Saudi Arabia wants 600-800 Leopard 2 tanks?

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Saudi Arabia is interested in buying 600-800 Leopard 2 tanks from Germany, compared to the 300 previously reported, according to Bild am Sonntag. The German tabloid, which is often used by German politicians to deliver media messages, quotes "government circles" as the source of the Saudi Leopard 2 story.


The newspaper reports resistance to the sale in the cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel and in the defense and foreign ministries but support in the economics ministry because it "could guarantee the future of tank producers Krauss Maffei-Wegmann and Rheinmetall, which need new markets because of the restructuring of the Bundeswehr." An early June meeting of Germany's Federal Security Council, which is composed of the chancellor and eight ministers and would have to approve the deal, has been delayed, according to Bild am Sonntag.

The tabloid reports that the contract for the sale of the first tranche of 300 Leopard 2s is ready for signing and that the Saudis would like to do so before the start of Ramadan on 20 July following a visit earlier this month by the Saudi defense minister, Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz, to General Dynamics Santa Barbara, which will build the tanks under license.

Bild am Sontag quotes a German ministry source as saying the Saudis want "brand new tanks, preferably gold-plated" instead of second hand Leopard 2s.

What's behind the Saudi arms build-up? A counter to Iran? To put down potential internal opposition against the House of Saud?
 
there two alternative and both of them i do not like.

Saudi Arabia upgrade there Army force for:
1. Defends against future invasion of it's neighbouring states,
2. For a future invasion of it's neighbouring states,

there will be new gulf war
it's about the control of last oil wells in gulf, because the first well run dry
and one or more of Gulf state leaders will have the stupid idea to invade there neighbouring states...
 
If they treat the rest of their military equipment like the treat their aircraft then they want the rest as "spares" :)

They tend to buy high-tech, top-of-the-line equipment but do not have the ability to maintain the stuff so it gradually breaks down. Instead of fixing it they simply tow it off to the side and roll out an un-used one till it breaks down.

Even when they hire foregin workers to maintain the system they more often than not simply do not allocate any funding to repair and maintenence services and the stuff sits there falling apart.

In 1991 the very first thing the US did was send maintenance teams into Saudi to repair all their equipment so they would HAVE a credible defense force to off-set Iraq!

Probably the most "telling" part of the article is the supposed quote from Saudi on the tanks "brand new tanks, preferably gold-plated" since it doesn't really have to work... Just look good :)

Randy
 
'We' support their absolute monarchy, and they use some of the proceeds to buy US tech, thus supporting jobs and re-election in the US. Whatever local strategic considerations there are, i.e. the 5th fleet base in Bahrain, are secondary to this. See also Egypt (Israeli peace treaty and energy supply).
 
This wouldn't be a build up so much as a replacement in kind. The Saudis still have a lot of M60 and AMX-30 tanks which were never heavily upgraded and are thus completely obsolete by modern standards. Buying around 800 Leopard 2 tanks would allow all of them to be phased out and replaced on a 1:1 basis and let the Saudi Army operate just two types of tank instead of four. Any smaller number would suggest the Saudis are thinking of scaling back the tank force they have, which might not be such a bad idea in favor of more artillery or rotary wing assets.


Its also worth pointing out the Saudis actually had a deal going to back the Leopard 2 back in the 1970s but it was killed under Israeli pressure, the M1 deal only became politically possible after Saddam invaded Kuwait. The Saudis haven't made a modern ground force a high priority in a long time, no real surprise because they have such a hard time manning and operating any military at all let alone one so unsexy and apparently full of imported Pakistanis as the regular Saudi Army. The Saudi National Guard is in much better shape, but it does not operate heavy tracked armored vehicles by policy.
 
What a waste. In the end it is better France never sold Mirage 4000s to those as**oles. ::)
 
Michel Van said:
there two alternative and both of them i do not like.

Saudi Arabia upgrade there Army force for:
1. Defends against future invasion of it's neighbouring states,
2. For a future invasion of it's neighbouring states,

there will be new gulf war
it's about the control of last oil wells in gulf, because the first well run dry
and one or more of Gulf state leaders will have the stupid idea to invade there neighbouring states...

Saudi is also very worried about the instability in Yemen, and there have been cross-border strikes in the recent past.
 
Sea Skimmer said:
This wouldn't be a build up so much as a replacement in kind. The Saudis still have a lot of M60 and AMX-30 tanks which were never heavily upgraded and are thus completely obsolete by modern standards. Buying around 800 Leopard 2 tanks would allow all of them to be phased out and replaced on a 1:1 basis and let the Saudi Army operate just two types of tank instead of four.

Makes sense to me!! ;)

Regards
Pioneer
 
Archibald said:
What a waste. In the end it is better France never sold Mirage 4000s to those as**oles. ::)

:eek: , sorry my friend, but what do you mean Mirage 4000 and sold to whom ever????????
The Mirage 4000 never went past prototype stage! Hence nobody purchased them, let alone operated them! I know that Saudi Arabia was supposedly meant to have financed the Mirage 4000 in some way or form!!

