Improvements to the Challenger 2 will cost £800 million ($1 billion) for the 148 tanks currently in service, or £5.4 million ($6.6 million) per tank, including tank capacity. incorporating a new smoothbore cannon to replace the older one, a digitized turret, improved visibility and upgraded armor protection, engines, etc. According to many experts, although the German Leopard 2 has the advantage of being still in production and being invested more in research and development to continuously upgrade its design, the continued investment in The Challenger has many notable advantages over purchasing a “pre-existing” German design. The British Ministry of Defense has decided to upgrade the Challenger 2 tank to the Challenger 3 standard; Source: armytimes.com The Challenger 2 has had limited export success, and around 40 are currently operated by the Royal Oman Army. The Challenger 3 upgrade package is likely to be sold to Oman, which has long been a top customer for British weapons. The large number of British Challenger 2 tanks in storage can be refurbished and upgraded to Challenger 3 standard for export to any interested partner. The cost and burden of abandoning the Challenger and adopting a foreign tank would also be enormous, forcing the British Army to retrain not only the crew, but also the maintenance crews. It would also force the military to scrap all existing maintenance infrastructure and source spare parts from abroad, and thus end the domestic parts industry. The cost of buying a new Leopard 2 will also be significantly higher than the £5.4 million ($6.6 million) that the Challenger 3 upgrade package costs per vehicle. One of the most obvious drawbacks of switching to Leopard 2 was the loss of credibility as a major tank manufacturer, with Britain having invented and being the first country to use tanks in combat, This means that the country has lost its strong industry. It is also important to note that the Leopard 2 is much older in design than the Challenger 2, and first entered service 20 years ago – in 1979, older than the retired Challenger 1 that entered service. active in 1983. While the Leopard 2 was a faster and more maneuverable tank, the Challenger 2 was considered to have much better armor protection – although this diminished over time as German tanks were continuously upgraded. customary. The decision to upgrade Challenger 2 instead of buying Leopard 2 is justified for various reasons; Source: wikipedia.org The Challenger 2 is the most modern Western tank class and has been in service since 1998, although the problem of a lack of smoothbore guns reduces its export potential, combined with the relatively small size of the units. The British tank status means it will be discontinued much sooner than the Leopard 2. With the Leopard 2 more than 40 years old, Germany is currently investing in developing a successor, with the UK investing in the acquisition. The old German design is arguably not going to be a sensible choice. Furthermore, it is important to consider that if the UK really needs to replace the Challenger 2 with a foreign design, the Leopard 2 will not necessarily be the best choice – not only in terms of capabilities but also for political reasons. . As Britain seeks to forge ties with advanced economies outside of Europe after leaving the European Union, the better option may be South Korea’s K2 Black Panther, developed a few decades after Leopard 2. century and is generally considered to be much more powerful. The next-generation tank program in cooperation with Japan, or even buying an American M1 Abrams tank with some domestic improvements, may ultimately prove to be more affordable than buying the Leopard 2. The Challenger 2 upgrade provides a low-cost solution to modernizing armored units while avoiding the difficulties of transitioning to an entirely new vehicle type and, at the same time, preserving the weapons industry in the future. water for more potential programs in the future.

