Unidentified European country, with US backing, are reportedly set to purchase hundreds of old Merkava II and III tanks from Israel.
https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/skugq500p2
Unidentified European country, with US backing, are reportedly set to purchase hundreds of old Merkava II and III tanks from Israel.
Poland or Ukraine?
>Poland
nope, Poland is buying stuff
>Ukraine
possible, but my bet is on
+ Moldova
>+ Moldova
Probably romania would send the old T-55s to Moldova for the (transnistria affair).
Or Bulgaria with their T-72s useful in Ukraine.
>It's actually Moldova purchasing the Merkava to preparation to take Transnistria
Pls let it happen
What has stopped Moldova from procuring any tanks in the past? As far as I know, the only AFVs they have in any reasonable quantity are BMP-1s.
Poverty they spend like 0.2% on their military and their countries total gdp is like 15bil$,they could probably afford 1 mbt per year if you subtract all the pay for their "personnel" and the bribe for local oligarchs.
>possible, but my bet is on
>
>+ Moldova
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. They are fricking broke though it would have to be the EU bankrolling it.
>Ukraine
I highly doubt israelites will allow to transfer them to Ukraine, more likely they will be used to trade soviet tanks for Ukraine.
Israel
>Poland
I honestly doubt it since they already have the K2 partnership and Abrams going. US backing makes me think it's Ukraine related but might be a Ringtausch type thing
it would mean replacing 200 pt91s and possibly over 100 L2a4s and 100 l2a5s before more abrams and k2 arrive...
i personally think Poland is crazy enough that it would risk this logistical nightmare to prop up Ukraine short term...
>logistical nightmare
Parts for one thing do not conflict with parts for another. You are obviously not a mechanic.
replacing established supply chains and support centres for tanks used for decades with new and vastly different constructions (t72 and leo2 replaced by merkavas, abrams and k2) all while there is hot war just over the border - does not seem safe && easy to me
Could it be Albanian? They could transfer their old type 59s to Ukraine
Classic
I don't think so, they have a pretty low military budget and probably wouldn't want to deal with the expensive maintenance of hundreds of tanks
Types 59s are really really old. That's T-54 era and almost certainly Albania didn't get any of the British upgrade kits the Chinese got during the 80s.
Oh, I know, I was just joking. In fact, Albania stopped using them at least 15 years ago due to their subpar quality.
Kurdistan.
My bet would be Lithuania since they put an RFI out for 50-ish MBTs a few months ago. But maybe one of the other Baltic states
lithuania's kind of a little hungary, buying only krautshit (apart from NASAMS)
Lithuanian here. We only buy krautshit or burgershit. Only Israeli weapons systems we have are Samson RWS or spike atgms. I don't know where the idea that we buy israeli crap comes from.
Cyprus
It's italy 100%, they talked months ago that they needed more thanks quickly and already have some joint project with israel and some stuff from them
Neat.
Romania?
No way. They just signed for new Abrams and are planning on upgrading the tr85 some more as a stopgap
Most likely since it's an amerimutt puppet state at this point.
>mystery country
>Super high tech
I mean think about it a buk is effectively analogue, I think it still has fricking vacuum tubes.
I mean when you maintain them it gets really hard.
figuring out how to shoot the systems is different from learning how and when to employ it effectively in each combat scenario
Someone is seething
Oh, if I had to oversee the logistics of keeping all this shit running and gunning I would be seething too. The fricking weird thing is that the ukies seem to actually be able to pull it off. Which is pretty impressive and one reason they belong in NATO.
They ship a lot of the damaged or broken stuff to Poland and they get it back fixed is why.
Wonder if it's going to be something like Greece buying them so they can send a shit ton of Leo 1s to Ukraine
This. I’m thinking it’s Greece and the US is involved because we’re probably going to subsidize the purchase and Greece sends shit to Ukraine. This will make Turkey seethe too.
Greece also probably ideal environment for the tank
>Greece
I would rather say Cyprus so they will send T-80 to Ukraine
Cyprus isn’t going to buy hundreds. Very few European nations have tank fleets that size which points to Greece. They also have a lot of old tanks that they could send to Ukraine.
