The Portuguese Army has 37 Leopart A6 tanks, but the reality is that most of them are not operational, meaning they cannot be used in combat.
The government led by Antonio Costa has promised to help Ukraine, which has asked for these combat vehicles from allies, but will now assess the situation, Expresso newspaper writes this Friday.
This assessment is due to the simple fact that four vehicles were promised to Ukraine and the possibility that the national army would later capture them with very few operational tanks.
“More than half of the 37 Portuguese Leopard A6s are unusable in combat, Expresso found from military sources. NATO uses a color classification system to assess the readiness of equipment to ensure most of these cars purchased by Portugal. In 2008, the Netherlands had a “red level of activity”, a The public officer explains.
Another Portuguese military official also told the weekly newspaper that exercises with these methods in Santa Margarita are usually not conducted with more than one squad, i.e. a maximum of 14 cars, and then insisted “in addition to ineffective methods”. , there are more than a dozen vehicles at the “yellow” level: in these cases, tanks are not at 100%, but can be used in a combat environment. At the “green” level – renewed maintenance and ready to use – a minority”.
It should be noted that Germany is the manufacturer of these military units. Opened this week The process of sending Leopard tanks to Ukraine by countries that have pledged to help Ukraine.
