Posted on 12/07/2011 10:09:10 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Greece examining ‘free’ US tank offer
ATHENS — Cash-strapped Greece is considering a free offer of hundreds of redundant M1A1 Abrams tanks extended by the US government, the Greek army said on Wednesday.
“This is a free offer,” army spokesman Yiannis Sifakis told AFP.
“A delegation of officers has travelled to the United States to examine tanks in storage; we are departing on the premise of picking 400 of them,” he said.
“The only cost will be that of transport, which is estimated in the region of eight million euros ($11 million),” the spokesman added.
Ta Nea daily reported that the tanks, stored in Nevada, saw action in the 1990-1991 Gulf War and were first offered by the US government a year ago.
The state council on foreign policy and defence will have the final say on whether the offer is taken up, Sifakis said.
Greece is in the grip of a debt crisis that has forced the government to freeze procurement orders for tanks, frigates and fighter jets.
The country has traditionally been one of the world’s heaviest defence spenders per capita owing to decades of rivalry with neighbouring Turkey.
Greece has in the past bought tanks from Germany and there have been reports that Berlin has recently tried to sell updated versions of its Leopard model.
(Excerpt) Read more at khaleejtimes.com ...
Probably the fact that we built over 9,000 M-1 tanks during the Cold War, and now the vast majority of them are just silently rusting away while mothballed. A few hundred of them is just a drop in the bucket.
The inertial stabilization system costs about $500,000 smackers. I know a lot of DoD programs what wouldn’t mind having them free.
“I’m not worried about our air power killing our tanks.”
I didn’t mean to imply that our air technology would kill our tanks. It’s a matter of what the troops on the ground need. The tanks are very expensive to buy, maintain and move around. They have limited utility in the theaters where the Army is currently engaged. The Army would prefer to spend the money they have on weapons they can use to better effect every day. The light trucks sprout significant firepower at the ranges where the enemy is engaging the troops. The light trucks can go most of the places the Army needs them. Further, the trucks can be packed five to a plane and with all their spares and logistics they can be delivered anywhere in the world in 24 hours.
The Army made a judgment call. It decided on the lesser capable but more practical platform. Despite the fact this cost me my job I applaud their decision.
I also agree with the army in Afghanistan, but unless they can somehow know that we won’t need MBTs against a conventional army I wouldn’t be in a big hurry to discard them.
Rather along the lines of what I was thinking. Greece is basically bankrupt and looking at high $ military items w/ high $ maintenance/training requirements. That seems a poor match. That and many of the repair/spare parts require special storage. I could envision some of these disappearing from Greece and finding their way to an enemies research labs though.
Rather along the lines of what I was thinking. Greece is basically bankrupt and looking at high $ military items w/ high $ maintenance/training requirements. That seems a poor match. That and many of the repair/spare parts require special storage. I could envision some of these disappearing from Greece and finding their way to an enemies research labs though.
Are these tanks truly the M1A1 variant with the full chobham armor package? We’re just going to give that away, huh?
Greece isn’t ideal “tank country”, either. They’d be better off with some light wheeled armor. Something like the LAV-III or its cousing, the Stryker.
Hey Obama! I’ll take one or two and create jobs with them... How? EASY! and you can “de-mil” them by removing the gun barrel...
After WW2 there was a somewhat famous use for a Patton tank by a demolition company in the New York City area ... they’d just drive the tank through a building a few times and knock out all the supporting columns..
I’ll take delivery in DETROIT...
Neidermeyer.
“I could envision some of these disappearing from Greece and finding their way to an enemy’s research labs though.”
The TDP, Technical Data Package, has been sold twice that I’m aware of; once to South Korea and once to Egypt. The TDP is the entire drawing package and with it an industrious buyer could build the entire tank with all capabilities. The South Koreans, (Hyundai) immediately tried to undercut GD’s price on spares with their home built LRU’s (Line Replaceable Units; the boxes that make the tank functional.) The Egyptians are (or were) setting up production lines to also build the LRU’s. This may or may not be in violation of the agreements they’ve signed as I heard GD was upset over this. We found out because the Egyptians tried to hire some key people who told the company about the offer.
There are no gee-whiz technologies involved in the tank. It is a superb piece of hardware and software but nothing about it is now cutting edge. I would venture to guess that it now has serious rivals in the tank world and that winning against a rival armed with competing tanks made by Germany, Russia or Israel would be much more a matter strategy, tactics and chance than pure technical superiority.
Moreover, the Israelis, who have 1500 Merkavas, which is arguably at least the Abram’s equivalent if not its superior, have recently started planning on taking the tank out of service. They plan on replacing it with smaller, lighter vehicles. I believe the Israelis have arrived at the same conclusion the American Army has reached. The main battle tank’s capabilities are no longer worth the logistical foot print it requires. Also, the battlefield is rapidly evolving and munitions that could kill a tank might become rapidly so cheap and plentiful that they wipe out a huge investment before an army has a chance to react with new countermeasures.
I’m aware that we lost one tank in Gulf War 1, with the crew, to an apparently never before seen weapon. This weapon was not (to my knowledge) seen again and the thinking I heard suggested it was the field test of a prototype anti-tank device. If this is the case it might explain why Israel, which has unquestioned regional tank superiority, is planning to remove the Merkavas from service.
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