Greece could be the ones to break the ATACMS taboo, with the US to follow up once they're normalized.
And according to a few forum posts Greece might be selling some of their old M60s
so how good are these tanks, tankers of /k/?
They’re weird, but solid, with good crew survivability and designed for low mountain memes
I'd love to see how poorly it fares in a Ukrainian winter or wet terrain.
Yes, definitely a decent tank. When it comes to crew protection and survivability it's one of the best in the world.
Amazing tank if you actually value experienced tankers. SandBlack folk boasted about bagging some, but the tankers always survived to fight another day.
The Merkava is basically an evolved Chieftain. It's a sniper tank with above average optics for long-range slugging matches with large degrees of HEAT protection. Suspension optimized for off-road, rocky terrain. The Mk. 2 is the tail-end of 2nd gen MBTs, the Mk. 3 is competitive with the early-mid Leo 2 variants.
Not very good. They were designed for irregular warfare. They have the engine in the front because back in the day, it worked decently as armour.
But the armour the engine provides is negligible against modern weapons. It just means every hit is guaranteed to immobilise the vehicle.
Again, it's not designed for direct combat with modern militaries.
>Again, it's not designed for direct combat with modern militaries.
Good thing it wouldn't.
>It just means every hit is guaranteed to immobilise the vehicle
You mean every penetrating frontal hit. In which case most tanks are going to be having problems. Also engine in front means dismounts can exit the rear which I think was a design requirement but don't quote me on that.
>You mean every penetrating frontal hit
The merkava has no frontal armor like other tanks because the engine is in the way, so every frontal hit is a penetrating hit, even with RPG's
Dismounting requires them to remove most of their ammo storage for +2 dudes, the door is more designed for ammo replenishments from the back when firing from stationary positions on the golan heights
>The merkava has no frontal armor
Lmao, yea, no
you can't be more wrong
elbit still makes pretty good 105 ammo
so i'm sure the tank would come with the ability to buy that
>They were designed for irregular warfare
No, they weren't.
>Again, it's not designed for direct combat with modern militaries.
Again, you are wrong and pulling shit out of your butthole
He's moronic, but also kind of right. All newer Merkavas are designed and built to perform against Palestinians and Lebanese insurgents. The Merkavas was initially designed to be cheap and effective tanks they could throw at enemies like Egypt and Syria when those two nations had more and better tanks than Israel.
I would have liked in Iraq. Not sure it would be my first choice for combat like we're seeing in Ukraine. It's good at what the Israelies designed and use it for.
Good armour, bad mobility. More Merkavas have been lost to trenches and cliffs then enemy action
Ukraine is probably the worse type of battlefield for them.
its more of a roll on a hill roll down a hill type of tank and merk2 has a 105mm. but as been proven before a tank is always better then no tank
Awesome tanks actually although the entire design is a completely different approach because Israelis face(d) a completely different kind of (tank) warfare.
99% of MBTs are primarily build for tank vs tank combat. That's why they put the heaviest armor in the front.
Merkavas on the other hand were designed for a broader approach with more LIC style warfare in mind. So while they're still more than capable enough to fight other tanks they got a much better all-around armor layout but lack sheer armor strenght at the front of the hull and turret.
Aside from that they are mostly made to western / NATO specs. They got american Continental engines, german Diehl tracks, the troony is an evolution of an Allison design, the gun is 105 / 120mm (Mk. II / Mk. III).
So they are not as "foreign" as some might think. But that being said: Israel hasn't delivered one single pistol round to Ukraine and I highly doubt they would start aid by delivering MBTs. Plus: I also doub't they would deliver Mk. III Merkavas. AFAIK they upgraded their entire fleet to modern specs so they can operate together with the Mk. IV. While the IDF has phased out the Mk. II from frontline duty its kinda hard to imagine they would reduce their possible wartime reserves by giving away dozens or even hundreds of tanks.
troony comes with the tank or bought separately?
weird that the tank needs a troony to operate
In the good old times before countries started putting mentally deranged people on thrones instead of throwing them into mental asylums first and the keys away second "troony" was the universally accepted abbrevation of transmission.
