The European Union plans to dramatically ramp up defense spending, mobilizing 800 billion euros over the next four years. The aim is to strengthen Europe’s defense readiness and boost military support for Ukraine. The sharp increase signals growing concern that the bloc could also come under attack by Russia – and can no longer depend on US protection for Europe via NATO.
The fact that we have 19 different tanks in Europe is mind blowing. I don’t know what the number should be, but 19 feels WAY to high. If we’re going to ramp up spending we also clearly need to make some changes to increase efficiency too.
Maybe a “Abteilung für Effizienz in der Verwaltung”? (Ok, I’m not being serious with this one)
What countries are included in “Europe”?
As far as i know there are currently 6 tanks in the EU in active service.
Leopard 2 (Germany) Leclerc (France) M1 Abrams (United States) K2 Black Panther (South Korea) T-72 (Soviet Union) C1 Ariete (Italy)
Leopard 1 is still used plenty. T-72 and T-80 are still active in many east european countries. Greece and Portugal still field the M60 and M48 Patton, theres the “native” PT-91 and Korean K2 in Poland.
I’m pretty sure there are some Yugoslavian M-84 hanging around as well, and 3 or 4 national versions of the Leopard 2, like the strv. 122 in Sweden. And maybe the AMX-10, if you want to stretch definition
Makes for 13 at least, or 17.
And if you really want to pad the numbers, you can always count the A2 as half dozen different numbers
Fair enough, it really depends on how you count. I grouped all variants under a single tank, if you count each variant differently then the number will be far greater indeed.
From what i can find T-80 is not in active service with any EU country and im really quite surprised M48’s are still used in active service.
Cyprus uses the T-80 (a fact I learned from wikipedia, i’m rather surprised they have tanks at all)
I can’t really find proof Greece actually DOES anything with their M48’s except dust them off occasionally, but they do still have quite a few, and even upgraded them with the fire control system from the Leopard 2A4. The M48A5 is from 1975 though, it’s not as old as it looks.
Also depends on the definition of tank i think. Is the CV90 a tank in the mind of the politician who said there are 19? I don’t know. Still, 19 is a lot, even if so.