Slovenian media reported that Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have reached a new agreement on the exchange of military equipment in order to provide military assistance to Ukraine. According to the agreement, Slovenia will transfer 28 M-55S tanks to Ukraine from the storage of the Slovenian army, which represent one of the most radical options for the modernization of the old Soviet T-55 tank. In return, Germany will transfer to the Slovenian Ministry of Defense 40 units of modern military vehicles with a wheel formula of 8x8 - 35 trucks and five tankers.
Upgraded Slovenian Army M-55S Tank (c) Slovenian Army Recall that according to the M-55S project, the Slovenian armed forces in the 1990s upgraded 30 of the 55 T-55 tanks they had at that time, inherited from the Yugoslav People's Army.
The main developer of the M-55S modernization project was the Israeli company Elbit Systems, and direct work was carried out from 1996 to 2001 by the Slovenian metallurgical and machine-building plant STO in Ravna (now the remnants of this enterprise make up the production base of Sistemska tehnika). The works included the installation of a British 105 mm L7A1 cannon with Israeli ammunition instead of a 100 mm cannon, an Israeli dynamic protection Super Blazer, a modern fire control system manufactured by the Slovenian company Fotona (the former Iskra plant in Ljubljana), modern communications and surveillance equipment, thermal imaging night vision devices, a laser radiation warning system, Israeli smoke grenade launchers, a new turret with a 12.7 mm DShKM machine gun, fire-fighting equipment, hydraulic control, engine boost from 520 to 600 hp, suspension modification, the use of rubber-metal tracks, etc. Subsequently, a variant of the M-55S1 tank was manufactured in a single sample, which included the installation of a German MAN diesel engine with a capacity of 850 hp and a new transmission.
The M-55S modernization program cost more than 52 million euros and demonstrated the inadequacy of radical modernization of old tanks, taking into account the cost of work, quite typical for the vast majority of such projects, causing numerous criticism in Slovenia. The upgraded M-55S tanks first entered service with the 44th Tank Battalion of the Slovenian Army, then were transferred to the 74th Tank/Armored Mechanized Battalion of the 1st Brigade, but already in 2006 the 74th Battalion was reorganized into motorized infantry, and all 30 M-55S tanks were transferred to storage, where they are still there. In 2018, the Slovenian Ministry of Defense put them up for sale, but was able to sell only one tank for 820 thousand euros.
With regard to the Ukrainian situation, the M-55S tanks, in terms of their technical level, are probably generally higher than the early series T-72s massively used by both sides and the T-62M started to be exhibited by the Russian side, and, apparently, in theory they can be quite adequate opponents even for the T-72B3. The only question is the technical condition of these M-55S machines and their equipment and weapons.
Recall that earlier in the spring of 2022, the Slovenian side had already concluded a preliminary "exchange" agreement with Germany, according to which Slovenia planned to transfer to Ukraine from 30-40 of the M-84 tanks (the Yugoslav modified licensed version of the T-72 tank) in exchange for German supplies of armored vehicles from the availability of (called BMP Marder and APC Fuchs). However, in the end it was never implemented - probably largely due to the poor condition of the M-84 tanks in storage.