Be nice to Alison the troony she's doing her best 🙁
>weird that the tank needs a troony to operate
It is israeli...
Lemme yank my troony's stick around while I rev that motor, if you know what I mean
Designed by a country that successfully used Shermans rescued from the scrapyard to stomp on Soviet AND American-made MBTs so they're alright.
Chile still has those Shermans, not to late to reenact the Yom Kipper War.
Best tank in the world, double range than the abrahams.
Full vr vision for the crew
it can launch anti tank missiles with 8km range , it has an internal mortar, it had the first aps in operation for years by now.
They were designed for yom kippur 2.0 if they were still being sanctioned by the west.
It literally can launch antitank missiles with 8km range
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sgCT6mPCjEE
The urban warfare upgrades are for the later generation of the merkava but they did not took stuff from the older tank.
This shit is so advanced that the only reason they probably built the namer apc was just to keep the merkava line producing because it would be a waste to stop producing it.
LAHAT isn't in service in the IDF
and using it to say it has higher range is just as dumb as russians claiming 8kg range with their barrel launched ATGMs
all western tanks besides the challenger can fire LAHAT
and the mk4 batak is in really limited service
isarael has never lost a war with them
Good enough against slav-shit.
Bad when compared to western contemporarys.
>made specifically for Israeli requirements
>fricking hyuge
>hard to transport
>engine in the front so mission kill is laughably easy
>door in the back which is a huge weakpoint - more so than "normal" tanks
>emergency troop transport capability turns it into both a bad tank and a bad apc
>older models don't have the cool APS of the newer Merks
That being said they were designed to go up against monkey model T72's/T-90's so should be good against Russia.
I saw another anon post in another thread that it's talking about abrams vs leo is like arguing between durex and trojan because the prostitute will be fricked either way.
In Israel's case it really doesn't matter as they're up against children armed with MK1 stones.
Estonia could be buying with the reimbursement money they get from D-30 and FH-70.
Nah, as far as Baltic states go buying old Merkavas would be right up Latvia's valley, while Estonia goes for a fewer number of K2's or something of that sort, something reasonable.
Could Baltic nations really be able to maintain them? I feel like Leo, Abrams, or K2 would make much more sense for them because then Poland or other Euro countries could help them
It being "hundreds" makes Baltics unlikely, would look towards Greece, Cyprus or Georgia instead
Ground vehicles are easy to maintain. Non-mechanics should not have opinions on the subject. All one needs is tech data, tools and spare parts (though some can be cannibalized from damaged vehicles to buffer supply).
I've spun wrenches my entire adult life and trained many technicians, jet mechs and more. I've no idea why people think it difficult. It's interesting and many gearheads build capable home vehicle, welding and machine shops for fun. I encourage others to give wrenching (anything) a go because it's also a nice income effectiveness multiplier.
Its Poland isnt it lol they already have
>Twardy
>Leo2
>M1
>K2
>Company of Challengers under there command as a stop gap
Poland just wants tanks
That sounds stupid though.
It's not Poland.
No.
Probably some Baltic shithole. They have a history of using 2nd hand israeli crap.
Meh Spike is the best ATGM out there rn, its not ALL crap.
SPIKE is best ATGM, but it's not second hand outdated shit like the Merkava.
Agree Merkeva is crap
It's only the Estonians that used 2nd hand Galils.
Lithuania made their own Boxer variant with an Israeli autocannon
No. Even with donations from our members abroad, our nations are too small to fund tanks in such numbers for our countries.
Alsi, reminder that nation = people, country = place with a government
>nation = people, country = place with a government
Not in English, my ESL friend. "Nation" can refer to the people, place, or governmental entity. For example we might say a burger restaurant is "#1 in the nation."
All post soviet Polish tanks are already going you know where and Leos probably will too after Abrams and K2 arrive in decent numbers.
