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Spain Equipment
In spite of new procurement programs, introduced in the
mid-1980s, arms and equipment were not in sufficient
supply, and
they were not up to the standards of other NATO armies.
The
inventory of medium tanks was made up of nearly 700 United
States
models dating back to the Korean War, as well as about 300
AMX-30s of French design but manufactured mostly in Spain
between
1974 and 1983. Although the military felt that it was
essential
to adopt a new main battle tank for the 1990s, economic
considerations led to a postponement of the decision and
the
upgrading of the AMX-30s with new West German-designed
diesel
engines and transmissions, reactive armor panels, and
laser firecontrol systems.
Armored troop carriers included about 1,200
American-made
M-113s as well as AML-60s and AML-90s of French design.
The
Spanish army was in the process of being equipped with
more than
1,200 BMRs, a six-wheeled armored vehicle manufactured in
Spain
under French license. A variety of towed and
self-propelled
artillery was available, ranging from 105mm to 203mm guns
and
howitzers. The main antitank weapons were recoilless
rifles;
88.9mm rocket launchers; Milan, Cobra, and Dragon
missiles; and a
small number of TOW (tube-launched, optically tracked,
wireguided ) and HOT (high subsonic, optically guided,
tube-launched)
antitank missile systems. A considerable quantity of
additional
antitank missiles and rocket launchers was on order. The
army
aircraft inventory included about 180 helicopters, about
40 of
which were armed with 20mm guns or HOT antitank missiles
(see
table 16, Appendix).
The air defense of ground forces depended largely on
outdated
Bofors guns and on aging Hawk and Nike missiles. As of
1987, a
start had been made on overcoming deficiencies in this
area by
acquiring French Roland missiles, to be mounted on AMX-30
chassis, and Italian Aspide missiles for fixed defense.
Data as of December 1988
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