To address a number of questions, I did not include artillery or small arms as I believe they are separate enough to warrant their own video in the future.
East Germany did produce a number of unique ship designs, some of which are in service today. After the war the Soviets made the East Germans continue to produce ships as a means of repaying debt, so the industry was kept relatively intact.
Question: Why no mention of the Czech OT-810? although it wasn't technically their design entirely the fact that they built a version of a german WW2 half track design until 1962 and only got around to replacing it with the OT-64 in the 1964 is interesting IMO
While East Germanys (officially nonexistent) arms industrie never produced any armored vehicles, we made a range of smaller arms (i.e. the Wieger assault riffle).
Even that prototype was made because East Germany in the 1980s was strapped out off cash & so desperate for money. At the same period, East Germany smuggled weapons to Africa through their cruise ships, selling blood supply, etc
@@hallojutuhb9071Not that many? Lmao, East Germany had so much export success with the license copy of the AKM (the MPi-KM) that the Soviet Union only gave the DDR the right to license produce the AK-74 if they agreed to not export any
@@Usmodlover hence the need for the GDR to design a export modell, the Wieger. Available in 5.56 and 7.62 Nato, if it had ever gone into full production.
The OT-90 was built and designed as part of the effort of reducing the weapon stocks of Czechoslovakia after the collapse of its socialist regime in 1989. The point was to remove the 73mm cannon as part of compliance with the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe from 1990. Because it looks awkward and was done in the 90s under president Havel, we nicknamed it "Havel's Tiger".
My uncle who was serving as a mechanic in the 90s said they still had the BVP-1 turrets right next to the OT-90s, and they were told to put them back on if there was a threat of war.
When you stated some of these vehicles were exported, wish you would've told us which countries they were exported to. That's my only complaint if you can call it that. Otherwise I enjoyed it.👍
It were not tanks or IFV 's but IFA W 50 a German militarised 5 tonne 4 x 4 truck with a hatch in the roof had massive export to Iraq. They were specially manufactured for Iraq, that is to say, no heating was installed. Many of these trucks never reached Iraq, so they came in GDR companies like big coöperative farms. Then the lack of heaters became a problem, because the GDR ain't exactly a warm climate.
A huge chunk of the tanks and IFVs destroyed in Iraq were from Warsaw pact members, these were non Soviet spec and hence had inferior armor, sights, guns and ammo . The T-55s, T-72s and BMPs were from Poland, Czechoslovakia , Romania etc. A large number of T-55 were actually Type-59 chinese models too. The tanks lacked the composite and ERA of the Soviet models and also fired ammo that the Soviet armies had replaced in 1970s, thus making the lives very easy for the Allied ground forces and giving rise to the Soviet weapons junk meme.
Czechoslovakia was biggest producer of armored vehicles in Europe and third in world! from 1945 to 1992 around 40000 tanks and armored vehicles mainly for export to Romania, Hungary, Germany, Soviet Union, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, India... And you forget many designs for example MT-55A, BPzV Svatava, self propelled AA vz 53/59, SpGH DANA, vz85 PRAM, RM70
About Poland. the Polish tank factory you speak about will build the K2 PL, the Polish version of the South Korean K2 MBT. I think they will also build the K9-K10 Artillery system.
It is exactly as u say, with additional info: -that polish production of k2 would start with standard k2's and later switch to PL version -that k9 production should lead to development and production of "krab 2" (existing Polish krab spg itself uses k9 chasis so the notion is quite logical) But Those details i've mentioned are not set in stone tho, so its just a bunch of plans that might not come into reality
@@warrusqwe As I see it Hanwha wants to build a hub in Poland for not only building, but also partsmaking, servicing, midlife updates, training facilities of aftersales. Europe can learn a lot from Hanwha, because they react very quick on demands from the (potential) clients and they are buiding sophisticated weapons almost as a car production line and not really a manufacture like Rheinmetall and KMW. They have seen the demand for big numbers earlier then Rheinmetall, I think. By this policy, Hanwha also took away a big issue for European forces. European countries and NATO don't like to purchase weapons from Asia because of difficult logistics in wartime. Now they can buy a South Korean product made in Poland. In the middle of Europe .
