Finland to purchase 100 Dutch Leopard 2A6 MBT and M270 rocket launchers from Denmark 2012134

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Defence & Security News - Finland
 
 
Friday, December 20, 2013 02:57 PM
 
Finland to purchase 100 Dutch Leopard 2A6 MBT and M270 rocket launchers from Denmark.
The Finnish Ministry of Defense will purchase 100 Leopard 2A6 main battle tanks from the Netherlands early next year. At the same time, Finlnad has also announced the acquisition of second-hand M270 MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) from Denmark for a total amount of 4,8 million euros. The deal includes also training.
     
     

The Leopard 2A6 tank is armed with the Rheinmetall 120-mm L55 smoothbore gun, which is longer version of the L44, used on the Leopard 2A5.

The first export customer of the Leopard 2 were the Netherlands which received 445 vehicles between July 1981 and July 1986. The Netherlands later resold 114 of these to Austria, 80 to Canada in 2007, another 52 tanks to Norway and finally 37 to Portugal.

In 2011, Netherlands Defence Organisation has decommissioned the Leopard 2A6 main battle tank (MBT) on range 6 at the Bergen-Hohne firing range. The decommissioning is part of the Dutch Government's effort to reduce spending by €18bn, of which, €635m is required to be saved by the Ministry of Defence.

The Netherlands had operated almost 1,000 battle tanks after the First World War, which formed the backbone of the Dutch armed forces.

The M270 launcher is a self-propelled armored rocket and missile firing platform with a crew of three. The MLRS launcher unit comprises an M270 launcher loaded with 12 rockets, packaged in two six-rocket pods.