There are reports all over the Internet about the pending sale of our main battle tank to Egypt. What? Yes those folk. Not the rather trustworthy dictatorship but the..who they hell are they? Not really sure who really runs Egypt now or will in the future. Are you? This is a huge and stupid error from a strategic standpoint.
I do not know if the M1 is the best main battle tank out there. It does have detractors. It is unarguable that it takes a huge fleet of supply troops and equipment to keep them active in forward areas. All tanks have this drawback sure, but this one does seem to really be over the top. OK if you are fighting incompetent Arabs I suppose. The only problem is that some of these Mohammedan regional forces may not be quite as incompetent as supposed.
It is dangerous and foolhardy to supply Egypt with any military equipment at this point; much less top of the line gear. Western forces may be facing some of this advanced weaponry when it becomes necessary to take the Suez.
H/T garyfouse.blogspot.com
4 comments:
We sold F-14 fighters to Iran at one point, too, although admittedly we now refuse to sell parts for them.
Selling weapons is the only part of our economy that is doing well, but it does seem rather silly to be selling them to people who are potential enemies.
Oh, yes, I recall before Gulf War the First that we were told the Republican Guard would beat the crap out of us because the M1A1 was inoperable in a desert environment, having been designed to beat Russia in a European battlefield. Turned out they functioned very well indeed in a war that lasted a matter of hours, destroying Guard tanks in a ratio of something like 87:1 or so.
I think a lot of that has to do with the incompetance of the vaunted Republican Guard. The Soviet made equipment at their disposal should have been at least somewhat formidable opponent. Might have been a bit tougher if Yuri from the Urals was at the helm instead of Mahmoud from the desert.
and of course the fact that the Guard was pounded unmercifully before ground troops went in.
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