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this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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The production also increased much more than in the whole US. Basically Europe's goal was at least a million shells until the end of the year. And even when they might fall a bit short on that goal, the US -by it's own account- is still in the we can probably produce 20k per month from 2024 and onward stage of ramping up production.
Yeah, that's bullshit. They had to find people (most of them many decades past their jobs in military) to even do the training because Leopard-1s were simply not a thing for a long time. The ones they are sending to Ukraine are refurbished trash sitting in some yard for decades, mostly out of Germany even.
The only still existing Leopard-1s in operation are found in Greece. Then there are engineering vehicles because they were still sufficient for their job. And when they weren't anymore (because tanks they would need to tow got too heavy) that's when Wisent1 were invented. Which is a commercially developed upgrade for Leopard-1-based engineering vehicles to improve their power to a level where they can handle modern Leopard-2s again. And before the Ukraine war there was only a single buyer: the danish army.
And why do you think these tanks still exist? Nobody would buy those thinks, but if shit hits the fan, a Leopard 1 is still better than no tank at all - this is exactly what it's used for in Ukraine.
Germany also provided thousands of old Strela MANPADS, that were still NVA/East German stock. These were not stored because they are great, but as a kind of emergency-reserve.
The fact that all of this is stored in bad conditions is simply due to Germany's rather weird Bundeswehr politics.
These were not stored because they are great, but ~~as a kind of emergency-reserve~~ because proper disposal costs more than letting them rot on some shelf.