The average height of the Truong Son is 2,000 m, with many heights of over 2,500 m like a wall of citadel in the western border of the S-shaped strip of land. Throughout its length the Truong Son meanders and at times it seems that it wants to come close to the East Sea leaving only a thin strip of plain like rice leaves and the thinnest place is Quang Binh. Sticking to that thin strip of plain, the roads through Vietnam were easily blocked by the US air force. Therefore, in order to bring soldiers and goods to the South of the transport roads of the 559 line, it was compulsory to go round to Laos. But in order to get to Laos, people had to cross the top of Truong Son. Heaven Gate is one of those streets. Heaven Gate – surely it must be very tall to have that name “arrogant”. Standing at the bottom of the slope, looking up could not see the top, only seeing the mountain pass. Its ascending dimension alone was nearly 30 km. Heaven Gate is also known by another name – that is Monkey Pass – probably because it is too craggy and dangerous, only descendants of Emperor Sun Wukong live and pass here (?). Heard that there were many wheelchairs down the cliff from a height of thousands of meters. Heaven Gate is also known as “Bag Bom” because tens of kilometers of passes are the focus of the attack of the US Air Force, the road is unique and dangerous, when being beaten, it is impossible to avoid where to go. It is said that there are dozens of air raids of all types of aircraft, including the B-52s. I don’t know how bad the reality is, but looking up, I only see the sores like the stone age … I just heard it, I’ve seen it creepy. […] 17 o’clock. Mountain mist has spread to the table. In the sky the marker had flown south and disappeared. Company leader Than gave the order to set off. The sky darkened, the more difficult the way to go: The towering cliffs seemed to just collapse on the road, below is the abyss. The road is narrow, just two tank chains, there is a place where the borrowed land has been raked up and rushed down the cliff, the bends of the sleeves also appear more and more. The driver’s back of the shirt was wet with sweat, eyes strained to look at the road, both hands tugged the steering wheel continuously, then shifted gear, downshift. Binh muttered: – The road with nothing but only cows number 1, number 2 like this. Unexpectedly, company leader Than heard him, he reminded: – Just keep up the speed. Remember to stick close to me on narrow roads. About an hour away an almost upside-down slope appeared, again tied up like a bottleneck and folding crabs. Carefully ordered to stop the car for everyone to get off, he used a flashlight to signal behind to let the cars know, then got off the bus and asked Binh: – What is the temperature of the cooling water and oil? Binh looked down at the dashboard and said: – It’s all up a hundred degrees, but I guess I can still walk. – Then keep going. I’ll walk in the middle of the road, just look at my white shirt. Carefully take off the jacket and throw it in the driver’s door for Binh. Answer: – Yes! In front of Hien with Tinh, Dat, Trang is walking. Page carried a stone, his mouth said: – See if this is deep! Saying that he rolled the stone down, one stone dragged the other rock and hurled endlessly. Page stick out tongue: – Must be a few hundred meters, not a few. Show: – According to my estimate, this place is only about three hundred meters high. Haven’t eaten yet, this peak should at least be over a thousand meters. They both shook their heads and stuck out their tongues. Behind, according to the shadow of the company captain, Binh tried to keep the car right in the middle of the road, he was always sticking with him, so the mud shield sometimes bumped into the cliff and hit “uỳnh” once. Binh estimated that the slope should be approximately 30 degrees, it is impossible to go number one but the engine temperature roars (!). When the walking wing reached the top of that narrow slope, the tank just crawled to the middle, the teachers and students sat and rested for the car to arrive. It took three times to get off the bus to walk to the top of the slope. Strangely enough, thinking that the top of the slope had to be very choppy, it turned out to be a fairly flat and spacious road. The line-up of cars snuggled up on the edge of the road for a break and checked the technique to prepare to go downhill. Trang and Dat pulled each other to the edge of the road to look down, but saw nothing but a cloud, they rolled on a stone but only saw the same as last time, did not know where the bottom was. It turns out that the previous images of the downward direction of Heaven Gate were completely wrong. Everyone thinks that the slope is so steep, so dangerous, its downward direction must be “relative”. But not! The Heaven Gate slope in the West Truong Son is quite pleasant compared to the eastern half, it is gentle and short, probably at the foot of the slope is a plateau with an altitude of several hundred meters above sea level. Over the top of the slope a few kilometers, the front station was already on the way to enter the army camp. To enter the army camp today, we had to follow a stream. It is the dry season, so the stream has little water, the stream bed has different large and small shiny black rocks lying around. It was almost morning, everyone wanted to quickly hide the car. […] All about the vehicles quickly dissipated. The sound of an engine let out for a moment, then the silence returned the stillness of the forest. It was just morning too.

