Terrible choice if true. They’re great tanks, mind you, but that’s because their downsides are moderated by American funding and logistical prowess.
I guess the idea is to tie in with Poland as a cooperation, but that’s a very shallow pool to dip into.
Do they want to scare Austria into letting them join Schengen?
Why not go with k2 though. It’s a very versatile tank
Why fund American economy and become dependent on its tech? I thought Europe had pretty good tanks
Now those are real numbers…
I wonder if some country in Europe could just open up an Abrams assembly facility, maybe in an existing facility that services or manufactures tanks.
That way, we just ship the parts over, which we should be able to do a lot more quickly than the assembled tanks.
My understanding is that we have all the parts available, but that they have to be assembled, and we only have one lone tank plant left that does that work, hence the backlog. To accelerate that, we’d have to hire a bunch of people, then lay them off.
Whereas countries that want them are going to want to hire and train maintenance people *anyway*, and putting the things together in the first place is probably a pretty reasonable step on that route.
It probably costs less to do the assembly in Europe, the countries that want them are in Europe, and there are going to need to be facilities for maintaining them anyway, which I suspect has a lot of overlap with what’s required for assembling them in terms of equipment.
I remember reading that Ukraine asked for an older Abrams variant, not because they actually wanted older hardware, but because it wouldn’t be slowly working its way through the assembly pipeline over here.
>…The Romanian army will be authorized to obtain 54 “modernized” M1A2 Abrams tanks, 12 of which should be taken from the US Army’s inventory…
I guess the delays getting Abrams to Ukraine are political if this is happening.
>That being said, Bucharest clearly intends to go further afterwards, the deputies having approved phase I of a much larger programme. Indeed, citing General Cătălin Tomescu, the daily Adevărul argues that the Romanian army actually needs about 250 new tanks in order to equip five battalions. And that would allow the withdrawal of its T-85M1 Bizonul, developed from the T-55…
That smells like a circle-trade giving the old tanks to UA, but it’s speculative.
>Defence-related spending will reach 2.5% of our GDP from 2023.
Much like a lot of Leopard 2’s, these tanks will be older tanks that are rebuilt as no new Abrams has actually been built since the 90’s otoh. Article makes no indication of the variant but the Sep V4 is supposed to enter service in 2028 so that could be the likely candidate.
9 comments
LOL.
Tiraspol shitting it’s pants.
Terrible choice if true. They’re great tanks, mind you, but that’s because their downsides are moderated by American funding and logistical prowess.
I guess the idea is to tie in with Poland as a cooperation, but that’s a very shallow pool to dip into.
Do they want to scare Austria into letting them join Schengen?
Why not go with k2 though. It’s a very versatile tank
Why fund American economy and become dependent on its tech? I thought Europe had pretty good tanks
Now those are real numbers…
I wonder if some country in Europe could just open up an Abrams assembly facility, maybe in an existing facility that services or manufactures tanks.
That way, we just ship the parts over, which we should be able to do a lot more quickly than the assembled tanks.
My understanding is that we have all the parts available, but that they have to be assembled, and we only have one lone tank plant left that does that work, hence the backlog. To accelerate that, we’d have to hire a bunch of people, then lay them off.
Whereas countries that want them are going to want to hire and train maintenance people *anyway*, and putting the things together in the first place is probably a pretty reasonable step on that route.
It probably costs less to do the assembly in Europe, the countries that want them are in Europe, and there are going to need to be facilities for maintaining them anyway, which I suspect has a lot of overlap with what’s required for assembling them in terms of equipment.
I remember reading that Ukraine asked for an older Abrams variant, not because they actually wanted older hardware, but because it wouldn’t be slowly working its way through the assembly pipeline over here.
>…The Romanian army will be authorized to obtain 54 “modernized” M1A2 Abrams tanks, 12 of which should be taken from the US Army’s inventory…
I guess the delays getting Abrams to Ukraine are political if this is happening.
>That being said, Bucharest clearly intends to go further afterwards, the deputies having approved phase I of a much larger programme. Indeed, citing General Cătălin Tomescu, the daily Adevărul argues that the Romanian army actually needs about 250 new tanks in order to equip five battalions. And that would allow the withdrawal of its T-85M1 Bizonul, developed from the T-55…
That smells like a circle-trade giving the old tanks to UA, but it’s speculative.
>Defence-related spending will reach 2.5% of our GDP from 2023.
This suggests that the Romanians, like the Poles, believe russia’s long term maximalist territorial goals involve them, as [laid out by Peter Zeihan in 2014](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/szxjl1/russias_desired_borders_according_to_peter_zeihan/).
Much like a lot of Leopard 2’s, these tanks will be older tanks that are rebuilt as no new Abrams has actually been built since the 90’s otoh. Article makes no indication of the variant but the Sep V4 is supposed to enter service in 2028 so that could be the likely candidate.