First five Oplot tanks for Thai Army arrive in country
The delivery of Oplot Main Battle Tanks (MBT) to the Kingdom of Thailand by Ukraine continues to progress with the arrival of the first five tanks in Thailand. The tanks will now undergo further testing before being formally accepted.
The Royal Thai Army is to receive 49 Oplot tanks in total under a contract signed in September 2011. The technical acceptance of the tanks was completed in November 2013. Thailand has a stated requirement for 200 tanks.
The Oplot is manufactured by the Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau (KMDB) in Ukraine. The export version replaces the 125mm smoothbore gun with a NATO-standard 120mm smoothbore weapon.
Thailand is the first export customer for the MBT. The remaining vehicles are scheduled for delivery by the end of 2015.
Related Equipment in Defence Insight
More from Land Warfare
-
Milrem outlines plans for Havoc and Vector as Ukrainian THeMIS numbers set to double
Milrem’s THeMIS uncrewed ground vehicle is one of the most battle-proven medium UGV platforms in service, with the company looking to have production versions of new large platforms ready before the end of the decade.
-
US Precision Strike Missile makes combat debut in Operation Epic Fury
CENTCOM confirmed that PrSMs have been deployed in the offensive against Iran, bringing what it called “an unrivalled deep strike capability”.
-
February land forces roundup: ST Engineering and Russia lift the lid on new platforms
This month we saw a major presence from Turkish, Russian and Chinese companies at the World Defense Show with new vehicles from major suppliers, while elsewhere there were evolving mortar programmes and artillery modernisation efforts.