Farm operators say animal welfare is guaranteed when salmon are kept in shallow pools as they are swimming in artificial water. Photo: Smart Studio. In the row of indoor swimming pools there, 5 million adult salmon were swimming passionately away from their home town. pass cold water fish to a hot area This is a Atlantic salmon species, famous for cold water in Norwegian fjords or in cold water lakes in Scotland. They are not native to hot and warm Florida, so in order to cope with the completely different weather where they were born and the ideal environment to grow, the aquarium is cooled, housed in a large building. cold and of course very good insulation. The building is named the Green House, which has just come into operation in phase 1 since last year. When completed, it will be the largest salmon farm in the world. The investor is the Atlantic Sapphire Company, said the current output of the farm is 9,500 tons / year, and when the farm is operating at full designed capacity – it is expected that by 2031, the output will increase to 222,000 tons. If so, about 41% of the American’s salmon demand each year, or 1 serving serving, would be supplied domestically. Atlantic Sapphire is currently one of the pioneers of the trend of investing in terrestrial and indoor aquaculture. The company is headquartered in Norway. “When we came up with this idea 10 years ago, a lot of people were talking so crazy,” said Johan Andreassen – CEO of the company. “At that time, no one believed that bringing cold-water salmon to terrestrial farming could or was financially viable. The advancement of technology dispelled their doubts. Johan Andreassen introduces salmon farmed in Green House. Photo: Atlantic Sapphire. According to Andreassen, Atlantic Sapphire has proven successful in technology, now only dealing with financial viability and how scalable it can be effectively scaled. Salmon farming in shallow tanks – Pioneering technology New technologies equipped for the Green House to operate are not unfamiliar, but the investment rate to ensure profitability has only been achieved in recent years. The building is equipped with a recirculating aquaculture system called RAS, controlled from data on temperature, salinity, pH, oxygen level, flow, and light in the water. The tank also has an automatic mechanism that removes CO2 and waste and water into a filter for treatment and reuse. Raised in a closed process, salmon is immune to diseases and parasites found in the natural environment, so Atlantic Sapphire does not need antibiotics or other drugs. “Compared to marine farms, we guarantee fewer incidents of disease, the death rate is also among the lowest,” said Neder Snir, chief technician of AquaMaof in Israel. This is the company that provides technology for Atlantic Sapphire and about 10 other businesses around the world. “We ensure farmers do not need vaccines or antibiotics. This technology ensures disease isolation and control of the farming environment ”. Atlantic Sapphire has invested $ 400 million into their US facility in a total of $ 2 billion in funding plans. By 2031, they expect to own a 372,000 square meter aquarium on the 65-hectare project area. Why is it America? A Norwegian company that invests in large farms in Florida raises the question of purpose, especially when the culture is in doubt or does not guarantee the welfare of the chosen fish. According to the Atlantic Sapphire, they ensure a closer supply to the US market instead of bringing fish from Europe to by plane, in addition to taking advantage of the natural conditions endemic to the southern state. Florida sits atop two layers of water – one is the surface freshwater layer, the other is the lower saltwater aquifer. Trout need a freshwater environment in the early stages of growth, larger than they need salt water. In the Green House, the technology system ensures these two water sources. Here, wastewater is pumped into deep underground rock under the salty water layer separated from useful aquifers, so it does not pollute the area’s common water source (only at a very small rate compared to the government’s regulations. ). The salmon tank area at the Green House by technology of AquaMaof. Photo: AquaMaof. According to Andreassen, Atlantic Sapphire’s choices were even more valuable when the Covid-19 pandemic struck. The supply chain right in the US enables customers to traceability and create confidence in the end product without having to go through many stages of virus infection. Also, the transport stage is not congested when the cost of the road increases dramatically due to the impact of the epidemic. Atlantic Sapphire salmon has become familiar with American consumers. Last year, the brand “Green House Salmon was sold for 12 USD / kg, 2 times higher than imported Norwegian wild salmon. Would that worry salmon farmers and exporters in Nauuy and Scotland? Ragnar Tveteras – Professor of Commerce at Stavanger University (Norway) explains in a detour: “I think there is a challenge of using energy, about CO2 emissions, but I still do not have enough data. Demand (farmed fish) does not bother me too much, it is important that the price will probably go up ”. And Alan Tinch, technical head of the fishing services firm Benchmark Genetics in Scotland, predicts a change from Scottish farmers to adapt. “Maybe they will transfer the fry to an indoor farm, when healthy, they will be brought back to the natural marine environment. The wild fish still has its quality and location ”. The Green House project is not really smooth, even though it is advertised as a pioneer in technology. In July 2020, a water quality incident forced the company to harvest 200,000 salmon early before they were 20 months old. In March this year, fish also died abnormally and at the beginning of April there was a gas leak incident causing 3 workers to be hospitalized. Animal Rights Protection PETA criticizes the Green House project and about 40 other businesses developing terrestrial aquaculture farms, including a planned seabass farming project in Arizona. “Fish can feel, think, can know pain or joy, they belong to themselves, not people,” said Dawn Carr, Project Director of (food) vegetarian PETA said. “This fish farming is cruel.” But Director Johan Andreassen argues that the criteria for animal welfare, at the Green House, are fin shape and swimming speed, which is continuously and fully controlled by the company.