@@bertnl530 pretty much what u said, significant part of the Poland's decision of buying Korean hardware, was a deal including not only vehicles themselves but also transfer of know how, local maintenance and production facilities (athought, for now planned to be more in a shape of assembly plants, with components themselves being mostly produced in Korea) Quite an enticing deal, especially with european manufacturers such like rhinemetal in case of at least Poland not being able to deliver required equipment (from my knowledge issues with delivery times, as well as German bureucracy, were the main reson why Poland turned away from German to US and Korean manufacturers in the first place ) Europe really neglected its defence sector
@@warrusqwe From what I ve read, the choices of the former Polish government were also made due to the arrogancy the government fell from the German government. I think also that Defence industries are seen as "dirty" for investors and there were also not much countries who wanted to invest in new systems. They wanted to upgrade the systems they had over and over again. That is a good reason for defence companies to not spend to much money on new developments. There was no war, there was no treath nearby. Countries like Norway, Sweden,Finland, the Baltic States and Poland saw it different, but where often seen as paranoid or something. We alread found out some years ago that they were right, but still did not invest. Now all countries have all problems at the same moment. Lack of manpower, lack of systems and ordnance. lack of money. Hanwha also saw very good that many Middle European countries want to replace their old Soviet systems . I sometimes read things about differences in capabilities or quality. I don't know anything about that. but in the current situation it is better to have 100 tanks which are not nr 1 but nr 2 with minor differences then 0 tanks, because you are on a waiting list for years.
Don’t think recent models count. T-55M „Merida” would, though - it was deep modification of T-55 with applique armor, new fire control, passive defense protection system and few other improvements. All except from few museum pieces got scrapped though, otherwise you would find them on Ukraine for sure.
16:51 Usually the acronym SKOT is pronounced rather than spelled, like the name "Scott". In both Polish and Czech, the acronym stands for Medium Wheeled Armoured Personel Carrier (PL: Średni Kołowy Opancerzony Transporter, CZ: Stredni Kolovy Obrneny Transporter).
Oh Boy... To say that the Czech Tanks weren't not as Good as German Tanks is either a case of overglorification of the German Engineering and industrial capacitys at this Point,or just a very superficial Knowledge of this Topic. Germany had at this time very few Panzer 3 and 4 and most of their Tank force was equipped with Panzer 1 and 2. The Skoda 35 and 38 Tanks with their Main Armament were very welcome addition to the German Wehrmacht in the build up for WW2
I base that on them originally having a two man turret, which is an ergonomic issue and being riveted, which is a survivability issue. While the czech tanks were better than the panzer 1 and panzer 2, the panzer 3 was superior to them and is the closer comparison in design, even if there were not many of them fielded at the time.
@@Cold_Warmaster While the riveted armor was limiting, they proved to be spacious enough and especially the 38 was loved for its reliability and could do everything that Panzer III could, in a much more compact package. They were also easy to drive and their 37mm gun, while not the most powerful, was durable and accurate, and I believe it was also cheaper production wise. It's simply wrong to call them inferior to Panzer IIIs and IVs of the early war period. Especially Panzer IV was at that point still largely a glorified infantry tank
OT-90 (Armored Transporter model 90) is a Czechoslovak armored personnel carrier, which was created by modifying the BVP-1 infantry fighting vehicle. According to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, adopted by the participating states on November 19, 1990 in Paris, and the Agreement on Maximum Levels of Conventional Weapons and Technology, the then Czechoslovakia undertook to reduce the levels of armored technology. Considering that the BVP-1 was equipped with a 73 mm cannon and belonged to the category of combat vehicles with heavy weapons, the number of which was limited according to the contract, the conversion of the car was started according to these new agreements. This conversion was officially called OT-90, unofficially this armored personnel carrier was nicknamed "Havel's Tiger".
I'm pretty sure the Poles had a slightly modified version of the MTLB as well that's meant to be roomier than the Soviet version. Also Yugo small arms design is really interesting, lots of it seems to be "We have X at home" design where they got a few of a certain model either exported officially or not and then make a sort of copy of it. The M56 SMG being not quite an MP40 and also in 7.62x25mm They also did the same thing with gas masks, both British and American masks they made very close copies to just out of really bad quality rubber. The M2 mask is interesting as it's basically the US M9 modernised to be more compact and in 40mm not the old 60mm.
