Saudi Arabia not paying its bills for new armor; internal money problems suspected

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

Is Saudi Arabia in cash difficulties?  Could be.  The Kingdom has a huge contract for what is known in military-speak as "light armored vehicles," basically a tank on eight big tires instead of tracks. 

A little background:  some years back the US Army determined that its reliance on the main battle tank, the M1A2 Abrams, was not going to work for it in the context of the chronic guerrilla-warfare fighting it was likely to see in the future, against lightly-armed jihadists.  So it stopped purchasing the big heavy tracked tank and instead had General Dynamics, a huge US military contractor, design and build the "LAV," or light armored vehicle, a light tank mounted on four axles of big rubber tires.  Production of the Abrams tracked tank continues at the tank plant in Lima, Ohio,formerly belonging to Chrysler and now the US Government, with the plant operator being General Dynamics Land Systems.  Those tanks are still being churned out and go direct to a storage lot; the army does not want them, but Congress dares not shut the plant, as Ohio is a "swing State" and no Party wants to be seen to cut jobs in Ohio.  

Getting past that, General Dynamics set up a Canadian subsidiary, called General Dynamics Land Systems Canada, to go build the 8-wheeled machines in London, Ontario, in half of what once was the Electro-Motive Diesel manufacturing plant, which also at one time held over half the market for rail locomotives.  Caterpillar bought that company, then got into a big fight with the union, then locked out the union and moved the machinery to a new plant in Indiana, thus wrecking Electro-Motive Diesel and tossing the entire work force out.  So General Dynamics is now the big employer in London with their army land tanks. This is what they look like  (photo from trade show):

 

It turns out these machines are perfect for repressing a restive population and suppressing street dissent, so the Saudis up and ordered some $15 Billion of these tanks from GDLS, all to be built in Canada. Then along comes the (Federal Govt) Canadian Minister of Global Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, familiar to Americans as the "point woman" in the Canada-USA tariff war negotiations, and she makes these tweet comments about human rights in KAS.  That infuriates MbS, who orders all the Saudi students out of Canadian universities, a big hit for the schools as the Saudis pay full freight, no scholarship aid from the schools.  Now along comes the murder of the activist in the Consulate in Turkey, Mr. Khashoggi, and the Canadian Government starts to murmur about cancelling the Saudi contract. 

It now turns out that this massive contract, with several thousand jobs at stake, is "overseen" by a Canadian Government "crown corporation," the Canadian Commercial Corporation.  The CCC reports that the Saudis are behind in paying for the delivered armor by a cool $1.8 Billion.  Are the Saudis inclined to write the check?   Not really.  Plus, they may not even have the cash. 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2018 by Jan van Eck

[John Foote + 1,135]

They stiff their own Saudi companies regularly to manage cash flow. Probably not picking on Canadians. And yes, those are great civil defense tools. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

Is everyone smoking north of the border?  It must be some potent stuff!  I remember designing a mechanism in college (on the weekend, hey!) and I swore to my buddies that it was a brilliant design and would put the current mechanisms out of business.  Toke, toke!  Turns out my design of the century did exactly the opposite of what it was supposed to do.  Canadian Club is supposed to be pretty good, too.

Seriously, though, did nobody see this coming?  Who needs who?

Edited December 20, 2018 by Dan Warnick

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

16 minutes ago, mthebold said:

Fortunately for civilians, all armored vehicles are quite flammable.  Lace a modest explosive with gallons of diesel/gasoline, and you'll send the whole thing up in flames.  At the very least, you get a mobility kill and flush out the crew, at which point you can pick them off in the open.  Rinse and repeat when your opponent returns to collect the charred husk. 

Source: we lost an M-1 Abrams to said tactic.  And a LOT of humvees.  Almost ran out of humvees and machine guns, actually...

Good to remember when the local Sheriff rolls out his ex-Army RV to fight us in our neighborhoods! 

[t566480 + 4]

Chaos is coming I guess, everybody in Khilifah should be ready for upcoming interesting times. You are buying weppons if you intend to use it for something. For what? Their own people, Qatar, Iran, something is  rolling far away at the horizon. 

[Happy Go Lucky + 25]

23 hours ago, mthebold said:

 the US military lost Vietnam and very nearly lost Iraq. 

The "politicians" deserve the credit for these scenarios !

 

US Navy Corpsman 66-69 😑

[David Harten Watson + 1]

I was an active duty U.S. Army tanker.  These are not tanks.  I say again, these are NOT tanks.  Not.  Tanks.

Say it with me now: N-O-T T-A-N-K-S. Not tanks! 

