By Boyko Nikolovon Aug 2, 2022
BERLIN ($1=0.98 Euros) — Poland will not receive the Leopard 2A4 tanks promised by Germany. Berlin offers Warsaw the Leopard 1A5 and the Marder BMP. This is the official opinion and proposal of Berlin to Warsaw [not only does Poland expects Leopard 2A4, Slovakia and Slovenia too – Ed.].
Poland provided Ukraine with 200 T-72 main battle tanks. Ukrainians needed them because of the invasion of Russian troops into the country on February 24. After negotiations, Germany was one of the first countries to offer an exchange to Poland. Berlin proposed the Leopard 2A4 or Leopard 2 for short.
Today it is clear that there are none. According to documents, however, Germany has 350 units of Leopard 2. Then where did the tanks disappear?
The Polish online portal Defence 24 suggests one of the possibilities – “cannibalism”. I.e. according to documents the tanks exist, but in reality, they are disassembled and used for spare parts and maintenance. Both the combat capability of Bundeswehr tanks and the combat capability of countries that already operate these tanks. But not only that – Leopard 2 tanks can become chassis donors for other weapon systems such as BREM or the PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzer.
Another possibility is the policy of saving Berlin’s defense budgets in recent years – a practice, writes Defense 24 that dates back to the 1990s. A practice that quite logically leads to this – is the use of fully functional tanks as spare parts for other tanks.
It turns out, writes Defence 24, that the Bundeswehr has 600 Leopard 2 tanks and cannot allocate 50 units for Poland. Berlin is now offering 100 Leopard A15 units to Poland. As far as BulgarianMilitary.com remembers, weren’t there that many in Rheinmetall’s warehouses? Wait, aren’t those the same? Where did the German tanks go?
And last but not least – not only Poland has a problem with Germany, but also Slovenia and Slovakia. They were also promised the Leopard 2 after transferring quite a few weapons to Ukraine. Most likely, they will also receive what was promised to Poland – nothing.