WHAT DIFFERENCE WOULD IT MAKE TO THE WAR? “Do you really have to exploit 100% of the potential or is it enough to utilize 80% in half the time? Ukrainians will certainly vote for option B,” he said. Ralf Raths, director of the Panzer Museum in Munster, Germany, said experienced Ukrainian tank crews would likely be able to learn to use the Leopard 2 fairly quickly, and training could be shortened to focus on essential knowledge. The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that three to six weeks of training would be needed for operating crews and support staff to reach basic proficiency. Getting Leopards into Ukrainian hands isn’t as easy as rolling them across the border from friends farther West in Europe. “We need a fleet of 300 tanks,” Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said Monday in Brussels, alluding to the wide deployment of Leopards across Europe and the need for “synchronous” weaponry - that can operate smoothly together. Ukraine’s defense minister wants 300 tanks, and some European Union leaders support him on that. Finland has 200 in operation or in storage.įor Ukraine’s war against Russia, “it is believed that for the Leopard 2 tanks to have any significant effect on the fighting, around 100 tanks would be required,” the International Institute for Strategic Studies analysts wrote.

Rheinmetall AG, a German defense contractor that makes the 120mm smoothbore gun on the Leopard 2, says the tank has been deployed by “more nations than any other.”Īccording to a recent analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based global think tank, some 350 Leopard 2s - in different versions - have been sent to Greece, and Poland has about 250 of varying types.

World war 2 battle tanks