1st Tanks, Canadian Leopards and the Afghan War.

*UPDATE*Grim added in the comments that I misinterpreted his statement.  Sorry brother. 

In an earlier post I asked the question.  Why isn't 1st Tanks deployed to the Afghan War zone as a complete unit to support combat operations?  You can read it here.  Well one of my readers hit me with this...

Grim said.. It might also be useful to note that both the Dutch and Canadians are planning to withdraw from Afghanistan and will be replaced by the US (most likely the Marines based on where they are based now.)

Well my response is "Wait one second!"  Is that the case or do we have something entirely different going on and is the US Marine Corps missing out on one of its Life Taking and Life Saving assets simply because they refuse to support this deployment?

I believe we are.  More on that in a later post tonight.  But for my buddy Grim and those that think like him I pass this along and tell you to read them and weep.  This from DefenseNews.

 

Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) is modernizing the Canadian Leopard 2A4 CAN tanks previously acquired from German Army surplus. The first batch of 20 tanks was handed back to the Canadian Armed Forces yesterday (October 7, 2010) at the Bergen training ground in northern Germany. The modernized tanks are scheduled to equip the Canadian forces in Hindu-Kush in Afghanistan.
The Canadians embarked on this latest upgrade of the tank in July 2009, anticipating their next deployment in the Afghan theater. The new version is specially designed for operations in Afghanistan based on experience gained by other Leopard 2 operators, including the Denmark and Canadian forces. (operating the Leopard 2A6M)

Follow the link to read the whole thing but my point remains...tanks are being used to great effect by our allies.  Our Marine Corps should follow suit.