Overarching Polish goal seems to be having the best top tier lineup in War Thunder. It would already be a nightmare so why not?
of Challengers under there command as a stop gap
I hadn't heard about this. Challengers parading with Poles in dress uniform would be peak kino.
Gotta catch'em all!
all the post soviet shit is either already in Ukraine or soon going to be, Leo2s are getting mothballed, and Challengers are a temporary measure. the end goal is operating only K2 and M1 in a few years, which is still one MBT model too many, but whatever.
Dont like joos
Like their tank
Like their guns
Simple as.
Frick off.
No you, big nose
Azerbaijan
Some might not consider them to be European but they’re very close to Israel and are technically on the European continent.
Would the US really approve that? They seem to at least try to keep some peace between Armenia and them
Azeris wanna frick Iranis cuz of the war support so not impossible
Holy kino.
I hope they're getting the sexy Mk. 2D.
Why are the M2 and the 240 so far forward of the commander and loader's hatches?
to stay out of the way of the commanders nose
underrated
because a coax fiddy is very fun and handy in areas with buildings made of something other than rice paper but there really isn't enough space inside a tank to fit it without making bad compromises
the commanders gun is mounted beside his hatch rather than on it, and has a very hench mount that makes the gun stick far forward but provides controls at the very back for him - the gunners is on a double swing arm to give extra real estate on the roof when you're not blasting away
It's the loader's not the gunner's. Outside of that you hit the nail on the head.
I know nothing about how it performs, but that might be the best looking modern tank I've ever seen.
The merkava is my favourite modern tank based on aesthetics alone. It looks so good that I don't even care how it performs.
The dutchs, I´m frickin´ sure
Those tulipan lbastards are on crusade for russian blood and skulls since MH-17.
>Dutch using a israeli tank
Ughh...it's what Anne Frank would've wanted.
God save Dixie
Is it sad I can't tell the difference between satire and vatnik posts anymore?
>it sad
you've just received enough vatnik exposure to start understand them. the whole soviet existence was satire. all those posters and bold success statements - bitter lies with much darker reality. but you smile if not want KGB beating or gulag. but secretly you know is not smile of joy but laughing at how stupidly broken the system is and it wont last.
Anon, do you have a stroke? I barely understood you.
Supposedly Morocco is also getting some, presumably as backfill for the Soviet tanks going to Ukraine. While it would be cool to see these in Ukraine I think the ZSU has enough logistical challenges already.
fricking israelites won't even let them havr it for free
they want to sell over 200 tanks for a couple tens of millions
so it's quite a bargain
Spain does not have gov at the moment. We have elections in one month.
Spain also has local Leopard 2E production.
Greece or Cyprus for sure.
>Cyprus
>Hundreds
Doubt.
>Cypus: 82 T-80U
Does the article actually say "hundreds"? they're talking about two nations buying them, 1 in Europe and 1 somewhere else
Dunno I don’t speak hebrunes
>Does the article actually say "hundreds"?
Google translate of a Hebrew language source claimed over 200.
>The Ministry of Defense does not specify the names of the two countries that agreed on the purchase of more than 200 used Israeli tanks in light of the sensitivity of the process, but the deal is on the verge of a final signature and is expected to be completed relatively immediately, within about three months.
https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/skugq500p2
it says over 200
It might not only be for the T-80s. The US asked them to give Ukraine a shot ton of stuff like BMP-3, TOR, and S-300s but they said only in exchange for Leos
This is my bet. Israel has become close to both Cyprus and Greece because Turkey became hostile under Erdogan. Both have outdated Soviet/NATO equipment that could go to Ukraine. Greece has hundreds of Leopard 1s that I'm sure they'd prefer to swap for Merkava 3s.
Greece also own a bunch of M60 (and M48 lol) Pattons. Patton bros did our time finally come?
Patton sisters…we’re up!
kino. please be Greece.
