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Challenger 1 Tank
The FV4030/4 Challenger 1 is a British main battle tank (MBT) used by the British Army from 1983 to 2001, when it was superseded by the Challenger 2. It is also currently used by the Royal Jordanian Army as its main battle tank, after heavy modifications. The variants for the Jordanian military were to be upgraded using the unmanned Falcon turret. History The Challenger design by the former Military Vehicles and Engineering Establishment (MVEE) near Chobham in Surrey originated in an Iranian order for an improved version of the Chieftain line of tanks in service around the world. These were the Chieftain Mk5(P)- FV4030/1, FV4030/2 Shir (Lion) 1 and 4030/3 Shir 2. With the fall of the Shah of Iran and the collapse of the UK MBT-80 project, the British Army became the customer and the tank was further developed by MVEE to meet Western European requirements. For a short time the tank was named "Cheviot" (the name of a hill range) before becoming "Challenger", a name reused ...
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Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, Iraq were carried out in two key phases: Operation Desert Shield, which marked the military buildup from August 1990 to January 1991; and Operation Desert Storm, which began with the Gulf War air campaign, aerial bombing campaign against Iraq on 17 January 1991 and came to a close with the American-led Liberation of Kuwait campaign, Liberation of Kuwait on 28 February 1991. On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded the neighbouring Kuwait, State of Kuwait and had fully occupied the country within two days. Initially, Iraq ran the occupied territory under a puppet government known as the "Republic of Kuwait" before proceeding with an outright annexation in which Kuwaiti sovereign territory was split, with the "Saddamiyat al-Mitla' District" being car ...
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Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan to the north, by Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, and by the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. It covers an area of , making it the 17th-largest country. Iran has a population of 86 million, making it the 17th-most populous country in the world, and the second-largest in the Middle East. Its largest cities, in descending order, are the capital Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz, and Tabriz. The country is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, beginning with the formation of the Elamite kingdoms in the fourth millennium BC. It was first unified by the Medes, an ancient Iranian people, in the seventh century BC, and reached its territorial height in the sixth century BC, when Cyrus the Great f ...
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Alvis Vickers
Alvis PLC was created when United Scientific Holdings plc acquired the Alvis division of the nationalised vehicle manufacturer British Leyland in 1981. United Scientific maintained its own name until 1992 when the group was renamed Alvis plc. Alvis acquired Swedish armoured vehicle manufacturer Hagglunds AB in 1997 and the armoured vehicle business of GKN in 1998. It acquired Vickers Defence Systems from Rolls-Royce in October 2002. Alvis was acquired by BAE Systems in 2004 and became BAE Systems Land Systems (Weapons & Vehicles), now part of the BAE Systems Land & Armaments operating group. History Alvis became part of Rover in 1965, which ended the company's car manufacturing in 1967 to allow it to concentrate on the manufacture of armoured vehicles. In 1968 Rover and its Alvis subsidiary were incorporated into the Leyland Motor Corporation later British Leyland or BL. In 1981 the then nationalised BL sold the Alvis business to United Scientific Holdings for £27 mi ...
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Vickers Defence Systems
Vickers plc was the remainder of Vickers-Armstrongs after the nationalisation of three of its four operating groups: aviation (as a 50% share since 1960 of British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) in 1977), shipbuilding ( Vickers Limited Shipbuilding Group in 1977) and steel. It was purchased by Rolls-Royce plc in 1999, and the Vickers company name became defunct in 2003 as Rolls renamed the company Vinters Engineering. History The company was created in 1977 from the rump of Vickers-Armstrongs following the nationalisation of its aviation, shipbuilding and steel businesses. The name was first used by the Vickers family for Vickers Limited – at first a Sheffield steel foundry and later a manufacturing conglomerate – from 1867 to 1927. During the 1980s the company acquired businesses in the automotive engineering sector (principally Rolls-Royce Motors), the defence sector (principally Royal Ordnance Factory Leeds) and the marine engineering sector (principally Kamewa and Ulstein ...
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ROF Leeds
Royal Ordnance Factory Leeds, first opened as a munitions factory in December 1915 and opened as an ROF in January 1936, was one of a number of Royal Ordnance Factories created at the start of the Second World War. Early site history and production First World War ROF Engineering Factory opened as National Filling Factory No. 1 (Barnbow) in December 1915. Barnbow was Britain's top shell factory between 1914 and 1918, and by the end of the war on 11 November 1918, a total of 566,000 tons of ammunition had been shipped overseas. Second World War Conversion to an Engineering ROF In the late 1930s, war was seen as a possibility, if not likely, and a sizeable rearmament programme began, probably also activated by the concern that a large proportion of the arsenal was becoming obsolete. Post-war Immediate post-war In November 1945 full production began on the uparmoured Centurion Mark II with an order of 800 Munro, Centurion, p. 40 with production lines at Leyland, the Roya ...
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Royal Ordnance Factories
Royal Ordnance Factories (ROFs) was the collective name of the UK government's munitions factories during and after the Second World War. Until privatisation, in 1987, they were the responsibility of the Ministry of Supply, and later the Ministry of Defence. Origin Prior to the 1930s, Britain's ordnance manufacturing capability had been concentrated within the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. In the late nineteenth century, the term 'Royal Ordnance Factories' began to be used collectively of the manufacturing departments of the Arsenal (principally the Royal Laboratory, Royal Gun Factory and Royal Carriage Works) which, though they shared the same site, operated independently of one another. This use of the term is seen in the name of the Royal Ordnance Factories Football Club (founded 1893) and it continued through the First World War. The emerging threat of aerial bombing, however, prompted the government to consider dispersing its ordnance factories around the country. Development ...