Yup, it's called Opal and is still in service as chassis for number of specialised vehicles. Additionally, after initial batch of 2S1s, they too received modifications, which made it more suitable for naval landings
Sad that you have not included more of Czechoslovakia's domestic vehicles. Like the RM-70, Praga M53/59 "Ještěrka", or the legendary first wheeled artillery - *ShKH vz. 77 DANA*
@@diehard6953 Very true! Delfín and Albatros vere very succesful trainers for Aero Vodochody. But since this video has been focused on land vehicles, I didn't mentioned them. Would be also interesting to make a video about non-Soviet Warsaw Pact weaponry - Especially in terms of Czechoslovakia as we did not make derivates of AKs and other Soviet platforms like the other member countries did- Samopal vz. 61, 58, 24/26, Puška vz. 52/57, Univerzální kulomet vz. 59, Lehký kulomet vz. 52/57, Pistole vz. 52, etc, etc..
Fun fact about the BVP M-80a. While everyone sais it looks like a soviet BMP, it also looks like a French AMX-10P which it is partially developed out of. The French and Yugoslavs had a on off cooperation in military development going on.
We don't have a tank program anymore unfortunately. The PZL Wola engine plant in Warsaw was destroyed/sold, and Bumar Łabędy, so the company that was manufacturing the T-55, T-72 and PT-91 cannot produce tanks anymore, as of now they're modernizing Leopard 2A4 into the 2PL and repairing Ukrainian Leo 2A4, T-72 and T-64 tank families. We also never produced the BMP-1, Czechoslovakia did. We did produce the 2S1 Gvozdika (under the translated name Gwoździk) as well as the MT-LB. In the late 70s, an upgraded version of the MT-LB was developed, called the Opal or SPG-2. The main difference was a redesigned front section and an addition of propellers for better in-water mobility. It came in two variants, the SPG-2, an equivalent of the MT-LB, and the SPG-2A, a longer, 7 roadwheel version, an equivalent of the MT-LBu.
Small correction OT-90 is or was more of slovak vehicle. Slovakia after the disollution of Czechoslovakia wanted to keep heavy mechanised brigade. But OT-64 were lighter and belong to medium brigade vehicle class. So the slovak engineer just dismantled or sold OT-64 and used ther turrets and communication systems to modernise their BMP-1 fleet. And the OT-90 is just BVP-1 chassis with OT-64 turret and modern communication equipment. I hope I helped you with you :)
hey would you consider using game engines such as combat mission or command modern operations to illustrate formation sizes, combat and movement? it would be interesting to actually see to scale what historically accurate formations would look like in action
Looks like only tanks and AFVs were in the scope of the video, but East Germany did have the Robur LO FASTA-4 and the IFA W50 mit. 2M-3. Pretty rough airbase defense expedients but maybe meet the definition of an indigenous system.
As a Romanian, I enjoyed the part about Romania, as you were as objective as posible, even I would've been more critical of the TR-77-580. Now, although I understand you didn't really include prototypes in this video, I would've liked seeing you talk about the TR-125 as well since, although it was still a prototype, if not for the events of December 1989, it would've made it into production. For those of you who don't know, the TR-125 was basiclly an indiginous design based on the T-72 Ural, with an increased length, and an aditional roadwheel. It boasted better armor and technology than the tank it was based on and generally speaking, had a lot more modernising potential. But the post-1990 gouvernment didn't think the same way. They thought "Why produce new tanks and bring them to NATO standards when you can modernise the existing ones?". And that's how we lost the TR-125, a tank with quite a lot of potential that was never produced in more than 5 units. Now, about APC'S, I feel like you could've said more them, considering we were producing some of the best BTR-derived APC's. We were also getting ready to produce the TAB B-33 Zimbru (a BTR-80 with a better engine) which was sadly only produced in 30 units.
I love how varied different weapons systems were in the Warsaw Pact. It's funny to me how you only really see them in things like Wargame and such but they're hardly mentioned. It does kind of make sense due to size I suppose.