If they ever got sent they would just be used as spgs dont get too excited
Sure greece has a bunch of M60s but the real question is if they have ones that don't need to be refurbished for 2 years in any significant amount
I have no idea on how Greece stores their vehicles. Anyone ever been to a Greek army depot here?
Nobody knows. It's a crime to photograph military installations in Greece.
>Merkava replaced Magachs (Pattons)
>now they'll replace the actual Pattons
That'd be kino.
sorry mutts but you're just not needed
Do it
What about Azerbaijan?
>works very closely with Israel
>500+ T-72's in use
>territorial ambitions in 2 Russian aligned states
>Greece getting the Merkava
Are we in the Arma 3 timeline?
It says two foreign countries one of which is European. It could very likely be a deal with both Greece and Azerbaijan.
>Are we in the Arma 3 timeline?
Been there for a while now.
>Been there for a while now.
Arma 2 ends with Russia nuking not-Crimea. NATO bros I'm not feeling so good about this.
wait this is the canon ending?
i always wonder how bohemia always was so accurate with the arma 2 scenario. i mean look at the cdf its 1to1 ukraine
It's the non-canon ending but I've felt it fits with the NATO decline story point in Arma 3, minor nuclear engagement cripples NATO, knocks Russia out of being a main player, CSAT enters as a power vacuum.
>ArmA 3
lolmao
>Iran annexed Turkey
Ottoman bros not like this
Shah Ismail and Shah Nader would be proud
>Iceland
>Russoid influence
Kek just because the cod wars happened doesn't stop NATO having bases on it
>Russian influence over Svalbard and fricking Iceland
>Russia somehow convinced Poland, Finland, and the Baltics to all leave NATO
>SMO was great success
>Russia has somehow lost control over Sakhalin and the Kurils but still influences them
>the Philippines, Myanmar, and Laos are outright annexed into China before Taiwan
>Iranian influence in... fricking Latin America, the continent so devoutly Catholic they make Italy look secular
>Greenland, despite being in NATO because of Denmark, is merely "NATO influenced"
the more i look at this, the worse it gets
>Russian influence over Svalbard and fricking Iceland
Not that they have any influence there but Russia had (has?) some sort of agreement with Norway where they basically share the island and both mine there, which is what probably informed that.
influence in... fricking Latin America, the continent so devoutly Catholic they make Italy look secular
The gringo doesn't know...
I could see it happening if there was some kind of ideological movement to tie them together (Thirld worldist fascism?), or even just pragmatic reasons
Weirder things have happened like Lybia and Palestine supporting Irish catholics
>Third worldist fascism
>Iran influence in Latin America
>Lybia and Palestine supporting catholics
>some kind of ideological movement to tie them together
There's a major political philosophy and worldview that all these things share, I'll let you guess since its obvious.
I can't really see a islamic theocracy going full communism although some kind of more chauvinistic derivative could work
Although they are sort of on the opposite end of the spectrum, the axis is an IRL example of this sort of alliance between countries that have little in common other than seething at the west
A party whose ideology was based on racialism and WW1 butthurt, sided with an asian country who fought against them in said war
>Iranian influence in... fricking Latin America
Iranian influence in Latam is already pretty big. They use local Lebanese to traffic narcotics and other black market goods, laundering the money to ship back to Iran/Hezbollah. They're not the only ones of course. The whole Tri-Border Area is awash in dirty money going to various transnational terror and criminal networks.
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/journals/nco-journal/archives/2019/july-2019/iranian-influence-in-latin-america/
>Neutral con are just Switzerland, Sweden and places they could not be bothered to research
*Neutral countries
>South Korea NATO allies
>While Japan is merely NATO influence
How does that werks
>Ecuador actually has positive relations with Iran
wow, the things you can learn on wikipedia
>Iran influenced
>Brazil
>Paraguai
>No Argentina
>No Mexico
>No Peru
>No South Africa
This map makes zero sense.
Africa needs some kino proxy conflicts
It is way too boring for what's is a chaotic war-torn area IRL
The landlocked half of Kenya should side with Iran's rivals and try to seize the coastal half
>Iran influences Mexico
Fricking what? Is that what Fox news spews out these day?
