Production of artillery barrels in Russian Federation depends on Austrian GFM machines, which have been in use since 1970, - media
A Russian military-industrial complex company has purchased special Austrian machines for the production of barrels for artillery systems to circumvent sanctions.
This is reported by The Insider, Censor.NET reports citing Defense Express.
The Russian company AZK Group managed to circumvent the sanctions by purchasing a 1983 rotary machine with numerical control from the Austrian company GFM (Gesellschaft für Fertigungstechnik und Maschinenbau). The machine weighed 103 tons and cost $1.3 million.
Such machines are important for the Islamic State to ensure the production of barrels for artillery systems. The supplier was allegedly Forward Technical Trade SL, a company registered in Barcelona, and the shipper of the cargo was allegedly Scorpion's Holding Group Limited, a company registered in Hong Kong.
According to the authors of the aforementioned publication, they learned about the above fact through access to the materials of one of the lawsuits between the aforementioned Izhevsk-based LLC "AZK Group" and the Russian Customs. The subject of the dispute was as follows: the machine was imported according to the documents as a "rotary forging machine", but customs officers insisted that it should have been registered as a "radial forging machine" with the corresponding payment of customs duties.
The very fact of importing a machine from the Austrian GFM, even if it is a 1983 machine, attracts attention because of the following fact: equipment from this company has been used at enterprises of the Soviet and then Russian military-industrial complexes to manufacture barrels for artillery systems since the 1970s.
During the Cold War, the USSR imported 26 rotary machines from GFM, one of which, designated SXP 55, was used to produce 203-mm barrels for the 2S7, as mentioned in one of its reports by the British RUSI (Royal United Services Institute for Defense Research).
At the moment, the Russian military-industrial complex has essentially no replacement for the equipment from the Austrian GFM, so the Rashists are trying to get such machines by all means possible.
