Here are some interesting pictures…Captured At-3 launcher and Strela-2M launcher during the war in Kosova. 11 At-3 launchers and 4 Strela-2M launchers were confiscated after the war by the Albanian Army after they had been captured from the Serb Army. They were then given to the Military Academy for study purposes.
Captured AT-3
Captured Strela-2M
There were also…over 500 M-79 OSA launchers alone confiscated by the Albanian Army…among many other things. Enough to make our own little army out of captured weapons.
I’ve got one more question………Albania is going to purchase attack helicopter(maybe in 2010), my question now is, which helicopters would probably be buyed by the Albanian Army?
No idea…I would say though perhaps earlier than 2010. The MoD said by 2007…so we’ll see. I was hoping those Bo-105s would be the armed helicopters…but it doesn’t seem that way. Maybe they’r just the initial phase of purchasing some training helicopters. I would like to see HOT-armed Bo-105s…they would be perfect for our needs. Other than that…there’s probably only 2-3 other options…either Bo-105s, HOT or TOW armed MD-500s (our pilots are already trained on those in Italy)…or second hand AH-1s…but that would be the most unlikely I would think as no one would let them go too easily.
It wouldn’t be bad to get some Chinese HJ-8 armed helicopters…since we already operate the HJ-8…but thats obviously not going to happen (for many reasons)
2 squads of anti-tank helicopters would boost the defensive capabilities greatly…especially in terrain like ours. Look for example what Syrian anti-tank helicopters did in Lebanon…havoc on tank colomns stuck in narrow mountain passes. Those I would say are even more important than jet aircraft for us…and something that can be achieved a bit more easily and cheaply.
These are just beautiful:
Not what I would get
An unlikely candidate…but they’r also made in Romania now…maybe we can get some “Dracula”s??
Unfortunately the T-33 on display at Gjirokastra has suffered greatly over the past few years…sine there’s no one guarding it or preventing kids form climbing all over it.
These photos must be from the 90s
AAA in action during war in Kosova
An-2 used for spraying crops
Mi-4 medivac
1933…the Albatros aircraft which made up the “Albanian AF” of the time (though these were civilian aircraft) (the image is obviously a montage though)
Apparently there were over 2000 tons of ammunition in those tunnels that exploded. The fire was contained within 18 hours…so I doubt most of it exploded. But shells were thrown around for 5 km around the compound…landing on people’s houses.
Thank God not the whole thing blew up…imagine 2000 tons of ammo blowing up. Apparently the explosion started when workers were taking appart some shells…separating the explosives from the shells. The explosives fortunately were taken outside the tunnel and separated far appart…and thats where the fire started…but fortunately they were spaced out in the open and it didn’t deteriorate as fast as it could have.
A tragic event occured two days ago. An underground tunnel in Tepelena exploded…killing 5 soldiers. The soldiers were transporting ammo from one of the tunnels into another. The base apparently had over 12 underground storage facilities. During the transport…something went wrong…and one of the tunnels exploded.
Albanian Army Chief of Staff in front of an AB-205 at Farka before going to Tepelena
Minister of Defense and Chief of Staff inside the hlicopter while flying there
Minister meets with locals
Chief of Staff
Bomb-squad at the scene
Albania never had any FT-6. The only two-seat jet training aircraft were MiG-15UTI and FT-5s. Conversion was done directly from FT-5 to F-6. I think Albania was the only airforce which operated F-6…and didn’t have a training aircraft for it.
That must have been very hard…since F-6 is a very hard aircraft to fly by all accounts…so to operate a large force of these without a trainer…must be quite a feat.
LIKA…that picture of the J-7 with its pilots is at Gjader. The pilots are Petriti, Dhori, Bardhyl and Vangjeli. I posted that and others in the Albanian AF thread we have here…but they didn’t appear for some reason. I’ll post them here again.
Here is Bardhyl Lubonja
Agim Bacelli
Bardhyl Lubonja again with MiG-17s at Rinas
Vasil Trasha…”Hero of the People”…died in an accident
Air Academy at Vlora…with what seems like a MiG-15 engine
Robert Marko
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