{"id":678233,"date":"2026-01-06T18:31:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T18:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/678233\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T18:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T18:31:16","slug":"e45m-to-find-leopard-2-successor-spain-faces-limited-options-as-mgcs-excludes-them-allies-diverge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/678233\/","title":{"rendered":"\u20ac45M to Find Leopard 2 Successor: Spain Faces Limited Options as MGCS Excludes Them, Allies Diverge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leopard 2 main battle tanks, although receiving new modernizations and iterations, are still designed during Cold War times. So they need to be replaced, as Spain plans, but a new generation is now not as easy to get as it seems.<\/p>\n

Spain’s Directorate General of Armament and Material has signed a contract for \u20ac45 million with Indra Systems for work within the Pamov project. And the latter provides for research in the direction of developing an Advanced Ground Combat System.<\/p>\n

Read more: <\/b>\u200brussia Offers India Rare S-350 Systems with Full Production Tech Transfer<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"SpanishSpanish Leopard 2E tank \/ Open source photo<\/p>\n

And this concerns precisely searching for a new main battle tank to replace Leopard 2E, which are currently used. Moreover, procurement will be made regardless of whether old machines will be modernized to new standards.<\/p>\n

The project horizon is currently defined as the 2040s according to deadlines set for pan-European MGCS. However, Spain still hasn’t been included there despite all attempts, and other participants<\/a>, Germany and France, are diverging in different directions with desires for interim solutions.<\/p>\n

\"ImageImage of prospective main battle tank under MGCS project \/ Open source photo<\/p>\n

So the question arises that a new tank needs to be sought either with newly formed directions that will be close to each country’s requirements, or in other places. And here there is a problem, because actually there are almost no alternatives.<\/p>\n

Currently, European defense industry produces only Leopard 2A8, which is the latest iteration of a machine that was developed during Cold War times. Germany itself plans to replace them with potential Leopard 3,<\/a>which could become an option for Spaniards, as was once the case with Leopard 2E localization.<\/p>\n

\"LeopardLeopard 2A8 main battle tank \/ Photo credit: hartpunkt<\/p>\n

What France will do is unknown, considering that it actually lost full capabilities in tank building, which is why it cooperated with Germans. So such a choice doesn’t look reliable.<\/p>\n

There are also South Korean K2s, which are localized in Poland, as well as Turkish Altay, which only recently went into series. However, they ideologically differ little from older analogues, so they don’t quite fit the status of new generation.<\/p>\n

\"SpanishSpanish Leopard 2E tank \/ Open source photo<\/p>\n

As a last resort, it remains to look at the new Abrams in the U.S, where they want to include a huge number of innovations. Its iterative development has only begun, but such an option is very doubtful, because Spaniards due to new geopolitical realities recently refused F-35s, which were critical for naval aviation.<\/p>\n

So there remains quite limited choice for Leopard 2E successor, and creating something of one’s own is too complicated. However, if they determine requirements and find someone ready to cooperate, maybe everything will work out, even better than Spain’s own Dragon wheeled APC program.<\/p>\n

Read more: <\/b>\u200bU.S. Used Kamikaze Drones for First Time in Venezuela, Despite Extensive Missile Arsenal<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leopard 2 main battle tanks, although receiving new modernizations and iterations, are still designed during Cold War times.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-678233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115849585341934104","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}