>Israel finally supports Ukraine
>gets shekels for it
>Arma 3 timeline
No we ain't. A3's was a prediction of the future from the great recession. The predictions of the future aged as terribly as most do. I've been a broken record of this but:
>No baseball sized drones, only option is a super-wtf-giant backpack DJI - black hornet nano since 2014.
>No grenade dropper drones until WS DLC in 2022 - existed with ISIS in 2015.
>No laser range finder with basic ACOG optics. I'm not sure when the earliest one of those existed but I have to imagine that shit's been around since the 2000s.
Some of it you can justify with the whole recession era NATO being fricked over I guess, and it's fair to imagine predictions made in 2011-2013 would be poor.
The US is on bad terms with Turkey right now + that would be directly taking a side in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
we already took a side and US isnt relevant
Screencap this
+ Colombia/Morocco for non-European country
Colombia looking to acquire the Merkava has been an ongoing process since 2012. Not sure why no, they would suddenly get them.
Colombia isn't getting anything from Israel while there's a communist drug dealer "ex"-terrorist as their president. Don't think about it.
Am I crazy for thinking of Georgia?
Depends on the definition of Europe really.
Georgia's current government is on Russia's payroll. citizens understandably despise Russia, but the ruling party sucks them off every chance they get, no way the US would let a compromised government buy tanks from Israel.
>Merkava might have actual camouflage paint schemes now
good lord please
Merkava in Greek camo will look awesome.
It's also way better suited for the terrain on Greek islands than Leopards 1.
Islands don't need tanks. They need ATGW. Armor is only of use on the mainland.
only the most evil-looking camo for the most evil-looking tank
>Evil looking tank
>Posts an M60
The M60 looks stodgy except for the A2 which looks like a monstrosity. All the Merkavas look like a videogame tank.
>throws stone
>era goes off
i know it can't happen, but it would be funny.
I need to make a stencil of this and put it on my Tavor, or get it printed on a mag.
this is the most ~~*israeli*~~ image to ever israel
>implying the Andromedans didn't apply camo on the stolen designs
If Argentina was economically stable, it would be the non-European country.
>Argentina
>buying Israeli gear
Not while commie São Paulo Forum homosexuals are in power. We're talking about the people who let Hezbollah bomb their capital to kill random israelites 25 years ago.
>in reality, its a nato trooper #1994922958639 *totally not from US/uk* wearing ukrop flag patch, performing all the work, because.. hes not uk ok! he just isnt!
doesn't happen, but if it did, it would be based
But how will they work on the European mud? It won't. Checkmate losers
Greece and Cyprus are hardly known for their mud.
>merkava tanks with oddly drawn swastikas and iron crosses in few month
>hale hortler
europoors too broke to buy mk4s lmao
i heard about SEA or latins buying mark3 but i thought euros could afford current ones
>LITERALLY the very first deal of Israeli tanks being exported
>already expects the latest Merkava variant to be exported
Are you moronic, or do you eat children as a hobby?
its not the first bridging merkava was sold before
no one wants to buy it because it's a government made tank its fricking hell to buy.
if it was privately made everyone from mongolia to chile would be rolling in merikavas like they do with israeli rifles
Not to mention how expensive it is in general, compared to an European-made tank.
btw the mk4 was exported to an undisclosed customer
thats fricking dumb
you cant hide a tank forever
yeah well it's still isn't public knowledge
Because they’re most likely going to Cyprus as a replacement for T-80s that’ll be sent to Ukraine.
