The United States military have gifted three refurbished Toyota vans and an Isuzu truck to The Royal Bermuda Regiment for use by the island’s soldiers to provide support for emergencies and other events. US Consul General Mary Ellen Koenig said: “We are pleased to see the continuation of the long, strong tradition of close ties between the US military and Bermuda.”
The Tank Museum in Bovington presents a series of short films on YouTube. The Matilda Diaries follows the restoration of a Matilda II, and explores some of the questions and challenges involved with the project overall, as well as the nitty gritty of dismantling and reassembling a 70-year-old vehicle. https://tinyurl.com/z9abbdf
David Fletcher’s Cromwell Tank Chat in which he explains everything you need to know about a particular tank from the museum’s collection is already proving popular. Tanks featured so far include Valentine, TOG II*, Whippet and the A13 Cruiser. The latest video is the Praying Mantis, an experimental machine-gun carrier manufactured in 1943. https://tinyurl.com/je7uyks
Russian industry and trade minister Denis Manturov said that Russia has signed a major contract for the supply of T-90MS to an unnamed Middle Eastern country. He suggested more contracts would follow soon. The T-90ms, also known as Tagil, was first unveiled in 2011 and was designed for the Russian army as well as with export in mind.
During IDEX 2017, held in February in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai-based Minerva Special Purpose Vehicles, announced that it is building large numbers of their Panthera T6 light armoured vehicles for Egypt. The Panthera T6 was first seen during an Egyptian military parade in 2014 but it now believed that more than 2,000 will be heading to Egypt for both the army and the police force. The T6 is a Toyota Land Cruiser 79-series vehicle with its body replaced by light armour. That makes it cheap, which, when coupled with its small size, makes it an attractive proposition to the Egyptians who have been using the vehicle on the Sinai Peninsula where it has been involved in skirmishes with local Islamic State fighters.
