Carlos Prats really didn’t want to deal with Lt. Colonel Roberto Federico Souper Onfray. If there had been any justice in the world he would have joined his natural niche and fallen in with Pinochet and the other low effort boot lickers where he could be either sidelined or dismissed as needed. The man was both ambitious and a firm believer in the deep state philosophy that had become so in vogue with the younger officers. This should have made him a natural ally of the cabal of officers who seemed to be gravitating to that peasant ass Pinochet, as opposed to what had happened with him joining Prats camp. The man didn’t believe in the Schneider doctrine, but he had come over because Prats had succeeded in replacing the M-24 Chaffee light tanks, a world war two vintage machine, with recently overhauled AMX-13 tanks. Carlos was of the firm belief that if he managed to replace their aging fleet of M-4 Sherman’s with real main battle tanks then Roberto would offer to bear his children.
It was one of Carlos long held dreams to dismiss the man from service, but that wasn’t a possibility. He was one of the few armor officers who had chosen a side in the inter office politics, and he was widely regarded as one of the better ones. Dismissing him would have hurt Carlos political side and helped Pinochet or more accurately whomever was pulling the fools strings. That wasn’t going to happen. Still he did wish that someone else could deal with the man. It didn’t help that he had started off in artillery and still was biased in favor of that branch of service. Tanks were all well and good but artillery was called the queen of the battlefield for a reason. It didn’t help that the two branches were in direct competition for funding, and it showed.
“Enough,” Prats said mildly, but with a clear edge of threat in his voice. “I understand your point. Our armor is sadly out of date even with the improvements I have made. I understand that, just as I understand that you are thinking of getting more help from the Israelis. I understand that you want to have improvements made on the Sherman’s at a minimum…. But let’s be realistic, they have been out of date for years.”
“I know they are out of date, everyone knows that, but the improvements are the minimum required for the tanks to be even remotely competitive. What do you want me to do? We need these improvements! The M-24 replacement was a good step forward, especially as the AMX-13 has been proven to be a platform that takes to modernization well. We have the M-41 Bulldogs, but despite not being a true light tank they are also not a main battle tank. We need a modern MBT.” Roberto Souper threw up his hands in exasperation.
“Who has modern tanks in the region? Just how badly do we need them? I have to ask you this because the budget is already stretched even with the improvements in funding that we are getting. I am trying to balance things so that we modernize at an acceptable pace while not putting us too deeply in debt.”
“Peru has ordered twenty four T-55’s for ‘evaluation’ porpoises,” Roberto said with a look of complete contempt. “Just how stupid they think we are I do not know, but it is clear that these tanks are meant to train their forces in the operation of the T-55. I do not know just how many they intend to purchase, but it will not be a minor order. The Bolivians… I will admit I am less worried about. They have been talking to the Austrians about the purchase of SK-105 Kürassier light tanks. Those I am sure we could take with what we already have. You undoubtedly know about the Argentines Firefly’s so I feel no need to go into that…”
“Damn… I was hoping to delay any tank purchase until we had dealt with the infantry…” Prats muttered.
“I think we wait for a bit,” Roberto shook his head, as if to shake off a fly, “I know you think I am too monomaniacal on the subject of tanks but we do need to start at least thinking about a MBT buy. I’m not saying that we need to do one immediately, but thinking and planning we should do…”
“I’m not about to authorize a full buy but I do want you to get with the Israelis. If the Peruvians are going to deploy the T-55 I want our officers fully familiar with its capabilities and how to knock them out… or operate them should we capture a few. I’m sure that you can convince the Israelis to sell us four or so for that purpose.” Prats mad a snap decision, it seemed to be the right one but only time would tell.
“I will get on that, I presume you will at least think about what I have said?”
“I am thinking of it, tanks are an area I know we need to address. I just need to figure out where to get the money from.” Carlos grimaced. “I have a lot of projects like that, including several ambitious artillery projects, all of which are on hold until I deal with the infantry. To add to that we are not in the best odor in La Monda, the navy is the flavor of the week and the apple of the presidents eye right now. He is not best pleased with our more… political… shall we say, officers and their actions. I, and Schnieder, are trying to fix the issue but it will not be an easy thing to deal with.”
“There’s more then you licensing the TAP47 pattern cammo? I know about the monetary issues, but planning costs us very little for when we are back in the drivers seat in terms of funding. I would much rather we be in a position to make an informed decision when we get the money rather then it being a snap decision we will have to deal with after the fact like the assault rifle purchase.” Roberto asked with a raised eyebrow.
“And getting them new rifles to correct the error of our snap decision earlier, looking at their mortars, new fighting knives beyond the traditional Corvo, the new model Stahlhelm commission is still riding me over helmets as well. All in all things are a bit of a mess.”
“I thought that the helmet issue was resolved,” Roberto asked with more than a little amusement leaking into his voice. “I thought that the politicians had finally accepted that the new American helmets were better than the pre-world war to stahlhelms we were using…”
“They did, and then they ordered me to get a native Chilean stahlhelm as opposed to buying the American helmets,” Carlos sighed deeply as he said that. “Given we don’t currently have a helmet manufacturing company, or any clue of how to get a better helmet… well that’s turning into a bitch of a project. One where we are going to spend a lot of money on research for a gain that could be achieved simply by buying from another country.”
“Politicians, they see the small systems and they ask just why we don’t make it. They never think of just how complicated it actually is to make the thing. I had a similar discussion with one of the senators over the optics on my tanks, they seemed to be under the impression that such were easy to make and we should have bought Chilean rather than allowing the Israelis to do it.” Roberto was sympathetic, and then a thought hit him. “Perhaps you might just buy the research off the British or the Americans. I know it will not be everything that you need but… it could cut some of the time and costs from the project.”
“I would but the research is classified and you know that neither of those nations has any respect for the Latin intelligence services. They are rather sulphurous about those Latin nations in Europe and their intelligence services…” Carlos shrugged. “I think that it will just be a project that will take time and money. Thought we may be able to recover some of that should we get lucky.”
“Luck is a matter of skill,” Roberto replied simply repeating the maxim that most of the army lived on. “I doubt that our scientific establishment is anywhere in the league of those in the Estados Unitos or the brits. Have you thought about asking the Israelis’ if they have any ideas? They were almost a pariah state for some time and they probably have at least some idea of how to go about getting what we need or have research of their own they would sell to us…”
“No they are not, but they are also not incompetent. If we support them with enough funds then there may be discoveries made… besides supporting our own scientific establishment is the only way to allow it to grow in both size and competence. That is something that we will need. Especially if this latest memo from the air force is true…” Prats paused and really thought about what Roberto had suggested. He quickly jotted himself a note, that was an idea worth following up on. He doubted there would be much but it was better then nothing. “I had not thought about the Isrealies and their situation in this context, especially as they have attracted the favor of the Estados Unitos in recent years.”
“Problems?”
“Aren’t there always?”