A pesar de diferencias diplomáticas, Israel y Turquía van a impulsar la exportación a terceros países, empezando por Colombia, de M60A1 modernizados.
La compañia turca(SSM) y IMI de Israel competirán juntas en el concurso colombiano, aprovechando el trabajo que se ha realizado conjuntamente, tras la entrega del último carro de combate M60 modernizado al ejército turco, de un total de 170. El trabajo se ha realizado conjuntamente entre ambas empresas, estando IMI centrada en la electrónica y sistemas de armas y la empresa turca en la producción.
La opción ofrecida es mucho mas económica que el Leopard, el M1 o el Merkava.
_____________________________________
Despite diplomatic differences that threaten the strategic ties between Israel and Turkey, defense and industry leaders from both nations are pushing third-country exports of the jointly refurbished M60A1 main battle tank, beginning with Colombia.
In interviews here and in Turkey, officials said a new joint venture between Turkey's procurement agency, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, or Savunma Sanayi Mustesarligi (SSM), and state-owned Israel Military Industries (IMI) is competing for the South American country's estimated $250 million tank buy. IMI is the prime contractor for the jointly upgraded M60.
The defense ministries of the two countries approved the joint venture and requisite licensing issues at the height of tensions between the Islamist government of Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightist coalition government over Israel's early 2009 war in Gaza and disputes over Gaza, Iran and Syria.
The joint venture between IMI and Turkey's Aselsan aims for a 50-50 work share based on Israeli electronics, subsystems and weaponry, with the bulk of production and assembly work to take place in Turkey and later under licensed production in customer countries.
Both countries last week marked the final delivery of the 170th tank produced under the joint, $687.5 million upgrade program, launched in 2002.
In an April 7 statement, Israel's MoD said it lent its full support to the eight-year effort, which involved considerable technology transfers and military-to-military sharing of operational, training and logistics concepts.
Israel and Turkey are bidding for the Colombia program, offering what he described as "an advanced, extremely cost-effective front-line main battle tank … in terms of firepower, survivability, maneuverability as well as unit and life-cycle costs."
When pressed, Felder estimated that the Israeli-Turkish offer would cost about half that of a new tank such as the U.S. MIA2 Abrams, Germany's Leopard and even Israel's own Merkava Mk4.
Defense analysts think Turkish-Israeli-upgrade M60s arethe best of the upgraded tanks in the world.
Upgrades include a 120mm cannon and fire-control system, advanced suspension, new hybrid armor and a 1,000-horsepower propulsion system developed by Germany's MTU.
A decision on the Colombia acquisition program is not likely until later this year or early next year, and is likely to include work-sharing and offset agreements, sources here said.
No comments:
Post a Comment