Military Technical Institute (Serbian: Војнотехнички институт, romanized: Vojnotehnički institut; abbr. VTI) 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.
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 (Serbian: Vojnotehnički institut Kopnene vojske; abbr. VTIkov) in Belgrade.
In 1973, the VTI was integrated with several smaller military research and development institutes.
In 1992 it assimilated the dissolved Aeronautical Technical InstituteinŽarkovo, and minor parts (located in Serbia) of the Nautical Institute (Serbian: Brodarski institut) 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 acronyms.
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.
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.
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
Sava M-90 – SA-13 SAM version, designated Strela-10MJ, prototype
MOS – Self-propelled mine layer
M-80AK/M-98A – New gun turret with 30 mm M86 cannon or 30 mm dual feed M89 cannon
M-80AB1 – Advanced armour, turret gun control equipment, optronics package, smoke grenade launchers and the ability to mount and launch the most recent 9M14 Malyutka missile variants
MIP 11,[11] TV Homing Heads for Guided missiles, Laser Homing Heads for Guided missiles, System for acoustic source localization - HEMERA,[12] inertial guidance systems for missiles, Explosive reactive armour M99, Battery command and control system for Nora B-52, M07G Mortar ballistic computer, Tank engine protection from wrong start-up, system for automatic control and jamming of mobile telephony, Radio jammers against remotely controlled improvised explosive devices, Software packages for command and control of air defense assets from the command and control centers, MOMS surveillance-sighting system [8]
Neva-M1T, SA-341, Upgraded Howitzer 105 mm M56/33, Upgraded Howitzer 105mm M101/33, Programs for modernization of the T-55 family of tanks, including their Chinese derivatives, as well as of the T-72 family of tanks, Upgraded BTR-50
Making of technical documentation, films and books represents an important part of VTI as publisher, it represents institute output and quantifier of more than sixty years involvement in R&D missions. The institute possesses technical documentation for over 1300 items of weaponry and defense equipment developed through institute history that are introduced in service in the armed forces. This documentation being intellectual property of MoD, it has an outstanding value and use for future projects.
