Croatian government is considering supplying Ukraine with some of their M-84 tanks, a Yugoslav copy of the Soviet T-72. Instead, Zagreb would like to receive an equivalent in Leopard 2 tanks from Germany, according to Defence24.
As noted by the journalists, Croatia has been looking forward to replacing its M-84 with German tanks but it always received a no due to Berlin lacking vehicles to offer. Now that a "tank coalition" on providing tanks for Ukraine was established, the awaited upgrade to the Croatian tank fleet becomes an even more distant perspective. But now, here's the question: how many M-84 tanks does Croatia have and is there any point in sending them to Ukraine?
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According to The Military Balance 2022, Croatian armed forces possess 75 units of M-84. Defence24 states that 4 of these are training vehicles, while the rest 71 are for actual combat. Yet, there is no reliable data on how many of them are combat-capable.
We also don't know how many of them Croatia managed to modernize to the M-84A4 Sniper version, which received a new engine, an updated fire control and sighting systems. The numbers could be either 16 or 32.
![M-84 of the Croatian Armed Forces](/media/contentimages/1f063dd1eda47f30.jpg)
The intent of Croatia to "commend" Germany by procuring its main battle tanks is surely logical. Especially if we recall that the Croatian army also uses 13 PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzers of German making.
Although it looks like in this particular case, instead of giving Warsaw Pact-era M-84s in a manner of already not-so-relevant "ring exchange" procedure, the Armed Forces of Ukraine would rather get some additional Leopard 2s from the tank coalition.
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