December27, 2006: The Philippines Army is upgrading its Light Armor Brigade to a division. The unit currently has 500 vehicles (including 100 V-150 and 150 Simba wheeled armored vehicles, 80 FMC infantry fighting vehicles, 40 Scorpion light tanks and a hundred M-113 armored personnel carriers) and about 5,000 personnel. The V-150's are being upgraded with new engines and modified turrets. The V-150 is a 4x4, ten ton vehicle that carries five personnel. It has a turret that can carry anything from a pair of 7.62mm machine-gun to larger cannon (up to 90mm). The Filipino vehicles carry machine-guns or 40mm grenade automatic launchers. The United States used them in the 1960s. Currently about twenty countries use V-150s, often in paramilitary units. The Simba is similar to the V-150, but a more recent design. It weighs 11 tons. The FMC, Scorpion and M-113 are also older vehicles that require a lot of maintenance, but are useful in counterinsurgency operations.