Hi
About the infraestructure question, there are no problems of roads or bridges in the Central Chile (Santiago - Valpo), because Chile is an export country and our roads system was design to sustain a bunch of heavy trucks traffic (18 wheelers and such) wich were responsible of moving the goods to the main ports, so a L2 is not a such big deal
Besides, the main concentrations of the Chilean Armor are in the Atacama desert in the northern border, facing our always unfriendly neighbours of Perú and Bolivia, so as you may know, there are no problems to move an Armor Brigade over a desert, if you can`t find a road, you just make one
The other armor concentration of the chilean army is in the Patagonia, but we have excelent relations with the argentinians, so that garrison is not the destination of the L2 (we have there Leopard 1 (L1) and AMX 30).
And yes, in the next years the ECH (Chilean Army) will be the "biggest and meanest dog" of the block
, but there are reasons for that, mainly the rising of two dime "leaders"
such Ollanta Humala (Perú) and Hugo Chavéz (Venezuela), and we are seen in LA as the "watch dog of the empire" (US) because of our friendly relations with the US and our extended network of FTA, so is better be a good neighbour, work with them and try to advance in our relations with all the countryes in LA, but at the same have reasonable military strength.
I dont have the detail of the german deal, but here is seen as the first batch of a total purchase of 300 L2 wich will replace all the remaining obsolete MBT of Chile (60 Improved M41, 60 AMX 30 B2 and the most worn out of the L1`s), that replacement must be completed in 2010 - 2012.
The main problem of the ECH NOW is the lack of air support, we dont have any attack helos and our heli transport force almost didnt deserve that name ... the Pumas AS 330/332 are in bad shape and the replacement program was posponed because the Goverment wants a single purchase of a standar model for the three services, but every service has his own requirements so, as you can imagine the generals and admirals were unable to find an agreement ... we (in the fox holes, I mean
) hope that the transport helo will be the ALH of Hindustan Helicopters wich is based in the German BK 117 and has israeli electronics, and the attack helo will be the AH 1Z Zulu Cobra ... but thats a long shoot because the US Marines are in love with that bird ... but hope is the last thing to loose ...
The price offered by the germans was US$400 the piece, and a extensive support package, probably including engineers vehicles and ... who knows maybe some Gepard AAA
Bye
