Germany, France to jointly develop 'Leopard 3' tank

dpa, Reuters ^ | 22.05.2015

[sukhoi-30mki]

The German Defense Ministry announced its plans for the "Leo 3" (as it's likely to be nicknamed in Germany) in a report on Friday to the Bundestag, which was obtained by multiple media outlets.

"Technologies and concepts will be investigated between 2015 and 2018 in joint studies also involving German industry," Markus Grübel, a deputy minister in the German Defense Ministry told his parliamentary colleagues. He cited the Leopard 2's long years of service as the reason that a new battle tank was required.

The Leopard 2's 50-year service life is set to expire in 2030. The tank, which came into service in 1979, was conceived as part of a plan for Cold War-era land defense. Germany commissioned more than 2,000 of them at the peak of the arms race of the early 1980s. Currently, however, only about 240 are in active service; but last month, citing the security situation in Ukraine, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen annnounced plans to reactivate 100 mothballed Leopard 2 tanks. In November of last year, von der Leyen also announced a move to add more than 100 aditional "Boxer" armored personnel carriers to the Bundeswehr's ranks.

The Defense Ministry is in the process of drawing up a new "white paper" listing Germany's security policies and goals for the present day.

The manufacturer of the current Leopard 2, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, is scheduled to fuse with French firm Nexter Systems in the course of this year. This has prompted media reports in Germany saying that the new Franco-German firm, with more than 6,000 staff and a combined turnover of around 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion), could be a strong candidate to win the contract to develop a new battle tank for the German Bundeswehr.

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TREADHEAD Ping

TREADHEAD Ping ON THE WAAAAY!

Target, cease fire!

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How soon before the US develops an “M2” main battle tank?

If we do, under the present designation, it'd follow the M1, the early 105mm main gun Abrams, followed by the M1A1 with the German-designed 120mm smoothbore main gun, then the improved M1A1 and M1A1 SEP versions. So the more likely designation would probably be M1A3. And that would also avoid confusion with the M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle.

Of course, it's also possible that a remotely operated or autonomous tank, as envisioned by the late Keith Laumer about three decades back, may come along, known as *BOLOS* in tanker-speak, officially Unmanned Ground Vehicles or UG-Vees.

They're already using converted M60 and M48 chassis, remotely operated, as mine clearance vehicles. And the Black Knight is another remotely operated/autonomous combat vehicle under study