On site there are over 100 model tanks on display, along with members of the Ottawa Valley Amour Modellers Association, and crafts for kids. “Not the best design in the world but it has a 75 millimetre gun that can shoot armour piercing and big explosives and it was probably the most reliable vehicle they had,” said Michael Miller, a vehicle restoration specialist. Some vehicles being taken for a ride include a Cold War Scorpion tank, as well as a M3 Lee that was used as a medium battle tank in 1943. “It’s a whole variety of different vehicles, some of them are much faster than others and they can really show what they can do,” said Sandra O’Quinn, a learning specialist at the museum. I’ve never been up close to one so it’s pretty neat to see how they operate,” said Christina Stuart, at the museum with her family. “It’s overwhelming I think and it’s amazing. Outside the museum were vehicle demonstrations, with vehicles ranging from the Second World War to modern day. The event called Awesome Tanks, is part of the museum’s new Awesome Sunday series.
Therefore, Italy has to rapidly choose among a limited number of options in order to satisfy urgent army’s MBT needs, as well as maintain a reasonable level of technological sovereignty in this sector.Armoured vehicles were taken off display Sunday and set into motion at The Canadian War Museum. Italy and Poland have repeatedly asked to join the MGCS cooperation, yet Paris and Berlin want to keep it exclusively bilateral until a prototype will be developed. Against this backdrop, in 2017, France and Germany have launched a joint project to develop and produce a next generation Main Ground Combat System (MGCS). Yet MBTs in European inventories are often outdated and their readiness level is low. The new MBT’s characteristics require a greater technological effort than in the past, ranging from active protection systems to gun, turret, vetronics and optronics, and particularly to automation. Since 2014 Russia’s war in Crimea, NATO’s renewed priority to collective defence implies higher requirements for its members, and allies are rebalancing the force mix in favour of the heavy component including Main Battle Tanks (MBT).