A note on the romanian tank situation: from what I understand romania condemned the soviet invatson of czechoslovakia so as punishment the soviets stopped giving us military technology, that's why we were stuck with T55's and MIG21's
Production of M-84 did not stop after breakup of Yugoslavia. Croatia continue limited production until 2003. and modernized existing croatian and slovenian tanks to M-84A4 Sniper standard. ✌🏻
About East Germany Something to mention is that the east never was all that industrial, other then Silesia, wich went to Poland. In addition to Many factories being shipped to Russia as reparations
Not exactly. Engine, suspension, drive train were designed and produced in czechoslovakia. Armored body, turret and arnament were designed and produced in Poland and whole vehicles were assembled in Poland in FSC Lublin
To adress the section of Romania, specially the part on the TR-85-800. Because Id argue that the TR-85-800 is possibly the most unique or at least one of the most unique AFV ever produced by the Warsaw pact and it was simply glossed over with very little details and context What you showed on the slide is the TR-85M1, which is a post communist upgrade of the TR-85-800. The TR-85-800 is a vast improvement over the TR-77-580, and what was missing on the TR-77-580 section was that it was much more heavily armored than T-55. If you want me to go into more detail I can. The TR-85-800 is a new production vehicle, the design is a redesign of what originally Romania wanted back in 1974. It uses an MTU 331 derived diesel engine of west german origin called the 8VSA2T2 and the transmission is a clone of Leopard 1's transmission called the THM-800. The suspension was redesign the entire hull was redesigned. The turret is as far as it has been ohserved, for the most part the same as the TR-77-580's, now with a new digital fire control system that has a meteo sensor and laser range finders. It was also introduced into service in 1984. It is a massive improvement over the TR-77-580 and while admittedly inferior to many of its contemporaries it does things as well or nearly as well to a lot of them either Soviet or Western.
Also M-84 is essentially just a licensed T-72M with a new FCS and an uprated V-46. The two are so much similar that the manual for the M-84 and T-72 are one in the same.
The czechoslovak OT-90 was made due to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe which placed limit on tanks and BVP-1 with its 73mm cannon fell it to the category of tank so to lower the numbers of tanks they were converted into OT-90
Yes, it was converted from BVP 1 in 1990 and couple hundred units were made. Many specialized vehicles were made on its chasis a its still used by Slovak military. The were nicknamed Havel´s tigers.
Also you should have talked about the upgrade packages done by other eastern states. Like the T-55M2 package for example which basically changed t-55 into higher tier tank.
I don't know if it's the same turret as on BRDM but on OT-64 was the one used on BTR-60PB. SOurce of info: Burian, Michal; Dítě, Josef; Dubánek, Martin. OT-64 SKOT - historie a vývoj obrněného transportéru. Grada Publishing, Praha 2010.
Poland never produced BMP-1, most of them PL bought from Czechoslovakia, some from soviet union. There were plans to produce BMP in PL but at the end we produced MTLB and Gvozdika.
@Cold_Warmaster The OT-90 was made becuase after the dissolution of warsav pact, Czechoslovakia was bounded by treaties limiting heavy armoured vehicles in which stadart bmp-1 was included because of the 73mm canon. So to oblige by the treaty we swaped the canon for heavy machinegun.
More than the Warsaw pact , The Chinese and the North Koreans as well as Yugoslavians were some of the most unique design makers in the 2nd World nations / comm bloc nations.
Poland also produce under licens T34-85 from 1952 to 1956. Total produced 1320 (272 exported) acording to wiki. The t34 were remove from polish army in 1986.
Good stuff but you could also look into aa/artillery vehicles which the nswp designed and produced indiginously. These are armoured vehicles too and was looking to learn about them, eg. Rm70 mlrs, dana sph, pram-s, strop-1/2 spaags, T-55 with Neva SAMs,
The AM2 - AM2B were the Czechoslovak versions of the Soviet upgrades that the DDR purchased. As far as I know the only indigenous upgrade for NVA tanks was bringing their T-54s to T-55A standard (T-54AMZ) and the T-72M "Übergangsversion", a T-72M with an extra armour plate welded on top of the glacis.
"against Soviet" No, Yugoslavia was essentially a pseudoneutral nation building up its military to guarantee that not quite neutrality, they built it against BOTH Nato and Pact. While its relations with USSR was not remotely perfect, they were still considerably better than with Nato. USSR tended to treat Yugoslavia like the annoying little sibling that kept overshadowing itself by doing better at the same things. The Soviets tended to be more exasperated and annoyed with Yugoslavia than hostile, and most of the time, they were resonably friendly.
