East German T-55 NAL NRD

[Hyperion]

Does anyone have any information about the East German T-55 modernization called NAL NRD?

NAL NRD means "Narodowa Armia Ludowa Niemieckiej Republiki Demokratycznej" which is a full Polish name for the armed forces of the former DDR. Could it have been a joint project? Or is it just fiction?

The only information online is from wikipedia:

''T-55 NAL NRD - East-German modernization of T-55. It wasn't finished because of the political changes in 1990''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-54/T-55_operators_and_variants#East_Germany

Thanks in advance.

 

[Grzesio]

I believe it's a misinterpretation of the phrase "W chwili zjednoczenia Niemiec, w trakcie modernizacji znajdowały się T 55 NAL NRD", which was understood as "At the moment of the unification of Germany T 55 NAL NRDs were undergoing modernisation" instead of "At the moment of the unification of Germany T 55s of the NAL NRD [or NVA DDR actually] were undergoing modernisation", what gave birth to the non-existent NAL NRD version.

 

[Grey Havoc]

In the early eighties, there seems to have been a proposal for the refurbishment and modernisation of T-62s taken from Soviet stocks, in order to help replace the T-55 in NVA service. However, East Germany was ultimately able to procure more examples of the T-72, and began to initiate a series of local upgrades (with some Czech assistance) to their T-55 fleet. The last confirmed GDR T-55 upgrade was the locally produced version of the T-55AM2B, which used the Kladivo system as it's basis. Deliveries started in 1988, and managed to get 319 modernised tanks (out of a total T-55 fleet of around 1969 tanks) back to the NVA before things fully fell apart in 1990.

The government of the reunified Germany was apparently impressed enough with the East German version of the T-55AM2B that they kept them in storage for some time after they had gotten rid of the rest of the former T-55 fleet. I not sure if they ever got around to selling or scrapping them.

It's quite possible East Germany was working on a T-55 derived tank analogous to projects like the Jaguar as a NVA T-55 replacement for the 1990s, but I don't have any hard data.

 

[Hyperion]

Thanks!