Poland is Looking for Leopard 2 Tanks

As we were informed by Tomasz Szatkowski, Undersecretary of State at the Polish Ministry of Defence, Poland is looking at possibilities of acquiring additional Leopard 2 main battle tanks.  Similarly as in case of the previous batches of Leopard 2A4 (to be upgraded to 2PL) and Leopard 2A5 acquired by Poland, second hand vehicles are also being considered to be a viable option. 

Indeed, we are looking at this type of opportunities. We have been asking the Germans about that but they no longer are in possession of used vehicles of this type. The Spanish Leopards are quite old, so doubts exist whether we should reach out for them. This is an ongoing process, and should the acquisition phase be entered, the eye of the beholder will have a close look at the details.

So far Germany has Poland with information, according to which they no longer have used Leopard 2 tanks at their disposal. On the other hand, the main battle tanks that could be obtained from Spain are indeed quite old. As we know, they cannot be compared e.g. with  the Leopard 2A5 tank from the capability point of view. 

Earlier on, the Polish Ministry of Defence had decided to transfer some of the Leopard 2A5 tanks that were acquired back in 2014 from the 34th Armoured Cavalry Brigade based in Żagań to the 1st Armoured Brigade based in Wesola. As Deputy Minister Szatkowski noted, the latter unit has a higher level of readiness. It has also been located closer to the potential area of operations.