Posted on 01/31/2018 5:11:53 AM PST by C19fan
A German-made tank, which Berlin once dubbed one of the best in the world, has had its shortcomings embarrassingly exposed on the battlefield in Syria. Photos from the Turkish military operation dubbed 'Euphrates Shield', which began in August 2016, show the charred remains of one of the Leopard 2 tanks which was reportedly blown up with mines.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
A shortcoming of mechanized tactics as well as equipment.
Hm. The Daily Mail seems to take particular glee in pointing out the decades old tank is performing poorly in today’s combat environment.
I would suspect if our Abrams tanks without all the modifications were sold to any arab country without the will or desire on their part to train in tactics, provide upkeep and maintenance, or infantry/air support, that those Abrams tanks would get toasted too.
I am not a fan of “Oh, the German tanks are the best in the world” people, but I am not sure this is valid criticism.
You get what you pay for, and if some Turkish sucker wants to overpay to buy a 1970’s tank and expect it to survive on today’s battlefield...I just think it is unrealistic.
Exactly. Majority muslim countries do not have a good track record in:
1.) Maintaining military equipment
2.) Training effectively in individual and unit tactics.
I’m also not a German tank fanboy (and get tired of some people’s snobbery about them)...but it looks like one of those mines tore the hull in half. I doubt any tank can survive that.
I joined my tank company right after the first Gulf War. One of the stories that many of the guys told dealt with a training simulator, called a UCOFT.
In the US Army, we use this simulator around the clock...it is not uncommon to get a 3:00 a.m. time slot.
Well, the guys in my unit arrived in Saudi Arabia, and somebody go the idea to train on the Saudi UCOFTs (US made, previously sold to the Saudis). And they discover the Saudi UCOFTs are brand spanking new...still had shipping films over some of the lenses new! The Saudis had simply bought them, as part of their purchase of M1 tanks...but had never considered actually training with them.
Agreed. Not sure many tanks would survive mine blasts like that any better.
The tone of the article reeked of a British inferiority complex (to me, at least).
Why the British would get all worked up by German tanks used by Turks being destroyed by muslims in Syria is beyond me, other than finding a reason to be snarky about it.
It could just be me reading that in, though.
I think the Leopard II came out in the 80’s.
Interesting story. LOL, I can just see the guys sitting down at the UCOFT, turning it on, and the Saudi guys looking at each other and saying in Arabic “WTF! I had no idea what those things were!”
I know of a hospital in an oil rich Middle Eastern country that went out and purchased all of the best medical equipment that could be bought, and when someone I knew went there, they said none of it was being used.
It was like a ghost town, but very well appointed.
I think 1979, but it was largely designed in the Seventies, much like our Abrams.
Kind of like the Space Shuttle...Seventies technology that made it into use in the eighties...
They are Leopard 2A4s and the BdW is running A6s and working on A7s. I am a former tanker. If you put the best tank in the world in a crappy tactical situation it can be killed.
Just about anything armored in today’s world is not going to make it if it’s more than a decade old...............
Sounds like the exact same mentality at that hospital.
Majority muslim countries do not have a good track record in:
1.) Maintaining military equipment
2.) Training effectively in individual and unit tactics.
(This is a total IQ failure on the part of muslims everywhere.)
A testament to Russian munitions.
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Tanks are subject to the competitive cheetah-antelope balance of survival skills. TOW and shoulder rockets signal an ever-tightening theater niche for armored vehicles.
This is one of two articles on FR today about the Leopard II. The second one is at: https://warisboring.com/germanys-leopard-2-tank-was-considered-one-of-the-best-until-it-went-to-syria/ The ‘War is Boring’ article provides a good discussion of good and bad points for the Leo II, it is worth reading versus the DM article that only has good photographs.
If I remember correctly the Leo II was fielded during the early 80’s when we had M-60A3’s in Germany and were slated to begin receiving the first M-1’s in 1986. It is more of a contemporary with the T-72.
I am not a tank guy, but I think that some of the older types (obviously not something as old as an M60 or something like that) can be upgraded in various ways to make them more survivable, but...
There seem to be a lot of weapons on the battlefield that make tanks seem fairly vulnerable on their own...
Heck. The battlefield today in a contested environment makes everything and everyone vulnerable, it seems...
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