MILEX-2017 - first impressions
Content
One of the pre-production Cayman armored vehicles during a dynamic presentation at the Minsk-1 airfield.
On May 20–22, the capital of the Republic of Belarus hosted the eighth International Exhibition of Arms and Military Equipment MILEX-2017. As usual, there were premieres and interesting exhibits, mostly the results of the work of the local defense complex.
The project, organized jointly with: the Office of the President of the Republic of Belarus, the State Military Industrial Council of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus and the National Exhibition Center "BelExpo", provides a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the results of the defense industry projects of the eastern neighbor of Poland in a very wide range, for the needs of its Ministry defense, as well as foreign contractors. Although the name of the exhibition contains the word "international", in fact, the priority is to present one's own achievements. Among foreign exhibitors, most of all, which is not surprising, are companies and research institutes from the Russian Federation, and the rest could be counted on the fingers of both hands. According to the official data of the organizers, this year MILEX was attended by 100 exhibitors from Belarus, 62 from Russia and eight from five other countries in Europe and Asia (PRC - 3, Kazakhstan - 1, Germany - 1, Slovakia - 1, Ukraine). - 2). The novelty of this year's exhibition was that it was held in two locations remote from each other. The first, the main, was the cultural and sports complex of the MKSK Minsk-Arena, where the exhibition was held for the first time three years ago, and the second was the Minsk-1 airport area. The area of the Minsk-Arena hall occupied by the exhibition is 7040 m², and the open space around it, where larger exhibits and stands of some exhibitors are collected, is 6330 m². The airport used an open area of 10 318 m². In total, up to 400 units of weapons and military equipment were presented. MILEX-2017 was visited by 47 official delegations of various levels from 30 countries of the world, including defense ministers, chiefs of the General Staff and deputy ministers in charge of the defense industry and procurement. During the three days of the exhibition, her exhibition was visited by 55 visitors, 000 of them professional. Accredited by 15 members of the media.
Despite the efforts of the organizers, it was not possible to avoid the “Soviet folklore” of past years mentioned in the report in the form of almost unlimited access to street exhibits by random visitors of all age groups, especially the smallest. This situation of each photographer leads not only to a headache, but sometimes to a nervous breakdown. This also causes problems for organizers and exhibitors, because it is not difficult to cut yourself or even get hurt in such a situation. I don’t want to be a bad prophet, but I wonder who will be responsible if someone loses health or even life as a result of an accident ...
In a brief, first report, we present the premieres of the exhibition, and we will return to other novelties of the Belarusian arms complex in the next issue of WiT.
Armored vehicles
In front of the MKSK Minsk-Arena complex, three copies of the Cayman light amphibious armored car were exhibited, three more were shown - also in motion - at the Minsk-1 airport. The creator of the machine is the 140th repair plant from Borisov. The seven-ton, two-axle 4×4 vehicle is 6000 mm long, 2820 mm wide, 2070 mm high and has a ground clearance (with maximum load) of 490 mm. The Cayman can carry up to six people. The level of ballistic protection was declared at the level of Br4 and Br5 according to GOST 50963-96 (glass has a resistance of 5aXL). The drive is a D-245.30E2 turbocharged diesel engine with a power of 115 kW / 156,4 hp, which transmits torque to a 5-speed manual gearbox SAAZ-4334M3. The wheel suspension is independent, on torsion bars. For movement in water, two water-jet propulsion units are used with a mechanical drive from a power take-off.
