Langowski Logistics, a Polish company specialised in military transportation, moved two Leopard 1 tanks from Poland to Florida, in the southeast of the United States. The tanks have been demilitarised and will be displayed in a museum.

The tanks were moved by road from Poland to Bremerhaven, Germany. From there, Langowski relied on a direct service to the port of Brunswick, in the state of Georgia (US). The tanks were moved back on the road one last time to reach the final destination in Melbourne, Florida, 110 kilometres south of Orlando. The sea freight service was arranged by Langowski’s US partner American Roll-On Roll-Off Carrier.

What were the main challenges?

As a representative from Langowski pointed out, the movement of military equipment is not an easy task these days, especially when it comes to obtaining the necessary permits. “We had waited more than 6 months till we got the needed permissions. Ministry of defenses in transit countries had a lot of other urgent work related to military movements to Ukraine”, they said.

Another challenge for this initiative was the weight of the two Leopard 1 tanks, which precluded the use of flat rack containers for standard FCL service. Moreover, finding a free spot on a Ro-Ro vessel was also somewhat of an obstacle since “almost all Ro-Ro services were overbooked”, as Langowski underlined.