Romania is pushing to buy 54 Abrams main battle tanks and related equipment from the United States in a deal worth at least a billion dollars, the defense ministry said Friday.

The ministry said the latest-model tanks would help its military meet regional security challenges. Romania, a NATO member since 2004, shares a long border with war-torn Ukraine.

The sale would include ammunition and training simulators, the ministry said. It said Romania has estimated the contract as worth about $1 billion, but that Congress was notified of a higher value of $2.5 billion after it was approved by the U.S. State Department on Thursday. No timeframe for the purchase was specified.

  • ginerel@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I agree with the logistics part, as they’d need to build and maintain additional facilities but

    Abrams aren’t built for Romania’s terrain.

    What do you mean by that? Why would they be incompatible with our terrain? Indeed, they’ll most likely never be used in the Carpathians, as you’d need more compact and mobile vehicles to go through there. But given our current threat vector - which comes from the East, so basically only Moldovan low-rise hills, Dobrudja and the Romanian Plains where Bucharest is located being the parts under threat - why would they be not fit for that type of terrain?