British Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank
Manufacturer: BAE Systems Land and Armaments [LSE: BA.L]

Photo Crown Copyright/MOD

The British Challenger 2 Main battle tank has several innovations unique to its design. One of the foremost innovations devised by the Brits is a type of armor known as Chobham armor, which is a layered matrix of steel and ceramics. In fact, incorporating layers of ceramic into steel has been a newer technique of strengthening steel, (the strongest knife blades are now layered steel and ceramics, because the ceramics provide an added measure of flexibility. The Chobham armor is known to perform especially…

Manufacturer: GIAT Industries

The French, their military history aside, actually are widely known in Europe for their innovative and solid armored vehicle designs. In the mid 1980’s, Britain introduced its Challenger 2 main battle tank, Germany rolled out the impressive Leopard 2, and the US unveiled its M1A1 Abrams tank. The world was being introduced to battle machinery that combined decades of design research and cutting edge electronics systems. Not wanting to be left behind, the French decided to join the party. They had initially planned on simply importing the German Leopard 2 tank, but after some cost forecasting and…

Manufacturer: Textron Inc. [NYSE: TXT]

The CBU-97 sensor-fuzed weapon is an extremely potent anti-armor cluster bomb. It combines so many different technologies of lethality and has so many moving parts for a bomb that initial observes questioned whether it would even work. Basically, the CBU-97 is dropped over a column of enemy armor, the bomb “clusters” and releases it’s sub-munitions, which are like smaller little bombs themselves. Each sub-munition is slowed by a parachute, and then each sub-munition fires 4 hockey puck sized “skeets” over the target area. The skeets contain an infrared targeting…

The Israeli Defence Forces recently implemented a modernization drive on their main battle tank program. Their newest design, uveiled in 2002, features some technological advances forged from the fire of the battlefields of the Middle East. This video of the Merkava 4 main battle tank displays the blast-proof ammunition container, and the ability to target and track multiple targets while on the move, even helicopters. Likely the best features of the Merkava 4 are that it has one of the smallest profiles on the battlefield, the sloped turret angles allow for this advantage. Additionally, the Merkava 4 actually has a…