According to Der Spiegel, as part of a defence review, Germany’s army, the Bundeswehr, will deploy significantly higher number of the Leopard 2 battle tank over the coming years.
Germany presently operates six tank battalions each comprising 44 Leopard tanks, but not all the tanks are operational. The defence review would see estimated German tank numbers increase from their current 225 to a future complement of 328 Leopard battle tanks.
The German defence ministry, according to BBC News, will spend €22m ($24) on its plans to take the Bundeswehr’s tank numbers over the 300 mark.
Der Spiegel’s revelations come just days ahead of four-way talks involving Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine scheduled to start in Berlin, Monday, as a follow-up to discuss the fragile ceasefire in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, agreed February as earlier reported in Digital Journal.
Following the end of the Cold War, Germany sold off a number of its Leopard battle tanks to industry. The tanks have since been kept in storage. But the situation on Ukraine, coupled with the threat from Islamic extremists, according to a German defence ministry spokesman, mean that Germany must ensure it can deploy properly equipped troops, rapidly, in the right place. Flexibility and rapid reaction times, say the ministry, are in accordance with plans agreed by NATO officials in February to more than double the size of the alliance’s Response Force.
The Leopard 2 battle tank first entered service with the Bundeswehr in the 1970s when Germany was still partitioned. Since then the tank has undergone many variations. A total of 3480 Leopard 2’s have been manufactured and the tank has seen service in the armed forces of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Chile and a number of other countries.
Despite the increase in tank numbers, Germany remains way behind Russia when it comes to tank firepower. According to Global Firepower, Russia has available 15,398 main battle tanks. The United States, by comparison, with 8848 main battle tanks, operates at just over half the level of Russian tank strength.
The augmentation of German armed forces will put Germany broadly on a par with the Italy France and UK who can deploy 586, 423 and 407 main battle tanks respectively. Ukraine has an estimated 2,809 tanks (February 2015).
Modernisation of Germany’s Leopard tanks is scheduled to start in 2017. When complete, German tank numbers will be just a few short of the 350 the country had available during the Cold War.
