US Tanks to Eastern Europe
In April, 2013, the last US tanks left Germany for the first time since 1945, but now, the Obama Defense Department, according to AFP, says they’re sending tanks back, tanks, not troops. The armored vehicles will be pre-positioned in Germany, Poland and the Baltic countries;
Nearly 50 armored vehicles are already in place and another 100 M1 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles will be “pre-positioned” in Germany and possibly elsewhere for the US troops conducting drills with NATO partners, Lieutenant General Ben Hodges told AFP in a phone interview from Estonia.
“The troops will come over and train, and they’ll go back. The equipment will stay behind,” Hodges said.
The arrangement was “a lot cheaper” than transporting tanks across the Atlantic and more efficient for the training mission, the general said.
You know what would have been even cheaper? Not removing the tanks from Europe in the first place, maybe having a little bit of foresight and realizing that it only invited Russian aggression. But, see they were probably reading the Washington Post that declared tanks are now obsolete.
So, now that I’m using pictures of the “last convoy” from Iraq, I can now use my “Last tank” from Germany photo, too.
The article says that the 1st Cav is going to be the first unit to rotate into the pre-positioned equipment. I’m pretty sure that they already did that in the late 70s, you know, during the Carter years.
Category: Military issues
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
So we’re kicking people out because we can’t afford to keep them around, but we’re going to pay for tanks to do a round-trip vacation.
Tacit admission of a completely failed foreign policy?
I’m confused.
The current (lack of) administration has me confused about a lot of things lately, but I can displace that confusion by pointing and laughing. So that’s not as confusing as it could be.
What really confuses me about this article is the equpiment mentioned. I thought that the word ‘tanks’ is no longer in use, that it was ‘fighting vehicle’ instead.
Is it ‘tanks’ or ‘fighting vehicles’? Or both?
I have T-shirts to account for, so you can see why I’m confused.
Bradleys and Strykers are fighting vehicles. M1s are tanks.
Thank you!!!
I guess REFORGER (or whatever name they give it) will live again.
I guess that is better than giving them to the Iowa City Police Department…
But, but, but…having our tanks in Europe is what made the Russian not be friendly! Because The Glorious Leader said so! What about the Russian Reset?
Can Barry do anything besides pardoning a turkey without dicking the dog? Hell, he didn’t even put on that good of a show with the turkey! Something tells me Ol’ Vlad won’t be intimidated in the least by a little bit prepositioned equipment with nobody to man it. A full-strength armored division (if we even still have any of those since 2008) might be a different story. But I’m guessing this barely even rated a notification during his daily 2:30 Chechen-torturing session.
The Other Whitey…Roger That! I can’t say it better brother.
Does the “pre-positioned equipment” yet equal the strength of one Russian armored brigade?
Anybody else remember the war stocks in Holland? Those places were huge and awesome all at the same time.
You army dudes always want to fight the Soviets in the Fulda gap. That’s so 1980’s. Get with the times and follow our navy lead. We gave up on anti-submarine warfare because we don’t have to worry about Russian submarines anymore. Hunting submarines is hard and it detracts from being a global force for good. Man, that kool aid is tasty.
Wowie 150 tanks.
What the fuck is this 1917?
I gues our strategy against Putin is to induce death from laughing.