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Hydropneumatic Suspension
Hydropneumatic suspension is a type of motor vehicle suspension system, designed by Paul Magès, invented by Citroën, and fitted to Citroën cars, as well as being used under licence by other car manufacturers, notably Rolls-Royce ( Silver Shadow), Bmw 5-Series e34 Touring, Maserati ( Quattroporte II) and Peugeot. It was also used on Berliet trucks and has more recently been used on Mercedes-Benz cars, where it is known as ''Active Body Control.'' The Toyota Soarer UZZ32 "Limited" was fitted with a fully integrated four-wheel steering and a complex, computer-controlled hydraulic '' Toyota Active Control Suspension'' in 1991. Similar systems are also widely used on modern tanks and other large military vehicles. The suspension was referred to as ''oléopneumatique'' in early literature, pointing to oil and air as its main components. The purpose of this system is to provide a sensitive, dynamic and high-capacity suspension that offers superior ride quality on a variety of su ...
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M1 Abrams
The M1 Abrams is a third-generation American main battle tank designed by Chrysler Defense (now General Dynamics Land Systems) and named for General Creighton Abrams. Conceived for modern armored ground warfare and now one of the heaviest tanks in service at nearly 68 short tons (almost 62 metric tons), it introduced several modern technologies to US armored forces, including a multifuel turbine engine, sophisticated Chobham composite armor, a computer fire control system, separate ammunition storage in a blow-out compartment, and NBC protection for crew safety. Initial models of the M1 were armed with a licensed-produced 105 mm Royal Ordnance L7 gun, while later variants feature a licensed Rheinmetall 120 mm L/44. The M1 Abrams was developed from the failure of the MBT-70 project to replace the obsolescent M60 tank. There are three main operational Abrams versions, the M1, M1A1, and M1A2, with each new iteration seeing improvements in armament, protection, and e ...
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Rolled Homogeneous Armour
Rolled homogeneous armour (RHA) is a type of vehicle armour made of a single steel composition hot-rolled to improve its material characteristics, as opposed to layered or cemented armour. Its first common application was in tanks. After World War II, it began to fall out of use on main battle tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles intended to see front-line combat as new anti-tank weapon technologies were developed which were capable of relatively easily penetrating rolled homogeneous armour plating even of significant thickness. Today, the term is primarily used as a unit of measurement of the protection offered by armour on a vehicle (often composed of materials that may not actually contain steel, or even contain any metals) in equivalent ''millimetres of RHA'', referring to the thickness of RHA that would provide the same protection. Typically, modern composite armour can provide the same amount of protection with much thinner and lighter construction than its protecti ...
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Cruiser Mk VIII Challenger
The Tank, Cruiser, Challenger (A30) was a British tank of World War II. It mounted the QF 17-pounder anti-tank gun on a chassis derived from the Cromwell tank to add anti-tank firepower to the cruiser tank units. The design compromises made in fitting the large gun onto the Cromwell chassis resulted in a tank with a powerful weapon and reduced armour. The extemporised 17-pounder Sherman Firefly conversion of the US-supplied Sherman was easier to produce and, with delays in production, only 200 Challengers were built. The Challenger was able to keep up with the fast Cromwell tank and was used with them. History The driving force in the development of the Challenger was William Arthur Robotham. "Roy" Robotham had been a Rolls-Royce executive in the car division who, with no work to do, had led a team to develop a tank powerplant from the Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine. The Rolls-Royce Meteor gave the British a powerful, reliable engine, which was used in the A27M Cruise ...
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Cheviot Hills
The Cheviot Hills (), or sometimes The Cheviots, are a range of uplands straddling the Anglo-Scottish border between Northumberland and the Scottish Borders. The English section is within the Northumberland National Park. The range includes The Cheviot (the highest hill), plus Hedgehope Hill to the east, Windy Gyle to the west, and Cushat Law and Bloodybush Edge to the south. The hills are sometimes considered a part of the Southern Uplands of Scotland as they adjoin the uplands to the north. Since the Pennine Way runs through the region, the hills are also considered a part of the northern Pennines although they are separated from the Cheviot Hills by the Tyne Gap, part of which lies within the southern extent of the Northumberland National Park. The Cheviot Hills are primarily associated with geological activity from approximately 480 to 360 million years ago, when the continents of Avalonia and Laurentia collided, resulting in extensive volcanic activity (the Caledonian o ...
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MBT-80
The FV4601 MBT-80 was a British experimental third-generation main battle tank, designed in the late 1970s to replace the Chieftain tank. It was eventually (and later controversially) cancelled in favour of the Challenger 1, itself an evolution of the Chieftain design. History By the early 1970s, there was a great disparity in the number of tanks being fielded by NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Europe. The US Army fielded the M60 which had been designed to deal with the 100 mm gun of the T-55, but could not withstand the 115 mm gun being fielded on the T-62, let alone the newer 125 mm model of the T-64 and T-72. The same-era West German design, the Leopard 1, was very lightly armoured based on the conclusion that heavy armour had little purpose in an era of high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) weapons of rapidly improving performance. The concept was to give the tank high manoeuvrability to allow it to outmanoeuvre the slower-moving Soviet tanks and early generation mis ...
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