Leo 2A6M CAN - are they in service?

[Czech_pivo]

Someone out there is calling us on it....

Canada's broken tanks evince an unserious security partner​

Canada's broken tanks evince an unserious security partner

When it comes to sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that his government is "not there yet." As it turns out, the reason why Canada may not be "there" is that of a decade of neglect. Canada's tanks are mostly broken and unusable.

www.washingtonexaminer.com

 

[Jarnhamar]

How about we buy Ukraine new tanks and then they can sell us the spare parts after for us to fix ours.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Someone out there is calling us on it....

Canada's broken tanks evince an unserious security partner​

Canada's broken tanks evince an unserious security partner

When it comes to sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that his government is "not there yet." As it turns out, the reason why Canada may not be "there" is that of a decade of neglect. Canada's tanks are mostly broken and unusable.

www.washingtonexaminer.com

Translation - for the current government:

 

[Colin Parkinson]

 

[Halifax Tar]

Someone out there is calling us on it....

Canada's broken tanks evince an unserious security partner​

Canada's broken tanks evince an unserious security partner

When it comes to sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that his government is "not there yet." As it turns out, the reason why Canada may not be "there" is that of a decade of neglect. Canada's tanks are mostly broken and unusable.

www.washingtonexaminer.com

I had to google "evince"

 

[Spencer100]

Someone out there is calling us on it....

Canada's broken tanks evince an unserious security partner​

Canada's broken tanks evince an unserious security partner

When it comes to sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that his government is "not there yet." As it turns out, the reason why Canada may not be "there" is that of a decade of neglect. Canada's tanks are mostly broken and unusable.

www.washingtonexaminer.com

The funny part is people believe this is a bug it's a feature for the current government

 

[Maxman1]

Someone out there is calling us on it....

Canada's broken tanks evince an unserious security partner​

Canada's broken tanks evince an unserious security partner

When it comes to sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that his government is "not there yet." As it turns out, the reason why Canada may not be "there" is that of a decade of neglect. Canada's tanks are mostly broken and unusable.

www.washingtonexaminer.com

 

[KevinB]

I have a problem with this statement having visited the US facility. Your source(s) please.

Which US facility? We have more than 1.
Lima OH builds, but there are others for refurbishing/upgrade.
The US Army has three armor refurbishment sites in Europe, and the Polish site as I understand it is now a joint Army and Polish facility.

 

[FSTO]

The Big Cod is being raked over the coals by the usual apologists due to him calling Canada a "Parasite" on NATO.

Canada 'became a parasite in NATO for many many years': retired general

 

[Czech_pivo]

The Big Cod is being raked over the coals by the usual apologists due to him calling Canada a "Parasite" on NATO.

Canada 'became a parasite in NATO for many many years': retired general

Its because nothing hurts more than being told the truth.

 

[GR66]

Responding to this comment from the Ukraine thread so as not to further derail that discussion:

I'd love 300, keep the extras in wainwright, gagetown, or maybe Suffield. Reroll 1/2 of reserve armour to tank crews who then go to the bases and use them. Such a plan would require an expansion of RCEME training to build more capacity to maintain these vehicles.

We have 82 tanks currently with which we are struggling to be able to deploy a single squadron. At the same time the CAF is around 10,000 pers short already. There are multiple serious problems with being able to achieve the goal of seriously expanding our armoured capability.

1. Political will to do so (Public, Government and internal to the CAF...what other capabilities will we give up to expand our armour?)
2. Money - lots of very big ticket items already on the go or pending for the CAF to compete with the budget (CSC, F-35, NORAD, GBAD, ATGM)
3. Personnel - We're already struggling to get and keep people for our existing positions. How much not only to solve our current recruiting and retention issues but also to expand the RCAC? What significant changes need to be made to our current Reserve system to be able to generate and maintain a large pool of part-time tankers and maintainers with the required skill levels?
4. Facilities - What bases are suitable for expanded tank operations? Facilities, training areas, maintenance equipment, etc. If we want to tap into significant Reserve personnel to man the tank force we ideally need to locate our tanks close to our largest population centers so we can maximize training time (and expand the recruiting pool)...what bases offer that?
5. Long term maintenance - How do we prevent an expanded fleet of tanks from rusting out the same way that our current fleet has? Can we maintain a large tank fleet long term without a major maintenance and refurbishment facility/facilities being set up by the OEM in Canada to handle much of the major maintenance tasks? Even at 300 tanks is that a large enough fleet to justify the cost to the government to support such a facility long term as the RCAC would be the sole customer for the facility?

I guess technically none of these things are impossible, but I'd suggest that getting all of these things aligned is HIGHLY improbable. At best I see Canada "renewing" our existing tank fleet (either buying new tanks or rebuilding our existing Leopards to a "2A7C" standard) and officially concentrating them in a single Regiment/location. Long term, once the spotlight of Ukraine fades away, I predict that once again maintenance will begin to slip and vehicle availability will decline as the fleet ages.

Is there maybe a completely different model we could follow in order to maintain a viable tank force?

