![]() Despite its obsolescence in the face of newer German tanks like the Panther and the introduction of more powerful and better-designed types as replacements, the M10 remained in service until the end of the war. It combined thin but sloped armor with the M4's reliable drivetrain and a reasonably potent anti-tank gun mounted in an open-topped turret. The M10 was numerically the most important U.S. Production of the two models ran from September 1942 to December 1943 and October 1942 to November 1943, respectively. An alternate model, the M10A1, which used the M4A3 variant chassis, was also produced. It mounted a 3-inch (76.2 mm) gun M7 in a rotating turret on a modified M4 Sherman tank (the M4A2 production variant) chassis. After appropriate changes to the hull and turret were made, the modified version was selected for production in June 1942 as the 3-inch Gun Motor Carriage M10 (or M10 GMC). The prototype of the M10 was conceived in early 1942 and delivered in April that year. By November 1941, the Army requested a vehicle with a gun in a fully rotating turret after other interim models were criticized for being too poorly designed. After US entry into World War II and the formation of the Tank Destroyer Force, a suitable vehicle was needed to equip the new battalions. Not even the Georgians.The M10 tank destroyer was an American tank destroyer of World War II. Several facilities possess the expertise to upgrade them. ![]() There are hundreds of old Su-25s lying around in warehouses, bunkers and factories. “We can do all this together with our own factory.”īut don’t expect Georgian Su-25s suddenly to become a hot item on the domestic or export markets. “We have a lot of flying machines-planes, helicopters-that need to be repaired,” Gharibashvili said. Of course, the Tbilisi plant could help to maintain the air force’s planes and helicopters. It’s hard to imagine Georgia needing, or affording, more Rooks. The Georgian air force operate 58 aircraft, most of them aging, Soviet-era helicopters. Foreign Military Studies Office in Kansas. “The decision to abolish the Georgian air force concerns many people,” Georgian analyst Katherine Hilkert wrote for the U.S. In 2010, Georgia disbanded its air force as an independent military branch, a move that proved unpopular with the public. It can cost more than $10 million to build a new Su-25. As part of a potential $9-billion program, officials hoped to invest in new communications, anti-tank weaponry and air-defense systems. In the war’s aftermath, Tbilisi reformed its 33,000-strong armed forces. “They also did not have any ‘smart’ weapons and lacked electronic countermeasure systems.” “They lacked sophisticated aiming devices and did not have sufficiently long-range missiles that could be launched outside the enemy air-defense envelope,” the Australian Air Power Development Center noted. There were other problems with Russia’s Rooks. At least three fell to Georgian air defenses.Īn Australian air force newsletter speculated that the radar-warning gear on Russian Su-25s wasn’t tuned to the frequencies of Georgia’s Soviet-vintage surface-to-air missile systems, meaning the Russian pilots never knew when a missile was incoming. Meanwhile Russian Rooks attacked Georgian troops and, in an ironic twist, even bombed the Tbilisi factory that had produced them. Georgia’s roughly 10 Su-25s flew a few missions in the early hours of the war before effectively going into hiding in the face of overwhelming Russian air superiority. Then in 2008, Russia and Georgia went to war over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia. As recently as 2001, Georgia offered to upgrade Russia’s 300 or so Su-25s at the Tbilisi plant. ![]() Workers assembled a few incomplete Su-25s to expand the Georgian air force’s inventory of mostly leftover Soviet Rooks. Georgia struggled to make use of the Tbilisi factory.
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