This is the first time I have visited a soy sauce factory, and it feels completely different from other factories. The green lawn is densely covered with small tanks. There is no industrial atmosphere at all. The craftsmanship of hand-made sauce is well-known. Fortunately, it just happened. Found number 0001, which is considered a beginning. Many people will definitely be curious, why should the fermentation tank be put in the ground? Listening to the tour guide said that it is to “absorb the earth’s energy”, and traditional things pay more attention to the five elements of Yin and Yang. Inside these small jars are fermented soybeans, which will take three to four years after being placed here. The reason why it is called “five to one” soy sauce means that only five catties of soybeans can be used to make one catty of soy sauce. To do a little science here, the fermentation time of soy sauce is too short, because it has not been fully fermented, and the time is too long. Soy sauce with too long fermentation is too thick and not suitable for consumption. It will be just right for three to four years. And the four-year fermentation period is better than the three-year fermentation period, and the price is more expensive. By the way, the hats of these fermentation tanks are also hand-made by nearby farmers, which can be regarded as driving the local economic development and increasing farmers’ income. There are a few big characters on the side of the sauce jar, which are called “Jianqi Hejiang”. What is “Jianqi Hejiang”? In fact, this is related to a period of history in Hejiang County. According to the records of “Historical Records”, when Panyang ordered Tang Meng when he was on a mission to Nanyue, he stumbled upon a scented sauce here, and then reported to Emperor Wu of Han. After the letter was written, he left the country from Bajun Fuguan, sent troops to Yelang Kingdom, and defeated Yelang and Dian Kingdom all the way, and wiped out Nanyue. This is an interesting historical story and also marks the long history of Hejiang soy sauce. And this soy sauce factory can be traced back to 1918. It was jointly established by Zhang Maojiu and Zhang Zhixuan, who were from Hejiang at the time, with 4000 silver dollars each. Since then, soy sauce has been produced continuously for hundreds of years. It is a 100-year-old shop. Now the factory is not only a base for producing soy sauce, but also a place to visit soy sauce production and popular science soy sauce. There is also an observation deck in the factory area. You can get a panoramic view of the entire factory area on the observation deck. At this time, you will find a magical thing. Although these fermentation tanks are arranged densely, it is said that there are 100,000 mouths in total. The display is very neat, it is said that it is placed using satellite positioning, so that no matter what angle the visitors look at, these fermentation tanks are presented in a straight line, which is indeed very spectacular. The soy sauce produced here is more viscous and tastes better than other places. Although there are 100,000 fermentation tanks, it requires a period of three to four years of fermentation. The production volume is very limited, even if the price is only a few of that of ordinary soy sauce. The most expensive one can even sell for 300 per catty, but it is still in short supply. It is basically only sold in one of its eight specialty stores. It is hard to find online or in other supermarkets, not to mention other places, even in the urban areas of Luzhou. It’s hard to buy. In addition to soy sauce, Yongxingcheng also has other products such as handmade vinegar, but their best product is still soy sauce, and with this traditional soy sauce brewing process, Yongxingcheng has been included in the intangible cultural heritage of Sichuan Province. A bottle of intangible cultural heritage soy sauce, don’t you want to try it? The picture/text is original by Xia Xia Xia, the travel madman, unauthorized reprinting is prohibited About the author: now go over 500+ global city, and had studied at Oxford University and Waseda University, UK, Sri Lanka and worked as international volunteers are welcome to continue to focus, eat, drink all over the world to share with you, like to remember the point Like Comment Or share!

During the development process, the defense industry in many countries around the world has produced many different types of weapons. They were particularly interested in the idea of ​​installing a powerful weapon on a light-wheeled armored chassis. This weapon is called a wheeled tank.

As a result of all the design effort intensified only in the second half of the 20th century, the wheeled tanks were practically created that were not inferior to the classic main tank on the engine. crawler department.

So what are the advantages and disadvantages of the above combat vehicles? The first issue to mention is that the wheeled tanks are relatively light and this simplifies the transport of equipment to the battlefield.

The mass of a light wheeled tank, even with additional armor plates, does not exceed 20-25 tons, much less than any other main tank. Therefore it is much easier to deploy wheeled tanks with heavy weapons.

The ability to deploy wheeled tanks by military transport aircraft is one of the main reasons why this vehicle is used, developed and served by many armies around the world.

In modern armed conflicts it was necessary to quickly bring equipment to a conflict zone and the military came to a sensible decision: light armored vehicles such as armored vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles and Wheeled tanks will be brought to the battlefield first.

Furthermore tanks and self-propelled artillery units can be moved to the battle site. As a result, armored vehicles, including wheeled tanks, are assigned the function of a highly mobile combat unit to support ground forces.

Not only that, the wheeled tank possesses a higher travel speed than the crawler tank, which gives the advantage of maneuverability and maneuverability, much less harm to the road surface.

The downside of the wheeled tank, though, is its poor off-roading capabilities. Such vehicles travel very quickly on asphalt and dirt roads, but on rough terrain they immediately lose to a track armored vehicle.

Another downside is the poor degree of self-protection. The wheeled tank is light, mainly because the armor is thin and weak, which means both advantages and disadvantages.

Wheeled tanks cannot be used in combat like the MBT, they are also unsuitable against the MBT, it is better suited to destroy light armored vehicles.

This combat vehicle is more suitable for areas not planning to use tanks on rough terrain and large-scale military operations are not carried out, it is more suitable for urban combat.

In real world use of the wheeled tank, its downsides were noted – the wheelbase did not turn out to have any particular advantage over a crawler vehicle.

In addition, the maximum speed advantage cannot be determined due to the lack of good roads, and when used on off-road, much worse off-roading is evident. In addition, tire wear while driving on complex terrain is much higher than expected.

Based on the advantages and disadvantages described above, it is easy to see that the tire tank cannot completely replace the MBT, as it lags far behind in some basic characteristics.

What the future of a wheeled tank will be, of course it will continue to evolve and improvements could go the way of enhancing protection, while maintaining a sufficiently light combat weight.

And of course, the reality of modern military conflicts will play a big role in shaping the look of a future wheeled tank.