More than half of the Leopard 2 main battle tanks of the Bundeswehr are not operational. According to the Defence Ministry report, of the 244 Leopard 2 battle tanks were only 95 ready for use.
The report has been published by Focus magazine.
The German army has been well known in the past for its ability to deploy well-trained and maintained tank formations against the enemy, but this belief seems to be fading. Only 95 out of the Bundeswehr’s 244 Leopard 2 main battle tanks are combat-ready, Funke media group has learnt from a Defense Ministry report.
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Some 53 tanks have been disarmed, seven are being used for testing, while 89 vehicles are “conditionally operational” as they cannot be repaired without critical spare parts. The Defense Ministry report especially highlights multiple cases in which “unavailability of the required spare parts would be detrimental.”
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The Leopard 2 is a main battle tank developed by Krauss-Maffei in the 1970s for the West German Army. The tank first entered service in 1979 and succeeded the earlier Leopard 1 as the main battle tank of the German Army. Various versions have served in the armed forces of Germany and 12 other European countries, as well as several non-European nations, including Canada (Leopard 2A4M CAN), Chile, Indonesia, Singapore and Turkey.