Snow Leopards: Dutch Sell their Remaining Tanks to Finland

Dutch Leopard 2A6

What’s left of the Dutch tank fleet has been sold to Finland. The Finnish Minister of Defence just approved the proposal to buy 100 Leopard 2A6NL main battle tanks, plus spare parts for 10 years, combat simulators, maintenance simulators, special tools and testing equipment, and ammunition. At EUR 200 million, that’s less than EUR 2 million per tank. The Finns don’t have a huge tank force, and the new vehicles will become the country’s entire front line tank fleet after they’re delivered between 2015 – 2019.

There are still some ancient T-55s in service, but…

Deputy SecDef Clips LCS

Crazy Like a Fox

• So what has Christine Fox, a former director of the Pentagon’s cost assessment office, been up to since she was recently appointed as acting deputy defense secretary? Writing a memo to cancel a significant part of the LCS buy, it turns out. We’ll see whether this is reflected in the FY15 president budget, which may be delayed to late February or March, since they have to reflect the sequester relief emerging from Congress. Passback guidance from the Office of Management and Budget is only reaching DoD this month, instead of November in the baseline federal budget schedule.

• The Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle is another big program long known to be on the ropes that looks increasingly likely to be slashed. This won’t surprise the contractors currently involved in the program’s Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase.