Army of Azerbaijan

The Azerbaijan Army is the military Land Force of Azerbaijan. It has about 110,000 personnel including 15,000 airborne troops.

Military budget

Since 1994, Azerbaijan has been increasing the size of its military budget, which rose to $660 million by 2006 and will increase to $1 billion by the end of 2006. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan has, with much success, been developing its armed forces into a professional, well trained and mobile military.

Today, the Azeri army is spending $ 1,3 billion on paper, but practically, Azerbaijan spends a half billion dollar more. Azerbaijan has acquired new weapons using other funds.

trength

Azerbaijan is also expanding its active forces, now numbering about 95,000, with an additional reserve of 575,000, as well as a "reserve of the reserve" of 1,314,955. The Azeri ground forces additionally have 15,000 airborne troops. Azerbaijan has contracted with Turkey for troop training to strengthen its armed forces. The Azerbaijan army has modernized by adopting a new organizational style as well. Over the last 14 years, Azerbaijan has been preparing its military for possible action against Armenian forces in the occupied region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Due to the failure of the last round of negotiations in France, it is feared that Azerbaijan may attempt to liberate its occupied territories in Karabakh by military force. However, Azerbaijan has constantly stated its interest in a peaceful diplomatic solution.

Main Battle Tanks

In the past 10-12 years Azerbaijan has purchased significant quantities of weapons and military equipment, specifically tanks, artillery systems and combat aircraft. The amount of arms purchased by Azerbaijan have reached such a point that Azerbaijan now has almost twice as many tanks, armored vehicles, artillery systems and other equipment as allowed it under the limits set by the updated 1999 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE).

At present, the Azerbaijani military inventory consist of:

* 224 x T-55 Main battle tank
* 286 x T-72 Main battle tank

Armored Combat Vehicles

The Azerbaijani army have lots of armored combat vehicles consisting out; BMP-1,BM-21 122-mm Grad Artillery Rocket Launcher, BMP-2, BMP-3 and MT-LB armored combat vehicles.

In 2003 the Azerbaijani army had 513 armored combat vehicles consisting of:

* 41 x BMD-1 Airborne combat vehicle
* 114 x BMP-1 Infantry fighting vehicle
* 96 x BMP-2 Infantry fighting vehicle
* 4 x BMP-3 Infantry fighting vehicle
* 23 x BRM-1 Infantry fighting vehicle
* 6 x BTR-4 wheeled armored personnel carrier
* 25 x BTR-60 Wheeled armoured personnel carrier
* 28 x BTR-70 Wheeled armoured personnel carrier
* 70 x BTR-80 Wheeled armoured personnel carrier
* 196 x MT-LB Tracked armoured personnel carrier

Artillery Systems

Azeri Army has a very accurate artillery units. Trained by Turkish officers, Azeri artillery units has gained another level of readiness, accuracy and rapid reaction.

According to the UN, the Azerbaijani army have the felowing artillery systems:

* D-30 122 mm Howitzer- 135
* D-20 152 mm Gun-Howitzer- 30
* 2A36 152 mm Gun - 20
* 2S1 122mm Self Propelled 122mm Howitzer - 19
* BM-21 122mm "Grad" MLRS - 55
* BM-30 "Smerch" 300mm MLRS - 13
* MT-12 "Rapira" 100mm smoothbore AT-Gun - 72
* M-46 130mm field gun - 36

ee also

* Azerbaijan
* Military of Azerbaijan
* Azerbaijan Air Force
* Azerbaijan Navy
* Azerbaijan Air Defense Force
* Azerbaijan National Guard
* Azerbaijan Border Guard
* Azerbaijan Interior Guard
* Azerbaijan Coast Guard
* Caspian Guard Initiative
* Azerbaijan Defense Industry

References