Israel is stingy with any government produced weapons that aren't small arms.
its not stingy its just terrible to make deals between governments. everything takes 8 times as long and costs 3 times more
this is why most in israel hope the merkava program is over and will get shut down along with mantak (the organization that built them)
somehow boomers are keeping it around with eitan and namer and merkava barak programs while other parts of the army like artillery are switching to privately made weapons (roem autohowitzer, lahav MLRS,israeli shipyards corvettes....)
note that the merkava mk3 had prototype trophy APS mounted to it at some point
so whoever buys it, would probably have the option to contract rafael to upgrade them with Trophy for less than it costed to design how to mount it on the leopard
as if משא is up to the task to produce tanks at a high enough rate
Israel won't export the MK4 because it's armor tech is still classified. Back when it looked like Venezuela was going to buy the T90M, Colombia and Israel discussed the acquisition of an export version of the MK3 Merkava with some systems from the MK4 but Venezuela never bought anything more than the T72 so the purchase never happened.
they can sell them with custom armor modules from unclassified materials
its 100% not happening because of bureaucracy not because they cant make and sell talks
Why is Israeli so absolutely strict about exporting it's armored vehicles? They made Mexico jump through a gorillion hoops to get a license to build Plasan armor in Mexico for domestic Sandcats. I understand protecting trade secrets but it seems like it's more Japan tier bizarre political nonsense.
huh what EU country would need a dedicated child smasher and basically riot tank to cull their own populace? hungary maybe
Incredibly brown hands typed this post
i thought poos were pro israel
Please understand, I don't have muzzies or generic thirdies saved yet
Hungarian protests get rowdy but not at the level of US or France.
Probably because Glavset would be backing the government, not trying to frick it up.
Moldova getting armed would be sheer hilarity. However, my bet is on Georgia. They are often counted as European by idiots
It could be Cyprus, unlikely to be Greece.
>European country
So ... not Ukraine or Poland then. I wonder who it might be? Austria maybe?
Croatia or Serbia maybe? They do have a little arms race going for some years now.
>0 mentions of the Netherlands
These mad lads have been sourcing weapons for the Ukies from all over the place (Even T-72B's somehow listed in the leaked documents when their own army has never owned any). So my money would be on these swamp israelites striking a deal with the real israelites.
We are just happy to be here 🙂
We supplied T-72's?
I thought we only bought Leopards for the ukies.
>when their own army has never owned any
We haven't owned tanks for decades and we still don't own any.
All Leopards we donated were specially bought for the ukies.
>We supplied T-72's? I thought we only bought Leopards for the ukies.
See this. US and Netherlands paid a Czech company to pimp out some export era T-72.
https://defbrief.com/2022/11/04/us-the-netherlands-funding-transfer-of-90-czech-t-72-tanks-to-ukraine/
>Unidentified European country, with US backing, are reportedly set to purchase hundreds of old Merkava II and III tanks from Israel.
>https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/skugq500p2
Israel found out it was the vatBlack folk israeliteposting all along. Ooops.
greece, the netherlands, finnland, spain? they all got good amount of leo2s
greece is not giving leo2s for Merkava 2/3s.
Cyprus is my bet
Cyprus has a bunch of T-80U and AMX-30
Probably been persuaded to give the T-80s to Ukraine in exchange for Merks
>greece is not giving leo2s for Merkava 2/3s.
Maybe Leopard 1s for the Merkava 2's? Ukraine's already getting a bunch of the former in the future so that helps them a bit with standardization. Meanwhile Merkava has the same gun as a Leo 1 and I'd guess comparable thermals and fire control, but is much better protected.
could be, but there's talk of Greece also getting M1Abrams (and Bradleys) so that would be weird.
Greece doesn't have to give up Leos cause they have 400 M60s sitting in storage taking up space that they've been slowly scrapping.
also if it's not for ukraine
elbit and rafael will be right there offering upgrades to the systems
especially when the mk3 can have trophy APS
it's just ammunition stowage that's easy to load
but in combat can be used to carry the crews of knocked out tanks, which is useful for crew survival
>Netherlands
No we rent them from Germany.
Is the Merkava good? Was it good when it was new?
I just fricking love the concept of a tank+IFV so fricking much.
I also adore the heli-IFV as a concept.
I really hope they're viable. Gimme US-made LAATs/Land Raiders/Valkyries.
Morocco + Bulgaria
>Morocco
Imagine they hand over their VT-1A tanks over along with the T-72s. Chinese tanks in Ukraine fighting Russians.
