14.02.2020.
Minister Vulin: Modernization strengthens the Artillery branch
- This is the year of the Land Forces and this is the year of modernization and equipping of the Land Forces. The Artillery Branch in each Armed Force is one of its most important elements, the striking force of every Armed Force. The Artillery is being modernized, progressing and as you can see, our communications systems, our surveillance system, our reconnaissance system and our operating system will be able to measure up to the most modern Armed Forces in the world – said Minister of Defense Aleksandar Vulin, who visited members of the Mixed Artillery Brigade today being trained on newly introduced weapons and military equipment.
Thanks to our domestic intelligence and domestic knowledge, the Minister of Defense added, we are able to modernize what we already have and raise it to the international level, to be able to compete with any armed force without paying tens and hundreds of millions of euros.
- What we have, we modernize, adapt and we are able to measure up to every other Armed Force. When you have the domestic intelligence and knowledge, for far less money you can be just as equipped as a much richer and much larger Armed Force. The Serbian Armed Forces are modernizing, equipping and advancing, and the Serbian Armed Forces are training, preparing and working every day, without a single day of exception, - saidMinister Vulin.Assistant Minister for Material Resource,NenadMiloradović, PhD said that in accordance with the Armed Forces Capacity Development Plans, modernization of the fire support system is one of the priorities and in that sense the most important results were achieved over the previous period.
- Specifically, out of the 49 systems that were introduced into the weapons of the Armed Forces last year, was mostlylinked to Artillery. One of the key subsystems that needed to significantly improve Artillery, to facilitate and accelerate its operation is among the means shown today and one of its main features is that it is a universal system that will modernize practically all the assets of our Artillery – saidthe Assistant Minister Miloradović.
He announced that efforts to develop new artillery systems were planned to be completed this year, with one new means and one new asset, as well as several types of ammunition of increased range and efficiency, to complete the process.
- As could be seen, the Mixed Artillery Brigade has already received a portion of these assets, is training on them and entering into contracts signed at the end of last year for the serial modernization and mass equipping of our artillery systems. The trend is such around the world and the supportingArtillery is making a comeback on the scene with the world’s major powers. Much is expected in terms of improving the overall capability of the Land Forces from the artillery system – saidAssistant Minister Miloradović, adding that with the achievements so far in the field of Artillery, we can say that we are keeping pace with far more technologically advanced and richer countries than ours.
As Lieutenant ColonelDejanCaković, Head of Training for the Mixed Artillery Brigade, pointed out, the Military Technical Institute completed the development of the Artillery assets shown today during the past year.
- These assets have been introduced into weapons and military equipment and the purpose of this training is to enable members of the Mixed Artillery Brigade to work on these systems, each from their own domain. Battery commanders were trained to work on a command reconnaissance artillery battery vehicle, Computing Officers were trained to work at the Universal Mobile Computing Station, AssetCommanders were trained to operate the entire crew on a digitized “Oganj” (“Flame”). The logic behind the entire training is that they can independently carry out all the required tasks – saidLieutenant Colonel Caković.Second Lieutenant NemanjaPribičevićof the Mixed Artillery Brigade said that the training had been successfully completed and that members of that Brigade were ready to work on assets recently introduced into the Serbian Armed Forces.
- Training was conducted with members of the Military Technical Institute. We are trained to work on these systems, we have mastered the work on software as well – saidSecond Lieutenant Pribičević, adding that they are ready to pass on the knowledge they acquired during the training to other members of the Brigade.During the visit, Minister Vulin was presented with the training objectives, the assets used in the Artillery Fire Management Chain, as well as the training process itself.
The Head of Department for Defense Technologies, Major General MladenVuruna, Head of the Planning and Development Department of the General Staff, Brigadier General Milan Popović, Director of the Military Technical Institute, Colonel BojanPavkovićand Commander of the Mixed Artillery Brigade, Colonel NovicaPetrovićwere also present for the visit.