POLAND was't have licence for production BMP-1, (this vechicle imported from Czechoslovakia), but was big producer MTLB (Bulgaria had licence for MTLBu)
Larger scale tactics, yes. I already have a few videos on that, though I will most likely remake them in the future because I have learned a lot about how to make videos since their creation.
Sadly Poland at this point is incapable in creating any kind of tank. After gaining independence polish industries were mostly killed off and shut down that includes arms industry. Hence Polish governments turned to buying foreign manufactured tanks as a quick solution that resulted in logistical nightmare of using 3 types of MBTs all designed by different countries with different doctrines. In terms of military capability Poland is effed.
Specifically in reference to the current war, no. As a part of a larger list of upgrades/modernizations, yes. For example a video on T-72 upgrades would include the AMT and B3M but also the Ayeja, Saddam, and Rakhsh.
@@Cold_Warmaster In that case, do you consider some of the ukrainian "evolutions" of vehicles, such as the T-84 prototypes or the BTR 4, as upgrades of the older Cold War designes or do you think those are new vehicles that are outside of the focus of this channel? You're the Cold War-master after all.
Ot-64 Skit isnfirst modern APC. Diesel engine, 8x8, Independent suspension, amphibios, space for soldiers accesilbke from rear ford and hatches on roof. ABC protection and night vision
Sadly poland despite it's industry was steered directly from moscow for a bit and even when it got it's ability to somewhat self-rule under Gomułka a lot of iniciatives where still squandered firectly from Moscow. Also I think you forgot VZ.77 Dana which is arguably best soviet era SPG- Basically Archer of 1970s. 8x8 V8 truck chasee with 152mm autoloader. Indeginous to czechoslovakia and one of the few things that where so good that even soviets had a few. Not armored but noteworthy as fuck- it's the only WP system that's somewat relevant today- all it needs is barrel made to western standard/155 conversion and BMS and it's still really useful.
As for squandered potential/projects that went nowhere, I remind myself of various attempts to create indigenous AA system - first Promet, which was rejected as no improvement over just slapping ZU-23-2 on MT-LB, next Polon, which was killed during design stage when Soviets realised that it's a "Tunguska at home", similarly missile meant to be used in that system. Out of all those attempts, the only ones relatively successful ones were Newa-SC, which was just changing electronics to more modern, without actually changing its performance, Sopel/Stalagmit, which produced working prototype, though it never went into production due to financial cuts in 90s and Grom MANPADS - originally Polish industry was meant to change from producing Strela to Igla, but in meantime Cold War ended and license was never given. So missiles sent to familiarise industry with new product to produce were reverse engineered and improved upon (especially seeker), giving birth to Grom which after further improvements became today's Piorun
@@Jfk2Mr many great things came out of failed first attempts. Shafrir-1 was objectively worse than AIM-9B, yet second version was superior to contemporary sidewinder. Sopwith camel came after tremendously bad Sopwith pup. Excellent Matilda II came out of dreadful Matilda I. Centurion came out of failures of both Cromwell, Churchill and Crusader. M1 Abrams is conceptual child of M103 and M6 failures. AR-15 (basis of M16 and M4 rifles) came out of embarrising early AR-10. Excellent Raphale came out of very limited Mirage which came out of mediocre super mysterie, underwhelming mysterie and objectively bad ouragan. Our polish Piorun manpad missile came out of loney-tunes level spy miss adventure with russians, one guy with defective photodiode and phone book, followed with another spy getting dumpsterfind stinger failed experiment photodiodewhich lead to Grom (equivalent to late stingers) only then to get finally decent team developing new algorithms to achieve best western MANPAD in piorun. If you don't develop nothing you will never succeed. Even failed project gets you forward. If you don't even give engineers a chance they will never succeed.
@@radosaworman7628 I know, but it seems like MON doesn't even attempt to invest into initially suboptimal solution that gives industry more experience and funds to improve
nothing about Polish domestic prod. of BMP 1, not much about Polish mod. of T 34 or WZT support vechicles, even less on T 55 AM2 Merida mod., nothing on TOPAS 2AP APC. I`m sorry but there is no in deep research in this movie.
