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The British Matilda rarely takes center stage in wartime chronicles. Yet crews across the Commonwealth fought in these slow, peculiar tanks from the early years of World War II to its very end. When Vickers engineers designed it, they drew heavily on lessons from the long-gone First World War. Yet remarkably, they still nailed it. The Matilda turned out to be relevant even as the nature of warfare evolved dramatically.
During the Cold War, countries with limited means usually relied on allied suppliers for defense. At times, though, circumstances pushed such states to join forces and develop their own equipment. A prime example was the joint Romanian-Yugoslav project that produced the IAR-93 Vultur and the J-22 Orao.
The American M113 is a famously flexible workhorse. This platform spawned everything from ATGM carriers to SPAAGs. War Thunder has had plenty of those for years, but the latest update adds something truly unusual to Israel’s tech tree: the Bardelas/60mm HVMS. And yes, Bardelas really does mean “cheetah”. Military naming conventions remain undefeated...
In the mid-1920s, Germany quietly abandoned the Versailles restrictions and began covertly rebuilding its armored forces. In 1933, the army tasked Rheinmetall, whose Grosstraktor was the only 1920s design with any combat value, with developing a new heavy tank. The brief called for a vehicle of about 20 t with three turrets, armed with 75-mm and 37-mm guns plus multiple machine guns. The paperwork labeled the program Panzerkampfwagen Neubaufahrzeug — literally “new-construction fighting vehicle”. The name stuck and was later shortened to Nb.Fz.
After the defeat in World War 2, Japan was in no position to develop or acquire new military aircraft. After the end of the official Allied occupation of the islands, the country adopted a strict policy of non-involvement, vowing never to take part in foreign conflicts and banning all forms of military export. At the same time, given the reality of living in a world divided between two superpowers, Japan also started rebuilding its armed forces for self-defense purposes.
On December 1st, Portugal celebrates Restoration of Independence Day! It was on this date in 1640 that the Portuguese revolted against Spain, which had controlled the country for several decades at the time, and declared independence. Join in with a new video from our Moments of Valor series, dedicated to Portugal!
The heavy tank T-10 entered service with the Soviet Army at a time when heavy tanks were already becoming a thing of the past. Armies around the world — the Soviet Union included — were shifting toward a new ideal: a single, universal tank design that combined speed, protection, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. Yet it was during this very transition — as the era of heavy tanks was drawing to a close — that the T-10 entered mass production and went on to serve for decades.