Some interesting photos on facetube of Myanmar Army Armour

[Chris Hall]

From facetube

 

 

[B series]

That's interesting!  That must be the historical display Regt.  I would like a look around their vehicle stores depot.

[David Herbert]

I spotted the Comet on the BBC news. In the mid '70s they were still buying spares for multiple Comets as I had a small part to play in sourcing new speedometer cables for them.

David

[GoranWC51]

Don't forget you helping the Finnish armor museum at Parola to get their Comet/Comets running too, David 😁

How may Comets does the Myanmar army have? And where did they originate from?

The world has seen so many transactions with armored vehicles jhanging hands, over the years, that were not always kosher. Like the 300 odd Centurion tanks, that the Indian army decided to replace with Russian T54/T55 tanks. These tanks, all of which were bsically in running condition, were with the stroke of a pen, turned from "operative" to "scrap" condition, and then put on ships headed for South Africa, who were in dire need of miore Centurions, since the UN had embargoed all ars sales to South Africa. South Africa has upgraded, and rebuilt, their Centurions over the years, noteworthy is the "Oliphant", which is a highly eveolved version of the Centurion.

The Centurion tank was in use by the South Africans since 1957 – at first, 250 Mk 2 and Mk 3 Centurions bought directly from the UK, but later, South Africa bought Mk 5 Centurions from India and Jordan. Starting in 1970, the UN imposed ever-more-restrictive arms embargoes on South Africa, due to its apartheid practices and human rights violations.  The armored units benefited from a series of upgrades performed on the Centurion, the “SKOKIAAN” program in 1968 (there was an ongoing UN embargo at the time, that prevented spare parts and upgrades from getting through), with the fitting of a 372 kW (500 hp) V12, Detroit diesel, and in 1973 a Continental fuel-injection engine and a three-speed Allison semi-automatic transmission performed at Pretoria.

CENTURION

~38 MK1A/1B and
~26 MK2 in regular army service
~131 in reserve squadrons/storage
2 Armoured Bridge-layers (ABL)
16 armoured recovery vehicles (ARV)

 

 

 

 

[REME 245]

One source states that they aquired 25 in the 1960's perhaps from Hong Kong when they were replaced presumably by Centurions if indeed we continued to base Tanks there.   Also approx 40 Humber Armoured Cars.  These must be a few surviving Musum vehicles.

Their army is fully equiped with modern AFV's now so no need for these.

[Ex-boy]

There was a squadron’s worth of Cents in Hong Kong in the early 70s at least, for training purposes. I was lucky enough to go there with the Royal Hussars in Nov 1971.