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PHOTOS: Nigeria Receives Chinese Artillery, VT4 MBT & STI Tank Destroyer
Nigeria government recently received Chinese Artillery VT4 MBT & STI Destroyer military hardware to combat the battle against insurgents.
Nigeria government recently received Chinese Artillery Tank to boost the capacity of Nigeria troops fighting The Boko Haram insurgency that began in 2009, when the jihadist group Boko Haram started an armed rebellion against the government of Nigeria,
China’s state-owned NORINCO delivered 17 armoured vehicles including artillery trucks, VT4 main battle tanks and ST1 tank destroyers to the Nigerian Army (NA) on Wednesday.
The company won the $152 million military equipment and training package last year reportedly owing to its flexible maintenance policies and durability of the equipment.
With this feat, Nigeria is the first country in the world to own these armoured vehicles, which are built to carry a minimum of 12 armed personnel.
The brand new Chinese weapons are in different categories and these include the heavy tanks, light tanks and two types of artillery weapons.
The first set of 15 40-foot containers that were offloaded were made up of spare parts and accessories of all these equipment,” Army’s Chief of Policy and Plans (CPPLANS) Lieutenant General Lamidi Adeosun said.
“Those who will operate them have been trained in China. If not for the lockdown occasioned by the COVID-19, we expected some of their trainers to join us here to train more people,” Adeosun added.
Below are some of the pictures of the hardware when they were shipped into the country.
According to Wikipedia, The VT-4 main battle tank (Chinese: VT-4 ), also known as the MBT3000, is a Chinese third-generation main battle tank built by Norinco for overseas export. It is the latest tank model from the Type 90-II ( Al-Khalid ) tank family and uses technology from the Type 99A currently fielded by the People’s Liberation Army.
According to Norinco, the VT-4 uses a locally produced 1,300 hp diesel engine with torsion bar suspension and an integrated hydraulic transmission system.[1][4][6][7][8] Steering and acceleration is handled by a steering wheel and automatic gear transmission.
The VT-4 has a 125mm smoothbore cannon capable of firing APFSDS, HESH, HEAT and HE rounds and guided missiles. There is also a remote weapon station on the turret armed with a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun. The fire control system has hunter-killer capabilities, laser rangefinder, panoramic sight, and a third-generation thermal imaging system.
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