I don’t think you know what you’r talking about. Those Turkish-made G-3s are very poor quality and crap. And G-36 and G-3 are VERY different things. The Ak-47 is as low as it gets?? Ak-47 is still unbeaten…

Albanian Army VM-90

A barracks at the Bunavia training complex

Afghanistan…now they are armed with G-3 (dont know why the hell!)

Most M-113s came from Italy. I think about 50 came from Italy. Only 6 came from Greece as far as I remember…plus others from other sources like Turkey. Overall they should have replaced the W-531s on a one per one basis…so something over 100. Though W-531s are still in reserve…

As for tanks…there’s at least 375 in active duty…plus there should be several hundred more in reserve. They are divided about 50 tanks for each of the 5 reserve Brigades (which operate at 10% in peacetime level), and about 175 tanks with the Qucik Reaction Brigade in Zall-Herr. The tanks that were destroyed were mostly those beyound repair or too old, as well as T-54s and as far as I know all the Type-62s as well. There were over 720 Type-59s before…probably around 400 will still be around for the next few years until a replacement is found.

Overall about 500 tanks, self-propelled guns and armoured vehicles were scrapped. These should have been over 200 just Su-76s and Su-100s…plus some T-34s left (most were used as engineering vehicles without their turrets), plus old BRDM-1s and BTR-40s…and all our Type-62 light tanks (not sure how many of those we had in service…probably over 60-70). Type-59s…only about 50 of those were scrapped as far as I know…putting several hundred in reserve…and 375+ in active duty.

As for replacement…as was said…MoD is looking into it with Germany. Bridge-laying and engineering tanks are expected to be acquired first from Germany…but no details as to exactly which types.

So this should leave Albania’s armoured forces right now, besides the tanks, with about 100 M-113s, probably over 50 Type-77s (I have no idea as to the number of these), a sizable number of MAV armoured vehicles from Italy (not sure how many of these were delivered as well…but besides the Army they are also operated by Military Police and regular Police), some Roland MOWAGs (not sure how many delivered). I don’t know if any other types are in service as well…

Obviously with armoured vehicles there will be changes in the future as well…

Some small poor-quality photos of Albanian pilots:

Robert Marko in J-7

Bardhyl Lubonja

Bilal Josa

Commander of AF A. Jaupi

Air Academy at Vlora

Bardhi

A. Serani…died in accident

Jani Tarifa…died in MiG-19 accident

Vasil Trasha…died in accident

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An interesting story told by an Albanian pilot about a demonstration between Albanian pilots and a US ship in 1994. In 1994 a US delegation came to visit Gjader AFB which also comprised a USAF Ltnt. General.

After the tour, the commander of the Albanian AF, Colonel Klement Aliko,suggested to the Americans that they carry out a demonstration for them. An American ship was stationed in the Adriatic between Kepi i Rodonit (the peak of Rodon) and Shengjin (St.John). Aliko suggested that they demonstrate their abilities by trying to attack this US ship in a mock attack. The US General agreed and said that it couldn’t be done since the ship was in a position to see any approaching aircraft from far away…since afead of it was only open field.

A MiG-15UTI with Aliko himself at the commands and a second pilot in the back took off from Gjader. He flew at extremely low altitude between mountain ranges and into a plain…where the MiG was flying at an altitude of 5m…kicking up dirt behind it high. As he approached the city of Lezha, he turned into the river Drin…flying at 5m altitude along the surface of the river…kicking up the water as if on a jet ski. The MiG finally reached the mouth of the river as it emptied into the Adriatic…and flew at 5m altitude over the water at high speed…completely catching the US ship by surprise.The MiG flew over the ship at low altitude and full engine…knocing the caps off from the observers on deck.

On return the Americans said “We have never seen pilots of this caliber!”

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Italian commanders said the same thing too about their encounters with Albanian fighters in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Their most feared were the J-7 pilots…who whenever any Italian aircraft even came close to Albanian airspace…within minutes 2 J-7s would be up…and the Albanian pilots who the Italians descirbed as “very aggresive”…would go wingtip to wingtip with the Italian until he left.

Similar experience in 97 when a MiG-15UTI defected to Italy during the crises in Albania…he was flying at 5m altitude along the Adriatic and was completely undetected until he approached the Italian airbase.

And having seen these guys in action myself in 96…when about a dozen or so MiG-19s flew nap of the earth over Tirana…flying no more than 10-15m from the ground zig-zagging between buildings…one flew about 10m from my balcony at eye level…between my building and the next one…and he had to be at a high angle all the way since the space wasn’t wide enough to accomodate the plane if he was straight…I can attest that these guys were “crazy”…and extremely good for these sort of ultra-low altitude manuvers.

They were trained to perform ultra-low altitude attacks flying between the mountain ranges and hills which are abundant in Albania as their means of avoiding detection and achieving surprise.