Perhaps we could contract with the US to supply us with a Squadron+ of M1A2's in Wainwright to be our training Squadron. We would be trained on and be responsible for front line maintenance but when major maintenance is required the vehicles would be shipped back to the US to be worked on and they would send up a replacement.

To maintain skills we could have an ongoing agreement to have individual tank Troops (Platoons) attach posted to US Armour units in the States so they can learn and practice skills at the above Squadron level.

To be able to expand the tank force in case of war we could contract with the US to maintain a certain number of additional tanks in US (or European) storage facilities at a heightened level of readiness so that they can quickly be made ready for deployment if required.

 

[ueo]

Which US facility? We have more than 1.
Lima OH builds, but there are others for refurbishing/upgrade.
The US Army has three armor refurbishment sites in Europe, and the Polish site as I understand it is now a joint Army and Polish facility.

Scale of Lima?? Who supplies apares ansd trained staff? I'm a simple infantry guy dontcha know.

 

[KevinB]

Scale of Lima?? Who supplies apares ansd trained staff? I'm a simple infantry guy dontcha know.

I’ve never been to Lima OH, but PEO Armor has a slew of briefings on what the capacities are there, and globally for the Abrams

Lima was designed to be able to produce 250 Abrams a month, I’m not sure if that means 250 current version tanks, or the original M1. Canada wasn’t the only one wanting to mothball or divest from tanks during GWOT, and congressional pressure kept it open building tanks the Army said it didn’t need or want for years at a min rate.
So I have zero idea on what it would take to get the line going full speed again.

Poland and German based Abrams refurbishment/maintenance facilities can refit/upgrade somewhere around 100 a month each (again not sure to what extent that means). They were designed to fix battle damage and keep the POMCUS tanks upgraded to current rev, so I suspect they can do most everything, but that’s just an assumption on my end.

 

[FJAG]

I’ve never been to Lima OH, but PEO Armor has a slew of briefings on what the capacities are there, and globally for the Abrams

Lima was designed to be able to produce 250 Abrams a month, I’m not sure if that means 250 current version tanks, or the original M1. Canada wasn’t the only one wanting to mothball or divest from tanks during GWOT, and congressional pressure kept it open building tanks the Army said it didn’t need or want for years at a min rate.
So I have zero idea on what it would take to get the line going full speed again.

Poland and German based Abrams refurbishment/maintenance facilities can refit/upgrade somewhere around 100 a month each (again not sure to what extent that means). They were designed to fix battle damage and keep the POMCUS tanks upgraded to current rev, so I suspect they can do most everything, but that’s just an assumption on my end.

I drive past Lima every year on the I75. Will have to stop in some day.

The M1 rebuilding is shared between Lima and the facilities at Anniston Army Depot in Alabama. There's a good National Geographic video on the process. There are some screenshots from it in this article.

How America Rebuilds And Upgrades The Mighty M1 Tank

The toughest thing on land since 1980.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[BrianWL]

Someone out there is calling us on it....

Canada's broken tanks evince an unserious security partner​

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...ks-evince-an-unserious-security-partner[/URLN

http://

 

[BrianWL]

USA and Nato should just kick us to the curb. We wont commit

 

[FJAG]

Spiegel on the Leo issue:

The Last Taboo: Germany's Leopard Tanks Are a Game Changer with Significant Risks

With the delivery of Leopard battle tanks from Germany, the Ukraine war is entering into a new and dangerous phase. Olaf Scholz must now clean up the political damage he has caused, hold his country together and find a path with his international partners to end the conflict.

www.spiegel.de

 

[FJAG]

From Task and Purpose:

How Ukraine might maintain its Abrams, Challenger, and Leopard tanks to fight Russia

The Ukrainians already have armored vehicles from several countries and now they are getting US, British, and German tanks.

taskandpurpose.com

 

[FJAG]

Modern War Institute:

Leopards Into the Fray: How Will German Tanks Affect the Battlefield Balance in Ukraine? - Modern War Institute

The announcement this week that Germany will send tanks to Ukraine has dominated headlines. The momentousness of this decision is difficult to overstate. Germany was the European country most resistant […]

mwi.usma.edu

 

[Colin Parkinson]

My guess is they are going to husband the initial delivery of Bradley's and Marders, use them to stiffen the current lines. Once the tanks are in country and the crews, maintainers are ready, they will group them with the IFV's and use them in batches of 20-30 vehicles to hit at identified weak points in the lines. Any larger formation will likely strain logistics and invite heavy long range missile and artillery strikes by the Russians. Having three such formations, makes tracking harder for the Russians.

My guess is the Challengers will be used to stiffen existing defense and to support counterattacks to retake areas lost to small Russian advances. This will allow them to keep them to be maintained and stocked with ammunition, which is different than the Leo/M1 ammunition.

There will be newer T-72's arriving as well. My guess is they will not operate with the Western tanks so as to avoid blue on blue, so the western tanks will be free to fire on any T-series they see.

I think the West should be quickly working on decoys for the tanks, IFV and AD systems. These will make it harder for the Russians to target the real ones.