Know Your Steel: The M-84 tank

deveen23, on 09 January 2014 - 03:52 PM, said:   Kuwait didn't buy Degman, or upgraded their M-84s yet.     I don't think we'll ever see even M-84D in active service, let alone M-95. Some of the reasons you state yourself, military industry is much more about politics then money itself. Then there is a question of actual ability to build such a sophisticated product like a MBT. With old M-84 you had many different factories producing parts, many of which are gone. I guess you can go with other suppliers, but it's not as easy as it seems.   There's also a conceptual issue as well, modern small armies usually don't invest heavily in tanks. You might even argue about the concept of MBT being obsolete in modern warfare. If you don't have a strong export market, it becomes very questionable if the price can be justified.   I would say that the best chance for all these proposed upgrades might not be M-84 itself, but actually T-72, considering how many are there around the world. Upgrade packages could be relatively cheap option for many armies to keep their equipment out of obsolescence. Then again, I'd imagine Russia, Ukraine and some other former Soviet Union countries make for strong competition there, both political and economic.