Sudan comes out of its shell
By: Christopher F Foss
Published: 21 Feb 2013
Exhibiting at IDEX for the first time is Military Industry Corporation (MIC) of the Sudan (Stands 12-B30 and 12-C30).
MIC was established in Khartoum in 1993 to produce weapons and equipment for the Sudanese armed forces, but in recent years has started to market its wide range of products internationally.
Today, MIC can supply customers with not only a wide range of small arms ammunition, but also infantry weapons including rifles, machine guns, recoilless rifles and mortars.
Being shown at IDEX is a 4x4 cross-country vehicle on the rear of which is a manually operated 107mm 12-round rocket launcher. This fires unguided surface- to-surface rockets with a maximum range of 8,500m, with a salvo of 12 rockets being fired in only six seconds.
At the heavier end of the scale are tracked and wheeled armoured fighting vehicles. MIC is upgrading Type 59 (Digna) and T-72 (Al-Zubair-1) main battle tanks (MBT) to enhance their overall capability, and is producing the hull and turret and assembling the Type M85 MBT as the Al-Bashir.
This has a crew of three and is armed with a 125mm smoothbore gun fed by an automatic loader with 40 rounds (projectiles and charges) carried. A 7.62mm machine gun is mounted co-axial and there is a 12.7mm machine gun on the turret roof.
The Al-Zubair-2 is also being marketed; this is armed with a 105mm gun and fitted with explosive reactive armour for a higher level of survivability.
The WMZ551 (6x6) amphibious APC is also being assembled as the Shareef-2 Armoured Infantry Fighting Vehicle. This is fitted with a one-man turret armed with a 30mm cannon and 7.62mm co-axial machine gun.
