In 1999, the incoming US Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, was tasked with modernising the US Army. Further investment ceased and NATO’s fleets of tanks and personnel carriers were left to “rust in peace.” Many of those that remain in service today date back to the early 1980s or before. Senior commanders began to question the utility of heavy armour. On this occasion, by the time its Abrams M1 MBTs and Bradley M2 IFVs arrived in theatre, the conflict had been resolved.įollowing the Kosovo fiasco, the US Army returned its armoured units to Germany. It was a scenario that was repeated in 1999, when the US Army attempted to deploy Task Force Hawk from bases in Germany to Kosovo. The logistical nightmare of transporting thousands of vehicles thousands of miles meant that it took months to build-up sufficient numbers of MBTs and IFVs vehicles to evict Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait. The First Gulf War in 1990-1991, required a large force to be transported to the Middle East. Ironically, no sooner had the Cold War ended, than it became necessary to deploy the tanks and armoured personnel carriers that had remained largely unused for 50 years. NATO members started to bring their armies home from Germany or simply to reduce them in size. BTR-60 of the Russian Army, circa 1980Īfter the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, Western governments began to talk about a “Peace Dividend.” It meant that they no longer had to commit massive resources to Defence. It was a logical strategy when the major threat was that posed by Warsaw Pact forces. With most of our BAOR armoured vehicles located within 50 kilometres of their deployment areas, a rapid response to an attack could be ensured. Chieftain and Challenger MBTs weighed 60-70 tonnes, so transporting them from the UK in a time of crisis would have been problematic. 01 – The need for an Expeditionary CapabilityĠ2 – Stryker: a new type of vehicle, a new type of formationĠ5 – Utility across low, medium and high intensity scenariosĠ7 – Summary British Army Chieftain tank of the British Rhine Army, circa 1982Īt the height of the Cold War, the British Army had four complete armoured divisions, with some 1,200 MBTs, supported by an artillery division, sitting in Germany, waiting for an attack that fortunately never came.
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