LINCE (MBT)

At the beginning of the 80s, the Spanish Army was faced with the need to study a substitute for its fleet of American M-47 and M-48 tanks. These tanks already had too many years and were clearly technologically surpassed by the tanks of most Western Armies, so it was decided to begin the development of a new tank, under designation “Lince” (lynx), produced in Spain if possible to remedy this situation. At the request of the Spanish Ministry of Defense, 5 top-level companies were presented, such as the Spanish-German consortium Krauss-Maffei Santa Bárbara Sistemas, the American General Dynamics, the British Vickers, the French AMX and the Italian Government raised the possible cooperation to develop a new Spanish-Italian tank. After shuffling the offers presented, only the German, Italian and French offers remained on the table, deciding in 1983 to initiate a joint development with the German company Krauss-Maffei, which was the one which presented the best conditions for cooperation with the Spanish industry. However, the project was paralyzed in 1989 due to the Spanish acceptance of a batch of American M-60 tanks withdrawn after the signing of the “Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe” with which to replace the most outdated tanks in the inventory and after the approval, in 1987, of the modernization of the AMX-30E tank fleet.

LINCE MBT project gallery and more info