GDR stocks! This did cause some murmurs in German forums.
Never said anything about the superiority or inferiority. You might wanna compare the armour penetration of HOT3 to the later models like Ataka-V since they belong to the same period.
My point is that there is something called
combat value (
Kampfwert for those who speak German) which is totally ignored by this ranking. I.e. we can use something as base to determine the relative usefullness in combat of other weapons. This e.g. has been done during the Leopard 2 development, to choose the best configuration keeping in mind procurment costs, availability of parts and needed time.
If an army has many weapon systems, it is not necessarily the best. The Syrian army is in the web ranking posted by Godless-Kafir some posts ago in the top ten, still their weapon systems are more or less completely on the technical level of 1975-1985... do you think they would be capable to win against a smaller but better equipped force from Europe or America? I don't think they will stand a chance. How many T-72s/T-72M1s and T-55s does it take to destroy a single modern NATO MBT, like a M1A2, Leclerc, Challenger 2 or Leopard 2? The exact result will depend on tactics (like ambushes etc.), but a ratio greater than 5 to 1 seems probable.
The Indian Army currently has only ~1,000 partial good MBTs (i.e. the T-90s and Arjuns produced until now), which still have only outdated ammunition; the rest of the large tank force is more or less on the 1960 - 1980s level. All IFVs in the Indian army are inferior to most of the Western ones (excluding some like the AMX-10), i.e. they can be penetrated from a significantly larger range.
Similar things can be said about the Indian anti-tank weapons. They have many, but the majority of them will not be capable to deal with enemy tanks. It also should be noted that mostly the number of missiles is stated which was ordered, but not the number currently in inventory or the number of launching units.
If the ranking of land-based weapon power from globalfirepower.com would be realistic, then India probably would not be in the top 3, it could be possible that it would not be in the top 5.
North koreas new MBT!! Check out its night vision, it has a huge head light!
This sure comparable to Indaian stuff we only have IR and night vision on 1500 or more tanks.
The "head light" is an IR light, probably L2AG
Luna. It is not much known about the latest North Korean tanks, but it is known that North Korea imported a number of T-72s, one T-72M1 (iirc.) is on a static display. They once wanted to licence produce this tank, but their factories were not capable to do so.
The North Koreans also got a number of different main battle tanks from the Soviets/Russia for scrapping. It is unkown to me which models they got, but I think that they might have got some informations about their construction while scrapping them.
More interessting is that the North Koreans did have good relations with Libya and Iran. The Iranians got the T-72S, which is in various aspects comparable to the early T-90, especially the composite armour. They also licence produce the currently strongest Russian export APFSDS 3BM-42
Mango - if the North Koreans were capable to get some of this from the Iranian Republic, then their tanks should not be underestimated. It is also possible that they produce their own DU ammunition, especially the early alloys from M829/A1,
Nadfil-2 and
Vant should be pretty easy to make and are pretty much known in the public.
China might also have shared some of it's technology with North Korea, both are allies since a long time.
An older North Korean article which can be found in the internet translated to English claims that their tanks have a 700 mm thick front armour - this is between T-72M1 and T-72B (or between T-80B and T-80U)... the tank the author refered to is very likely not one of the latest models (still we must say that it might be a propagandic exaggeration, but judging from pictures 70 cm is possible for some of their older tanks). Their latests tanks might got armour as thick as the T-90 and maybe also similar composed. Their new heavy ERA is the most interessting aspect. It is thicker than Kontakt-5, by more than 50%. Kontakt-5 is, even though it is pretty effective, nothing more than steel plates and explosives. So it might be that the North Korean ERA is stronger than Kontakt-5, depending on the number of steel plates, their sizes and the amount of explosive.
