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The United Kingdom is taking some of its Challenger 2 tanks out of military storage to take part in NATO’s latest large-scale military exercise, Steadfast Defender 24, involving 31 countries and some 90,000 troops. The last time NATO organized such an exercise was in 1984, when 132,000 British soldiers took part in the Lionheart event, reports Express.co.
For the duration of the exercise, several of the 62-ton Challenger 2 tanks will be transported by special trains, while some will be relocated from Sennelager in Germany. When the British tanks arrive for Exercise Steadfast Defender in Eastern Europe, they will be joined by another 600 British armored vehicles and 1,500 soldiers, as well as Royal Navy fleet units and Cyber Army crews.
The armed forces of 31 NATO member states and Sweden will be present at the exercise due in the first half of the year. Eight warships of the British Royal Navy with more than two thousand sailors are participating in the operations. Among the units will be one of the Queen Elizabeth-class British aircraft carriers with its attached F–35B Lightning fighter jets.
Speaking to The Sun about the deployment of the Challenger 2 tanks, an army source said:
We no longer have a British Army of the Rhine. If you want to fight on the continent, you have to take the vehicles there. This is what we do, this is what we did in both world wars
– the paper quotes the source.
While the UK may be able to deploy its armed forces in the Steadfast exercise, there are concerns about its force, both in terms of equipment and personnel.
In this article, we wrote more about whose eyes the “demonstration of force” pokes.
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