Having a rough recovery so, I thought with a little time to kill I'd provide the following updates. On the DID refs provided below, related issues are in
bold within the articles and at the bottom are
Related Articles from this and other defense related sites and a further
News section from related local and international news sources. This is a "one stop" reference source better than WiKi-anything.
Poland: The continued Russian encroachment into the Ukraine and pressures elsewhere have accelerated the pace of deliveries of the updated LEO 2A4 and 2A5 MBT's. The first covers the (
second) deliveries the last the same and a comprehensive look at Poland's heavy armor situation. For my part moving up the fielding date to Oct this year vice Jan 2015 might be appropriate based on Poland's long experience with the LEO and in keeping with historical data for a scenario developer-Russia openly attacks Ukrainian forces with rebel supporting units. With the blessing/support of NATO Poland sends troops into the Ukraine to stabilize the Western portion of the country.
http://www.armyrecognition.com/octob...tle_tanks.html
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/...-tanks-019466/
Also as of today (
for real) oil hit a 4yr low too close at $78 a barrel, Russia needs oil at $100 a barrel to sustain it's economy at current/future spending levels. Oil is projected to continue to drop, at $68 a barrel this will tip Russia into a
re-cessation. If this wasn't bad enough now Germany's Merkel has now spoken out against Putin this in the ref below.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/...urope-028564//
South Korea/Turkey: As above I've posted on this years ago. The
ALTAY was designed from the
K-2 during this period of cooperation the S. Koreans started to develop the improved K-2 called the
XK-2. Some of the XK-2 improvements made it into the ALTAY however S. Korea is seeking to improve the tank further which ironically is based on the
ABRAMS, anyway as you might imagine this has lead to problems. Also not in the update at top but in the first para of the article is what I had already known about the LEO1 and early LEO2 MBT's;
that they are still in service with the Turkish Army. These tanks were the test beds for the
LEOPARD-1T (LEO 2A4) and
ALTAY for the FCS (On LEO1) and other improvement on the older LEO2 tanks refer to the following post in this thread
Pg.17 Post #169or the Fastboat Patch Thread. Again the "Poster" was right.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/...project-05012/
This will be submitted with the
SIPRI data previously mentioned.
The Turkish MBT situation has been
greatly clarified since the above post in later ones as soon as within the last six months. I've spent more time on the Turkish armor issue then any other and I expect a final resolution (I hope.) on my first Patch input. The data is good to show the progression of Turkish armor after WWII though I could've presented it in a less confusing manner back then.
Regards,
Pat