Know Your Steel: The M-84 tank

deveen23, on 09 January 2014 - 04:29 PM, said:   You mentioned it yourself earlier, the tank was in the prototype phase some 15 years ago. That's a long period of time in this day and age, with technology running forward and with all other issues, including qualified personnel. Now, I guess you can address many issues by cooperating with others like the Israelis or the Germans, but then again, they also have their own products to offer on the market.   As for the production, I'm afraid the factory can do the final assembly, with maybe some other domestic companies offering software related solutions, but everything else would have to be imported. While it is feasible to do so, it doesn't offer the incentive to do it as much as it would offer in the case of many domestic companies producing parts (which was the case in Yugoslavia when M-84 was mass produced). You can argue that it makes sense to do it nevertheless because you retain the know-how, but that takes the back seat to hard economics.   If you look at the big picture, main buyers for any kind of upgrade would have to be Croatian and Serbian armies. That market is split in two, with different companies from respective countries offering upgrade packages, with political reasons making it impossible for one company to clean the entire market. That leaves you with practically one army as your customer, with both armies having more urgent needs like new fighters, small arms, ATGMs etc. and export possibilities largely reduced due to bigger players.