• chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    16 days ago

    This really baffles me. What does Germany want with a bunch of obsolete Leopard 1s anyway? I guess they could break them down for parts and then send parts they already had to Ukraine, allowing Ukraine to repair some of their damaged Leopard 1s.

    • RidderSport@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      16 days ago

      I doubt that would be allowed with the sales agreement. Allthemore baffling, Switzerland really fucked themselves over there

      • snuggledick@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        16 days ago

        A lot of speculation in the comments here but there’s some context/details missing.

        • “Germany” didn’t buy the tanks but the German company Rheinmetall
        • While the price isn’t known, another company previously bought 25 of those tanks from RUAG for lousy 500€ a piece and then didn’t even bother to come pick them up, so I assume Rheinmetall got a similar deal
        • Lots of countries still use them, Greece even wants to enlarge and upgrade their fleet of Leopard 1, they’re still in demand and with a purchase price of 500€ and a bit of repairs there’s probably a ton of money to be made

        So my guess is this has nothing to do with Ukraine, just a company seeing a business opportunity.