There is a large amount of military equipment in the arsenals of the US armed forces today, based on foreign designs. Americans often purchased and adopted various armored vehicles purchased directly from foreign manufacturers, without thinking about how to maintain this equipment further.
With a German barrel and Israeli protection
Many people know that the main striking force of the overseas ground forces - M1 Abrams tanks - has multilayer armor based on British Chobham technology. The 120mm smoothbore cannon M256 is a German Rheinmetall Rh-120 L/44 cannon developed for the Leopard 2. Currently, the Israeli-designed Trophy Active Protection (KAZ) is also being installed.
The Iron Fist CAS of Israeli origin are mounted on M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. BRAT Dynamic protection was created jointly with the Rafael company, which has its headquarters in Haifa.
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| M1A2 SEP V3 Abrams. |
| Source: Levo1Desno2/Creative Commons/ wikipedia.org |
Some technology from Canada and Switzerland
Not everyone knows that the Stryker APC is not a purely American model. In the early noughties, it was designed based on the Canadian LAV III. But it also appeared after the refinement of the Swiss Piranha III.
Even earlier, in the early 80s, the floating LAV-25 began to enter service with the US Marine Corps. They were made in Canada, and the basic design was the Piranha I from Switzerland.
Currently, the US Marines are receiving wheeled ACVs from British BAE Systems and Italian Iveco instead of the long-outdated AAV7 tracked amphibians.
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| LAV-25. |
| Source: US Department of Defense/Creative Commons/ wikipedia.org |
German armored cars for aggression in Iraq
Austrian Pandur I armored personnel carriers were purchased for the Special Operations Command. To obtain fifty units, licensed production was organized. Now there are just over a dozen left in the ranks. They were chosen because they were easily transferred by C-130 aircraft.
Before Operation Desert Storm in 1991, it turned out that a modern chemical reconnaissance machine was needed: the Pentagon did not rule out that Saddam Hussein would use toxic substances. Therefore, Germany urgently supplied a special version of TPz 1 Fuchs in the amount of 50 units. Later, new batches were received, totaling 120 copies. It was adopted under the designation M93 Fox. This technique was also used during the aggression in Iraq in 2003.
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| Pandur I. |
| Source: böhringer friedrich/ Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic/ wikipedia.org |
The European tank is a loser
The new American M10 Booker tank continued to borrow imported technologies. It is based on the Austrian-Spanish ASCOD 2 platform. However, despite the adoption, they decided not to release the car. It turned out to be too heavy for a "light" tank (42 tons, like the T-80).
This was not officially reported, but perhaps the Americans faced the same problems as the British Ajax family of armored vehicles, made on a similar basis.
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| M10 Booker. |
| Source: United States Army/ wikipedia.org |
Foreign "passenger cars"
The FMTV family of medium tactical vehicles, which has a large number of two- and three-axle modifications, including platforms for M142 HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems, is also basically foreign. It is based on the Austrian all-terrain vehicle Steyr 12M18.
We can recall the German Mercedes-Benz G-Class (Wolf), which were in service with the special forces. There were versions of them in the Marine Corps.
It is also known about the use of South African RG-31 armored vehicles, produced in conjunction with the Canadians.
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| A car from the FMTV family of medium tactical vehicles. |
| Source: defense.gov/ wikipedia.org |
South Korean shopping
Currently, it has been decided to purchase a small batch of a wheeled version of the South Korean 155-mm K9MH howitzer for testing. They are planned to replace the aging towed M777. In October, it became known that the new acquisition was designated XM1776 (in honor of the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence).
In addition, a version of the promising XM30 infantry fighting vehicle, which is a deeply upgraded version of the German Lynx KF41, is being tested overseas. If this sample manages to win the competition, then production will be organized directly in the USA.
Speaking of specific samples of equipment, we should not forget that the overseas military industry is now practically unable to do without electronic stuffing produced in China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Americans are already buying their jeans and chewing gum there.
Alexey Moiseev
