Military Technical Institute (; abbr. ) is a Serbian weapons and aircraft design institute, headquartered in Belgrade, and governed by the Serbian Ministry of Defence. It is a top-level military scientific research institution in Serbia, dealing with research and development (R&D) of new weaponry and military equipment as well as with upgrade of the inventory for both branches of the Serbian Armed Forces: Army (including River Flotilla) and Air Force and Defence.
Institute history
After the World War II, Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia had a need to independently develop military technology and reduce dependence from foreign supply with given political situation of that time and future political course. By a decision of the Secretary of Defense and a proclamation by the Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito, VTI was founded in 1948 as the Military Technical Institute of the Land Forces (; abbr. ) in Belgrade.
In 1973, the VTI was integrated with several smaller military research and development institutes.
In 1992 it assimilated the dissolved Aeronautical Technical Institute in Žarkovo, and minor parts (located in Serbia) of the Nautical Institute () from Zagreb, supposedly as an effort to reduce developing cost and maintenance. Since 1992 the institute has changed name several times, reflecting the political changes in the country, starting with Technical Institute of the Yugoslav Armed Forces.
Current name is Military Technical Institute. Neither the translation of the name to other languages nor the corresponding acronym have ever been unambiguously defined; both VTI and MTI have been used in English-language documents, against the widely accepted practice not to translate such acronymes.
Today
The institute has 22 laboratories, and it is situated on 212 acres (86 hectares), with 177,000 square meters laboratories and office space, mostly in Belgrade neighborhood of Žarkovo, on the premises of the former Aeronautical Technical Institute. The institute obtained the certificates of compliance to the SRPS ISO 9001 and SRPS ISO/IEC 17025 standards.
Projects
The institute cooperates with Serbian Armed Forces (including its Technical Testing Center) and Yugoimport SDPR in designing and testing new weapons systems.
Military Technical Institute (with assimilated predecessor institutes) developed more than 1,300 weapons. However, not all of them entered use in the Yugoslav (later Serbian) Army. The list includes weapons and systems of other companies in which VTI was partly involved in some stage of developing and those systems are given with references. Institute was in charge for domestically produced weapons systems under licence and modification and modernization of such weapons with introducing new technologies and making new materials and tools for production. There are several new weapons developed from licences products that surpass originals in performance. Examples of licences used for domestic new weapons is a licence for tank T-72.
Aircraft
Ikarus S-49
Soko J-20 Kraguj
Soko G-2 Galeb
Soko J-21 Jastreb
Soko J-22 Orao
Soko G-4 Super Galeb
UTVA 75
(above mentioned developed by the Aeronautical Technical Institute) Kobac Lasta 95 HN-45M Gama HN-45M Gama 2
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Vrabac
Pegaz 011
IBL-2000
Unmanned Ground Vehicles
Mali Miloš
Armoured Vehicles
Tanks
M-84 and A/AB/ABN/ABK/AS variants (1985–present) M-84A – An upgraded version similar to the Soviet T-72M1 but with a significantly more powerful engine and additional armour plating M-84AB – Kuwaiti version of the M-84A M-84AB – The M-84AB fitted with land navigation equipment M-84ABK Command Tank – M-84AB version fitted with extensive communication equipment, land navigation equipment, and a generator for the command role M-84AI armored recovery vehicle (Yugoslavia and Poland) – During the mid-1990s Kuwait requested an armored recovery vehicle variant of the M-84A tank as part of the deal to buy a large batch of M-84A tanks. M-84AS – Upgrade package of the M-84A in service with the Serbian Army M-84AS1 – Adds additional armor, including explosive reactive armor, integrated day-night sighting system with thermal imager, command information system, a soft-kill active protection system, new radio system, remote-controlled weapons station with 12.7mm machine gun, and CBRN protection equipment