Regards
Pioneer
 
What I find interesting is Saudi Arabia's wiliness to venture outside its traditional political comfort zone of defence acquisition - aka Britain, France and the United States!! It is clearly willing to diversify it's reach and choice.
The Leopard II is an excellent MBT (I personally regret the Australian Army / Government not selecting the Leopard II over that of the M1 Abrams :-[ ). But I'm very confused and concerned that the Saudi's have elected to put into service two modern MBT's (it already has some 373 M1 Abrams) into service (ok I'm well aware that it is political and that $ is not an issue for the Saudi's!!) But from an operational combat & logistics view (not to mention training and maintenance), this is crazy in my opinion! The only commonality that the Saudi M1 and Leopard II will be that of the Rheinmetall 120mm L/44 gun and ammo!! :eek:

Regards
Pioneer
 
I know that Saudi Arabia was supposedly meant to have financed the Mirage 4000 in some way or form!!

Should I have better formulated the phrase, but that doesn't change my overall opinion by an inch ;)
 
Archibald said:
I know that Saudi Arabia was supposedly meant to have financed the Mirage 4000 in some way or form!!

Should I have better formulated the phrase, but that doesn't change my overall opinion by an inch ;)

Sorry Archibald, I was not being facetious regarding your comments re Mirage 4000! I legitimately did not understand want you were meaning :eek:

Regards
Pioneer
 
Pioneer said:
What I find interesting is Saudi Arabia's wiliness to venture outside its traditional political comfort zone of defence acquisition - aka Britain, France and the United States!! It is clearly willing to diversify it's reach and choice.
The Leopard II is an excellent MBT (I personally regret the Australian Army / Government not selecting the Leopard II over that of the M1 Abrams :-[ ). But I'm very confused and concerned that the Saudi's have elected to put into service two modern MBT's (it already has some 373 M1 Abrams) into service (ok I'm well aware that it is political and that $ is not an issue for the Saudi's!!) But from an operational combat & logistics view (not to mention training and maintenance), this is crazy in my opinion! The only commonality that the Saudi M1 and Leopard II will be that of the Rheinmetall 120mm L/44 gun and ammo!! :eek:

Regards
Pioneer
Saudi has a "knack" of paying top dollar for their equipment and then letting it rot on-site. I don't have any number of course, (my background gives me some access to things like the E3 AWACS and some general aircraft stuff but no ground equipment :) ) but I doubt that many of the Abrams are operational at this point.

The Saudi government is quite often willing to purchace high-end equipment from just about anyone, at which point they then put out contracts for private firms to "operate-and-maintain" the equipment for the Saudi "operators" themselves. This leads to a spat of high-salery specific offerings towards current or ex-maintainers in the specific equipment type for 4+ year "tours" doing the same job for the Saudis. Which sounds good and can be a good paying job however the problems set in once your "in-country" of course :)

All "foriegn" workers are housed in seperated "villages" which are walled and guarded, and access to "Saudi" itself is highly regulated other than direct drives to and from "work". (Did I mention you mostly have to buy and ship your own tools to the site?) And at work you tend to find there is no money for spare parts or repair work so that there is a general and steady decline of servicable equipment. Of course this leads to having to many technicians for the contract and this leads to companies seperating employees as "excess" to requirements. (You're on the next plane out of the country of course)

Which finally leads to a few dozen techs stripping parts from the majority of the sitting equipment while jury-rigging and doing work arounds on a few dozen "working" pieces of equipment under increased pressure to keep things going with no spares and no replacement equipment. Usualy as it gets down to the last few working examples of a unit the Saudi's will gradually wind down the contract and let people go while persuing a new purchase of an applicable replacement type.

Hence I'm not at all surprised the Saudi's are buying Leopard-2's since it would be about at that point in the cycle.

If you happen to know anyone who does maintenance work on the type you might give them a heads up that job ops will be popping up soon :)

Randy
 
Pioneer said:
What I find interesting is Saudi Arabia's wiliness to venture outside its traditional political comfort zone of defence acquisition - aka Britain, France and the United States!! It is clearly willing to diversify it's reach and choice.
The Leopard II is an excellent MBT (I personally regret the Australian Army / Government not selecting the Leopard II over that of the M1 Abrams :-[ ). But I'm very confused and concerned that the Saudi's have elected to put into service two modern MBT's (it already has some 373 M1 Abrams) into service (ok I'm well aware that it is political and that $ is not an issue for the Saudi's!!) But from an operational combat & logistics view (not to mention training and maintenance), this is crazy in my opinion! The only commonality that the Saudi M1 and Leopard II will be that of the Rheinmetall 120mm L/44 gun and ammo!! :eek:


Keep in mind that the original deal was announced a year ago, the big news here is that the order is so much larger than orignally expected. Also overlooked is one other significant advantage the Leopard 2A7+ enjoys: it's actually in production, whereas M1 and Challenger production ended years ago (M1A3 is still just being planned and may never appear).

Regards
Pioneer
 

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