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To: meatloaf
It looks like tanks are as obsolete as battleships with the literally thousands of anti-tank weapons like Javelins that have flooded into Ukraine.

Yes, it'd really be an interesting turn of events of modern man-portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons have finally become so effective and commonplace as to negate both armor and close air support on the battlefield. That pushes things back to the WWII level... riflemen, high-altitude bombing and, if it can be brought into range, artillery.

One thing I've noticed, though, in this strangest of Russian military excursions: we're not seeing much of their newest hardware (apart from some AK-12 sightings, that is the recently adopted Kalashnikov update). Tanks, APCs and helicopters all seem to be a generation or so old. Makes the entire thing feel like less than a maximum effort.

30 posted on 03/12/2022 10:43:02 PM PST by Charles Martel (Progressives are the crab grass in the lawn of life.)
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To: Charles Martel

There are very few of the latest tech. There are only 50 or so of the T-14’s and even the T-90 is mainly for export, Russia seems to have made only 500 or so for itself. And so on for everything else they have. That’s why the predominant tanks they have been using are upgraded T-72’s and T-80’s.

Their standing army is also rather small and has to cover commitments across an enormous area. As it is they seem to have committed about 1/3 of its manpower and maybe up to half its combat “teeth” units to Ukraine. The bulk of Russian military potential is in its conscript reservists, but they don’t seem to have set that system up for easy or quick mobilization. And their reserve equipment would be even older, unupgraded 1970’s-80’s stuff that may take some doing to get into running order. We are already seeing some of that equipment showing up on Russian videos, ironically. Russia can win by swamping the Ukes Soviet style, but it will take an effort.


49 posted on 03/13/2022 1:18:46 AM PST by buwaya
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