U.S. Returns 29 Main Battle Tanks to Europe -

[Reality Check]

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014 ... leave.html

The U.S. has returned a few Main Battle Tanks to Europe.

In 2013 the United States removed the last of 6,000 U.S. Tanks the U.S. had in Europe during the cold war. After the 2013 European pull out, all the nearly 8,000 U.S. third generation Main Battle Tanks ( M1 Abrahams Tanks ) were stored in the United States, deployed with combat troops outside of Europe, or stored in other location outside of both Europe and the United States. Thousands of those 8,000 tanks have been declared excess and stored outside in the weather in the United States.

Twenty four ( 24 ) U.S. M1A2 third generation Main Battle Tanks in a U.S. Combat Battalion assigned to combat platoons have returned to Europe. An additional five ( 5 ) U.S. Main Battle Tanks used by company and battalion commanders and sub-commanders for command and control in combat have also returned bringing the total to twenty-nine (29) tanks In Europe.

These 29 tanks, which first returned to Europe in 2014, as the war in Ukraine heated up, have been widely portrayed in the media as reinforcing Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

These Twenty-Nine ( 29 ) U.S. Main Battle tanks and the U.S. troops who would use them in combat, are being used at training centers and exercises by a U.S. armored Battalion flown in from the United States.

It is not clear if the entire twenty-nine ( 29 ) main battle tanks will be shifted between the four countries eastern European countries they are intended to reinforce at different times, or if a company of (12) tanks will be deployed in two countries at the same time, or if individual troops of four (4) tanks each will be deployed in different countries.

The same 29 tanks will also be used for troop training in Germany and exercises in France. They are intended to stay stored in Europe, most probably in Germany, permanently and used by different U.S. based armored Battalions as they fly in from the United States for training.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014 ... leave.html