Spanish army extends maintenance contract with the UTE for its Leopard 2 MBTs.

The Spanish army extends maintenance contract with the UTE formed by the companies Comercial Hernando Moreno (Cohemo) and Flensburger Fahrzeugbau Gesellschaft (FFG) for three years to support the maintenance of its Leopard 2E, Leopard 2A4 and Recovery Leopard 2ER.
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Spanish Leopard 2E (Picture source: AMD)

The backbone of the armored forces of the Spanish army is made of 108 Leopard 2A4 and 219 Leopard 2A6E MBTs. The Leopardo 2E or Leopard 2A6E (E stands for España/Spain) is a variant of the German Leopard 2, tailored to the requirements of the Spanish army, which acquired it as part of an armament modernization program named Programa Coraza, or Program Cuirass. The acquisition program for the Leopard 2A6E began in 1994, five years after the cancellation of the Lince tank program that culminated in an agreement to transfer 108 Leopard 2A4s to the Spanish army in 1998 and started the local production of the Leopard 2A6E in December 2003. Despite the postponement of production owing to the 2003 merger between Santa Bárbara Sistemas and General Dynamics, and continued fabrication issues between 2006 and 2007, 219 Leopard 2A6Es have been delivered to the Spanish army.

In 2018, Star Defense Logistics & Engineering (SDLE) had been awarded, through a framework contract signed with the Spanish Ministry of Defense for 2018-2019 and worth 240.000 euros, the “Development and Supply of a Reprogramming System of Ballistic Calculators for the Leopardo 2E ” for the Spanish Army. The reprogramming system would provide the Army with the possibility of reprogramming new firing boards for different types of ammunition for the Leopardo 2E tank. This will allow the use of different and new types of ammunition.

The Spanish army replaced its US-made M60 Patton tanks and French-made AMX-30s with the Leopard 2 between 1995 and 2008. Previously, the Spanish army was equipped with M47 and M48 Patton tanks, which were upgraded to near M60 equivalency during the late 1970s and during the 1980s. Both the Leopard 2A4 and Leopard 2E sport a much more powerful gun than the AMX-30 and M60 tanks. The Leopard 2's 1,500 horsepower (1,100 kW) engine provides greater power than the M60A3's 750 hp (560 kW) and the AMX-30EM2's 850 hp (630 kW) engines. On the other hand, the Leopard 2 carries fewer, but larger, rounds than the M60A3.