Remembering the lost Leopard 1 tank
Richard Moleofe | Friday August 12, 2016 17:34
He arrived to announce that the country could not be allowed to have the Leopard 1 tanks which Botswana had intended to inherit from the Netherlands.
As part of the military draw down at the end of the Cold War, the Dutch had decided to offload part of their armour to Botswana. This was part of the deal negotiated by the United States government to help Botswana to acquire modern equipment.
According to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s articles of agreement, arms cannot be transferred to a third country outside of the NATO arrangement without the consent of the manufacturing country. When this deal fell off that is when BDF settled for a far too inferior SK105 Austrian tank. This is how our military ended up with this obsolete fleet of tanks. From that moment on, BDF should have gone straight to the purchase of the Piranha armoured vehicle.
The SK105 can in no way compare to the Leopard1 tank. In the first place the two belong to two different classes in terms of armour classifications. The former is a light tank while the latter is a Main Battle Tank.
One brings into question the rational of the BDF leadership on this decision. The Austrian deal cost the country an arm and a leg because the tanks were not discounted like the Dutch ones and the entry of the middle man made a bad situation worse. One little advice to BDF Commanders of present and future is that you must never buy military equipment that NATO has taken off their inventory list. If it’s picked from the none NATO countries, the country of origin must still have the equipment in use. The case in point is the Leopard 1 tank. Even after losing a deal on the tank almost 20 years ago, the Germans still do have the same tanks we wanted in service with their armed forces. Austria did not even have the SK105 in service two decades ago when we entered into this silly deal with them.
The SK105 is basically a stationery gun post when compared to the Leopard 1. The latter can fire all its gun on the move. It reaches higher speeds because of its superior diesel engine.
The Leopard 1 falls in a class of what is referred to as second generation tanks. Second generation tanks have enhanced capabilities in the way they are able to operate in the battlefield. The German tanks that BDF almost laid their hands on were fitted with advanced night vision equipment. In fact the night vision devise and the computerised fire controls were standard upgrades on all the Dutch tanks. With the Leopard 1, Botswana was going to be the only country in sub-Saharan Africa with such a superior tank. No wonder the Namibians were having sleepless nights about having this piece of armour in their neighbourhood.
The Leopard 1 falls within the same category with South Africa’s Olifant Mk1B which is their adopted Main Battle Tank. The two tanks boast of similar weaponry and have relatively the same armour skin. However, the German machine takes a superior position. Even though the Olifant is relatively new when compared to the Leopard 1, it is still based on an older chassis of the British Centurion tank.
The two tank’s main weapon is the 105 rifled gun and the list of weaponry goes all the way down to the 7.62mm gun. The two have several similar capabilities and the winner on the battlefield would only be determined by their skilled crew and commander.
By the way, at the time the deal fell off, BDF officers and soldiers had already been trained in the use of this tank. The training had taken place in the Netherlands in collaboration with the Dutch Ministry of Defence which paid a huge bill to get this going. In other words this was rather a part donation rather than an outright sale. And what happen to the fleet of the 54 Leopard 1 tanks that were initially destined for Botswana? BDF never looked back and it was indeed painful to lose that quality of a tank. The bulk of those tanks were sold to Finland, a Scandanavian country that seems to be arming in an unusual manner. The Ministry of Defence in the Netherlands has so far sold almost all their Leopard 1 and 2 tanks to the Finnish government.
Before publishing I went into the Ministry of Defence’s website and I am amazed that this is a country that has taken a decision to demilitarise. Their major reasons for selling off their arms are economic. At the close of the Cold War, the Dutch had 445 Leopard 2 and 97 of the Leopard 1 tanks. A desirable armour in their inventory even by European standards. To date they have the last 100 of the Leopard2 tanks. Is this our chance to approach the Germans the second time around?
Politics are a revolving table. I believe the relationship between the Namibians and their former colonial masters is at its lowest ebb. The Germans are not liking the noise made about reparations for the genocide committed in the opening of the 20th century. If the right politicians approach the current German administration, they might just be sweet talked into allowing a deal on the remaining Leopard 2 tanks. Even though I do not subscribe for big military spending, I believe if we can achieve purchasing a good product for less than half the price then we must fall for it. I do not want to think that the deal on the Leopard will open up an arms race as some have suggested at the time when Botswana wanted the deal back in 1997. At the moment, the Olifant will remain unchallenged in this part of the world.