A Spanish military recovery vehicle Búfalo replacing the engine of a US M88

Tanks are the iron fist of armored forces, but there are some vehicles that are indispensable to them today.

The recovery tasks of a Spanish Leopardo 2E main battle tank in Latvia
Latvia shows Spanish military vehicles in the Shield Strike exercise

The Spanish Army has 16 Leopard 2ER Búfalo recovery vehicles in its armored units. The Búfalo is the Spanish variant of the German Bergepanzer Büffel, a model launched in 1983 and based on the chassis of the Leopard 2 main battle tank.

The Búfalo is an armored vehicle with a crew of four and is lightly armed (it has a single 7.62 mm MG-3 machine gun and eight smoke grenade launchers). The Búfalo can recover disabled or stuck vehicles under enemy fire in a combat situation.

The Búfalo has a crane capable of lifting up to 30 tonnes, commonly used to change the engines of Spanish Leopard 2E tanks, and a winch capable of pulling 35 tonnes, expandable to 70 tonnes using one pulley and 105 tonnes using two pulleys. This winch is commonly used to move tanks that have become stuck in mud or have suffered a broken track, as happened in February in Latvia with a Leopard 2E deployed there.

Speaking of Latvia, this week, the Leopardo 2ER Búfalo deployed in Latvia with the NATO Multinational Brigade at the Latvian base of Camp Ādaži has participated in a very curious and unusual operation: the engine change of another recovery vehicle, in this case an M88A2 Hercules, belonging to the 41st Field Artillery Regiment of the US Army. Currently, the Spanish contingent in Latvia belongs mostly to the Brigade "Guzmán el Bueno" X.

The US Army released photos of this operation on Thursday, images taken by specialist Rachel Hall and which you can see here. In this operation, the Leopardo 2ER Búfalo was assisted by a Luna AT 35-32 crane, also belonging to the Spanish Army.

The M88A2 Hercules is powered by a Continental AVDS-1790-8CR engine, weighing approximately 2,500 pounds (1,133 kilograms). The images show that in addition to the engine, the transmission attached to it was also removed during the operation.

The operation involved removing the engine from the M88A2 and installing a replacement engine in the rear of the American vehicle, according to the US Army.

Below these lines you can see an enlargement of this last photo, in which the two recovery vehicles that participated in this operation appear: the Spanish Leopardo 2ER Búfalo, olive green (on the right), and the American M88A2 Hercules, with a desert scheme.