News Briefs

According to an international study www.reportsnreports.com/reports/699294, the global market in amphibious assault vehicles in set to grow by nearly 10% between 2016 and 2020. Analysts put this down to recent rapid deployment of armed forces combined with the need for high mobility of their support services.

The Peruvian Army’s First Cavalry Brigade, received ten new Rheinmetall Military vehicles in January this year. Peru has acquired 338 4x4 utility vehicles that can transport up to ten tonnes of cargo for its army and navy. The project is aimed at modernising the army’s fleet of support vehicles to be used for transporting personnel and for providing civilian support during natural disasters.

Israeli defence electronics developer Elbit Systems, announced in January that it has won a $100 million deal with the Brazilian military, to supply, through its subsidiary Ares, REMAX Remote-Controlled Weapon Stations complete with associated equipment and services over a five-year period.

REMAX is a stabilised weapon station for 12.7/7.62mm machine guns and will be used in armoured vehicles, logistic vehicles and utilised in combat for troop transport, border patrols and in peace keeping missions.

In recent weeks, 3,000 US soldiers, 80 main battle tanks and hundreds of armoured vehicles have arrived in Germany, and are being dispersed by road and rail into eastern Europe, close to the Russian border. The US is claiming this to be a “defensive operation” but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has already suggested that Moscow views the US military presence near the Russian border as a threat. Argentinian foreign policy analyst, and director of the Russian Observatory of the Argentine Centre of International Studies, Guillermo Galea, told Sputnik’s Spanish website Mundo, that it looks more like part of a ‘passive-aggressive’ strategy to contain Russia, and that this final move of the Obama administration coming just ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration, was a response to calls from Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia and was a ‘demonstration of force’, but one unprecedented since the end of the cold war.