Denmark confirmed it has delivered a batch of heavy armor to Kiev, though one knowledgeable warned it may “rapidly change into scrap”
Denmark has admitted to utilizing museum displays to coach Ukrainian crews on German-made Leopard 1 tanks. A press release printed on Friday mentioned at the least six heavy armor items had been borrowed from a number of museums to fulfill coaching wants earlier this yr.
Copenhagen struck a take care of the Netherlands and Germany in February to collectively purchase some 100 Leopard 1A5 tanks for Kiev. The mission additionally concerned coaching for Ukrainian crews.
Denmark operated Leopard 1A5 tanks till 2005. Copenhagen bought some 100 of them to German firm FFG in 2010, whereas a number of the heavy tools items ended up in museums. The Danish navy then determined to borrow them again to start coaching instantly after the choice to provide the tanks to Ukraine was taken, the assertion mentioned.
The Danish navy confirmed on Friday that it had offered its first batch of Leopard 1 tanks to Kiev. Ten heavy tools items are already in Ukraine, the assertion mentioned, including that “extra are on the best way.”
“Along with Germany, Denmark provides virtually 100 tanks to Ukraine,” Protection Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said. In keeping with the Danish navy, the tanks wanted renovation as they’d “been idle for a number of years.”
The announcement got here only a day after a famend German navy knowledgeable expressed skepticism concerning the tanks’ potential function on the battlefield. The heavy armor items may be “useful” however would hardly be a “recreation changer,” Ralph Thiele, a retired colonel who served with the Planning Employees of the German Protection Minister and the Non-public Workplace of the NATO Supreme Commander, in addition to being the Chief of Employees on the NATO Protection School, instructed Swiss broadcaster SRF.
“Outdated Leopard tanks have some weaknesses, notably the facet safety,” mentioned Thiele, who at the moment chairs the German Political Navy Society. He added that they’re “simple to hit… on the facet and their taking pictures high quality is decrease than that of the successor fashions.”
The retired colonel additionally claimed that the tanks change into “susceptible” as quickly as an enemy learns methods to fight them. When requested if it could possibly be mentioned that the West was supplying “scrap metallic to Ukraine,” Thiele responded that “if one needs to place it mockingly, [then] sure.” The navy knowledgeable additionally famous that “if used incorrectly, even new methods can rapidly change into scrap.”
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