Royal Thai Army (RTA) has planned to maintaining and manufacturing of spare parts and components for Ukrainian equipments with its inventory in Thailand include BTR-3E1, BTR-4MV1 8x8 armored personnel carriers, Oplot-T main battle tanks and KraZ 6322 trucks (photo : DTI)
Previously, the Royal Thai Army had a policy to resolve the lack of spare parts for the maintenance of ordnance due to the system that the manufacturer has gone out of business or has closed the production line of that system by supporting the private industry and domestic agencies in the production of replacement parts.
For example, the development, design and production of a rubber seal ring set for a 155 mm cannon, namely, a heavy artillery GHN-45A1, a howitzer M198, a heavy artillery M71 and 40mm Boford L/70 antiaircraft artillery which the problems of the weapons system from Ukraine in the past. It's been more than 10 years since the BTR-3E1 family of wheeled armored vehicles replaced the DEUTZ diesel engine with the MTU-Mercedes-Benz, and the Oplot main battle tank, which took several years to complete, existed even before the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and then the war in Donbass
As for weapons systems from Ukraine, at the opening ceremony of the annual navy training for the year 2022, the Thai Marines told the media that the maintenance of its BTR-3E1 wheeled armored vehicle can use up to 98 percent of the parts found in Thailand, including the battery produced by the military battery factory, Ministry of Defense of Thailand.
Other vehicle systems such as the Oplot-T main battle tank or the KrAZ ttuks also need to be discussed with the Ukrainian and Thai operators such as Chaiseri or Panus, who have the capability to support the production of replacement parts. Or how to support long-term maintenance?
As for the Thai Marine Corps, it is a wheeled armored vehicle that commands the BTR-4CS-T, a prototype developed with the National Defense Technology Institute, DTI, that would have to be terminated first according to the latest war with Russia in 2022 this year.
(AAG)