Tuesday, February 7, 2017

After poor showing inside Syria, Turkey launches $500 million tank-upgrade

(Ankara) Turkey decided last year that they had to go into Syria because the presence of ISIS was detrimental to their security and so on the 24th August 2016, they launched Operation Euphrates Shield, yet despite being the biggest , strongest military in the region, they have been slow to gain ground, not only that they have suffered losses, especially to their armour. Time and time again the Turks have lost armour to Anti-tank missiles:



Initially the Turks sent in their basic M60 tanks, but after they lost a load of them, they then sent in the Israeli upgraded M60T and when those started burning, the Turks sent in their best tanks the German Leopard 2A4 and proceeded to lose a load of them the other month to ISIS.

Well it appears that the military have said enough is enough and badgered the Government for funding in which to improve their lot and it has now been revealed that the Turks have set aside $500 million in which to upgrade approximately 200 tanks. It will involve modernization work on 40 M60A3, 40 Leopard II A4 and 120 M60T tanks. So what are the Turks looking at? Well they have stated advanced armour and an active protection system, well I do know of one tiny little country which produces such, the problem here is, the Islamist party in charge of Turkey went out of its way the other year in which to charter assassinate that country, simply because it is the Islamic thing to do.
The irony here is, Turkey would be looking at Israeli technology in which to defend itself from.....pious Muslims.

Whilst I don't like repeating myself , there is actually another irony here as well, when the Turks purchased the Leopard 2 A4 tanks off of Germany in 2005, they actually looked into upgrading the Leo 2 into the Leopard 2 Next Generation. But the Turks decided against it and concentrated on their new Altay main battle tank.. The only problem for the Turks is only 4 prototypes are up and running.