Black folk its maroko and cyprus.
Reddit Black folk
Are merkava 3’s the equivalent of Leo-2s or Leo-1s?
Leo 2
The Merkava is a bit of a meme tank, it's not bad in any meaningful way, but it's definitely overhyped simply for being different, despite the fact that there were good reasons for everyone else to not design their tanks that way.
The funniest example is how people will say that there is a rear compartment that you can store troops or extra ammo inside, as if this is a great feature that makes this better than other tanks.
If you are generous, you can say this is an example of glass half full thinking, because what it actually means is that there is a bunch of pointless empty space inside the tank.
The storing troops in the back is a meme, there is no room to store soldiers in the back without them being stacked like sardines and no one being able to move or operate inside the tank
It's not rear storage. The door is only there for rear ingress/egress, so if the tank is immobilized the crew can get out without having to expose themselves to fire by going through the roof hatches. Theoretically you could stuff 1-2 casualties in there if you absolutely had no other way to evac them. The "it's also an IFV" thing seems to be a misconception arising from the fact that the platform can easily be built into an APC or IFV like the Kangaroo.
I have this feeling it's Rutte once again. He hates Putin so much. It's personal for him.
Didn’t the earlier versions of the Merk have crap protection? Like, aluminum armor or something like that?
the MK2 armor is obsolete
>4 tanks destroyed in the conflict
and that's a mk2, impressive
that's completely false
the merkava was designed in the 70s, with the lessons of the yom kippur war, when they had major wars with their arab neighbors after their chieftain deal fell through.
it was designed for tank vs tank combat.
the MK1 and 2 fought off syrian tanks in the first lebanon war with great success.
there is a reason the merkava has a LIC modification and it's not for LIC out of the box
the tracks don't even look like diehl tracks. the power pack is a license made german one, but israeli engine design was never a thing to begin with and the gun fits NATO standards but a local design, because why would they go for something else?
btw israel delivered radars to ukraine
and they wanted to scrap those tanks. that war just gave them an economic opportunity to make more out of them. israel has been looking for a whine what to do with the tons of merkava mk3s they have in storage, trying to convert them to APCs
it's still probably the most produced tank israel made while it's pumping out merkava IVs at a high enough rate to give it to the border protection corps
Who wants garbage that got trashed by Hezzbolla in 2006? They couldn't even handle bottle rockets and kids tossing stones at them
How ironic. A lot of israelites are of Russian origin and their Merkava tank did a turret toss in this picture. Nice. They don't fall far from the tree.
>A lot of israelites are of Russian origin
Half of Israel speaks Russian
More like 20%.
>Pic
Another /misc/troony delusion. At their peak israelites were like 10% before they got purged.
meds
More like the most Palestinian picture to ever Palestinian.
>let's start violence then send our kids out into it for photo ops -- if we're lucky they'll die so we can curry international favor!
>If a tank gets destroyed that means it's vulnerable and therefore shit!
I also remember people said the Israelis losing a grand total of 5 tanks meant the age of the tank was over. moronic then, moronic now. It's the same talking points on ATGMs, every war.
Why is Israel so secretive about Merkava exports? Some years ago there was news that they were selling some to an undisclosed SEA country (prob Singapore). Some time later they were going to sell to a LatinX country (prob Colombia).
anon thats the kind of link i open if im trying to download a steamunlocked torrent
Yo they made arma 3 a real thing.
Croatia+Cyprus
bump
why are israelite tanks ducking like cowards?
>Arab too dumb to know what a hull-down position is.
That explains alot.
I have serious difficulty keeping up when someone says UK for UKraine or United Kingdom
great for killing poor arab children in the desert
They don't even get to say goodbye to their mommies and daddies. Tragic.
Ukraine and Macedonia
Obviously Ruzzia since this board taught me Israel supports them and is against the based NATO fourth reich
>Israel to supply tanks both to Ukraine and russia
Wtf is this guy smoking, bleach?
Imagine the gear lash if ireal splits the tanks 50/50 with Russia / Ukraine.