Why does this article call them tanks -- just because they're painted green?  They're not even close to being tanks, as they don't satisfy a single one of the three criteria for tanks: A) MOBILITY to cross trenches, B) Heavy FIREPOWER, and C) Heavy ARMORED PROTECTION, all at the level of a tank, not at the level of think-skinned armored personnel carrier (APC), Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) or Cavalry Fighting Vehicle (CFV).

To be a tank, an armored vehicle must

A) Have trench-crossing mobility, which means tracks (not wheels), TRACKS.

B) must have a main gun.  Historically, early tanks in WWi and early WWII had guns as small as 37mm, but today they're much larger, a minimum of 75 mm (which would be a light tank), but for a main battle tank (MBT), the main gun should be 105 mm, 120 mm, or 125 mm,  The 25 mm chain gun (cannon) that's on top of the M2 and M3 Bradley Fighting vehicles are not tank main guns, and the .50 caliber machine gun on top of the M113 Armored Personnel carriers is definitely not a tank main gun.

C) Must have heavy armor capable of surviving heavy artillery and cannon fire such as 105 mm, including hits from enemy tanks whose main guns are 105 mm, 120 mm, or 125 mm, not merely the puny little .50 caliber (which in metric is only 12.5 mm) or below!

A) Does a LAV have tracks? No, they have wheels, so they're not tanks!

B) Does a LAV have a main gun? Definitely not, so they're not tanks!

C) Do they have armor capable of stopping heavy artillery (not just .50 caliber and below)? No, so they're not tanks.

Why does this article call them tanks -- just because they're painted green?  FYI, not every vehicle that's painted green is a tank (and not all tanks are painted green -- most U.S. tanks are desert tan now, considering their main purpose is to guard "our oil" that somehow got stuck beneath "their sand" in the Middle East).

Examples: The M113 Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) is green (or whatever color an army paints it), but even though it has tracks like a tank, but it's not a tank because it doesn't have a main gun, and it doesn't have heavy armor (it can't even stop .50 caliber machine gun rounds, a mere 12.5 mm round!)

The M2 and M3 Bradley fighting vehicles (IFV and CFV) are green (or whatever color an army paints them), but even though it has tracks like a tank, it's not a tank because its main gun is a puny 25 mm, and it doesn't have heavy armor (although it's better armored than the M113 APC that it replaced, as its armor is designed to stop .50 caliber machine guns, but not much larger threats than .50 caliber).

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

@David Harten Watson  Thank you for your service, sir.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

It time....for this!  (Okay, it's an oldie but a goodie!)

This is funny & obviously written by a Former Soldier...

New Direction for any war: Send Service Vets over 60!

I am over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I'm too old to track down terrorists. You can't be older than 42 to join the military. They've got the whole thing ass-backwards. Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn't be able to join a military unit until you're at least 35.

For starters, researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy.

Young guys haven't lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. 'My back hurts! I can't sleep, I'm tired and hungry.' We are impatient and maybe letting us kill some asshole that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for awhile.

An 18-year-old doesn't even like to get up before 10am. Old guys always get up early to pee, so what the hell. Besides, like I said, I'm tired and can't sleep and since I'm already up, I may as well be up killing some fanatical son-of-a-bitch.

If captured we couldn't spill the beans because we'd forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser.

Boot camp would be easier for old guys.. We're used to getting screamed and yelled at and we're used to soft food. We've also developed an appreciation for guns. We've been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling.

They could lighten up on the obstacle course however. I've been in combat and never saw a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training.

Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too. I've never seen anyone outrun a bullet.

An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He's still learning to shave, to start a conversation with a pretty girl. He still hasn't figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.

These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm's way.

Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten coward terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple million pissed off old farts with attitudes and automatic weapons, who know that their best years are already behind them.

HEY!! How about recruiting Women over 50...in menopause!!! You think MEN have attitudes??
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh my God!!! If nothing else, put them on border patrol. They'll have it secured the first night!

[David Eidell + 10]

Thanks for ending my day with a wide-wide smile...

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

17 minutes ago, mthebold said:

You might enjoy this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Old-Mans-War-John-Scalzi/dp/0765348276/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1546661250&sr=8-2&keywords=old+man's+war

Thank you.  How did you know I'm a book reader?  Just purchased the Kindle version and will read it during a trip I'm leaving on tomorrow.  I'm also going to have dinner at Morton's The Steakhouse on this trip, but I won't be reading during that dinner as I will be enjoying my USDA Prime Aged Rib-eye, baked potato and salad (or maybe Au Gratin potatoes and Lobster Bisque soup).  Heaven!

Thanks for the book reco, the intro looks like it will be an entertaining read.