Tanks or no Tanks for Ukraine?

[Samedaysameshit]

My view is yes but interested in what the opinion is out there?
What are we prepared to watch unfold in Ukraine? If Russia’s spring offensive works and they roll all the way to the Poland border what do we do then?

@Alexandra2001 That’s incorrect, as we were training the Ukranian military for some time pre 2022, as well as discussing their path into NATO.

And selective editing is also a thing too.

I agree with the supply of tanks to help Ukraine but I will just repost an item posted by (but not written by) a friend of mine who has a good understanding of the situation -
Lots of hubbub about Leopard 2 being THE silver bullet which will help Ukraine in the next 3-6 months. Much of the noise is political, and media, mania coming from the cake-holes of folks who couldn’t zip a sleeping bag let alone fight a tank.
Yes, L2 is a formidable system that will be a quantum leap in capability for the Ukrainian army, good armour, reliable engines, thermal sights, integrated data, NATO standard ammunition ….and available in numbers - over 1000 delivered in Europe.
But, a few floaters to sieve
out of the martini….

1. the L2 is more advanced than anything the UA has, by a power of 100….. maintaining it and it’s many, many black boxes will takes years for the UA REME to master, require a new logistics flow, tooling etc. Not an overnight implementation - the best army might be able to do it in a year under ideal conditions.Could a primary school teacher teach an A Level advanced maths class? yes, teaching is a similar function, though the subject matter, syllabus structure, student age and change in paradigm will mean the first term or so won’t be as effective, and the poor teacher won’t enjoy it much.

2. All UA service Main battle tanks run a 3 man crew with an auto loader…. As do all Russian tanks. This means a mechanised system puts the main gun ammunition into the breech at the push of a button. Slower than an above-average human loader, but much faster than a below average one. The L2 has a 4 man crew, no auto loader. In a Western tank, the loader is the senior position on the crew (other than the commander) skill wise, often a soldier who started as a driver and also trained as a gunner. It takes years to be a proficient loader, and literally no-one in Ukraine has ever been one. The crew efficiency, the ergonomics of each evolution of laying the gun, will be very poor by Western standards for some considerable time, potentially cancelling out the various benefits of giving a Western tank to the UA.

3. training UA crews to be able to function a L2 may only take 4-6 weeks…… training them to learn how to FIGHT the tank will take many months, integrating it into the current tactics and military art of the UA could take years

4. what do we allow NATO contributors to have instead? Given the ongoing threat, how do we fill the gaps left in Western TO&E? What with? How long will that take?

5. The more up to date L2 models are chock full of goodies that the Russians would want to fascinate over. UA L2s
   will be very vulnerable to exploitation if they break down or get knocked out intact……if one gets tractored off the field, the NATO nations with it are under greater pressure.

6. What does it say for NATO - yeah x y z nation can’t have L2, but we will give them away to a non-NATO country….not great sound bites for the alliance leadership?

Not saying it’s not a good idea, but the press need to be 100% honest - L2 will take a year to bed in, will they arrive too late?

Lt General David Leaky was on LBC today and he talked about the training bill for the new tanks. He mentioned some of your friends points but his biggest fear was that the tanks were dribbled into the fight rather than delivered all at once. Feeding them in piecemeal would do no good. He claims You need clout not dribble. The 300 tanks that Zelensky requested was about right to get the job done.

He claimed that a lot of the more technical maintenance could be done by civilian contractors across the border in Poland but a lot of the simpler repairs are relatively easy as they are designed to be plug and play. Something is faulty, unplug it, put a new one in and send the faulty unit across the border to be repaired.

The U.K. has supplied a squadron, the Germans another squadron and the Americans 2 squadrons. Essentially a U.K. armoured regiment. Combine this with the Bradley fighting vehicles and the German Marders and we are looking at an Armoured infantry brigade. Whilst it’s not a knockout blow for the Russians, it’s a formidable attacking force against a Russian military that has not proved itself to be well organised and trained and has lost a lot of its elite fighting strength and is backfilling units with conscripts, prisoners and mercenaries. I suspect that whilst Ukrainian tank crews retrained on the new gear won’t be as effective as UK, German or American crews, they will be more effective than the enemy. Given the aide, intelligence and tactical/strategic support being supplied by the west, we will see successful attacks on Russian forces that will deepen Ukraine’s offensive capabilities and weaken Russian troops resolve to fight.

@travellinglighter
I think the good general is correct. I'm no armour expert - I was a Rifleman in an infantry regiment - but my concerns are firstly that rushed training & piecemeal deployment of AFVs will negate the advantage conferred by having them in the first place & secondly, that a squadron of Chally 2s, a squadron of Leopard 2s, 2 squadrons of Abrams, maybe some Leclercs plus a mixed bag of troop carriers does not equal an armoured regiment, it is more likely to equal a mashup that won't deliver what people think & hope it will.
Like I said, I'm no armour expert so let's hope my concerns are misplaced.

There is nothing incorrect in what i wrote, we did nothing after Georgia, MH17, Crimea, can you list the sanctions the yachts seized, hell the Govt even allowed the head of Wagner to use uk held assets (why the heck did the leader of a Russian mercenary outfit even have UK assets?) to sue a UK journalist?

London was nicknamed Londongrad, there was a reason for that.......

It was only really after Salisbury that the UK did some very limited sanctions...

The UK also would not supply any weapons to Ukraine even as late as October 2021, yes NATO did train some troops & thank goodness we did.

Ukraine could never join NATO because of the fighting in the East of Ukraine.

The decision to send tanks, like the Patriot systems should have been made far earlier but it has at least been made and hopefully will make a real difference, perhaps we can agree on that at least.

You and I have disagreed about things before, and we obviously have very different views. Let’s leave it there.

In numbers of tanks it does but you’re right, it’s not a properly integrated armoured regiment. The way to organise would be a series of armoured infantry battle groups. The Abram’s as a tank heavy battalion, the challengers and leopards as two separate armoured infantry battalions.

Small scale attacks on Russian weak points as pinpointed by western intelligence to familiarise troops with new techniques. Until you have sufficient numbers to drive home a big attack.

Must have been under a different name... as far as i recollect, never heard of your name before this thread i'm afraid but i do tend not to notice names as much as what is written.

I 1000% support Ukraine, would like to see Putin in the Hague, think the West has been weak with Russia & the Soviets never really went away.

I also think the UK needs to up its defence spending, we need to be stronger to deter this stuff happening in the first place, we put all the extra military into Eastern Europe... after the event.

I sorry you and many many others don't support all or any of that but perhaps that is, part, why we are facing a belligerent Russia....

Editing is selective by nature. Let's try all the propaganda then @Hawkins001 . What examples do you have from this conflict? You also suggested there is another enemy to Ukraine, apart from Russia: Who?

In the world of international espionage, who knows what's really the truth and what's all mis direction, ect, unless we know the intelligence files of the various services, all the public have to go on is just mainly bits and pieces of what's considered the media's narrative.

@Hawkins001 No facts then? I thought you had had history on your side.

History based on different types of propaganda that was used in the world wars, that type of history not the current situation to prove my point that just because x events are in the media does not automatically mean that their is no propaganda ect