Posted on 01/16/2023 9:17:15 PM PST by RomanSoldier19
he United Kingdom isn’t just sending Ukraine a small batch of surplus Challenger 2 tanks. It’s planning to donate hundreds of armored vehicles and self-propelled howitzers. Enough equipment for a whole brigade.
But the Russian government knows this—and it’s planning to spoil the Ukrainian offensive with an offensive of its own.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Considering the retards in the Russian Ministry of Defense have already begun claiming to have destroyed armor that hasn’t even arrived in Ukraine yet, along with wiping out all 4 of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and all of Ukraine’s Death Stars, I suspect their “plan” is a bunch of PR bulls*it.
What will the UK have left?
Its army is already at its smallest in 200 years.
yes
Sending British Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine will weaken UK, general warns
British Challenger 2 tanks will “burn just like the rest” when they are sent to Ukraine, Russia warned today, as the Kremlin ...
The Times
10h
Did I read they’re going to send a whopping 14 (fourteen) tanks?
Are they f’ing kidding?
It is useless to throw good armor into the fight without the combined arms level of support for those tanks. Infantry as the eyes and ears, artillery and drones, and especially air support.
Plus the logistical chain to keep them rolling. Total waste.
Hundreds? Don’t think so.
The British army is 3/4 the size of the USMC and has no Divisions, only regiments.
The plan might be for a refitted Russian army to wait until the Ukrainian army attacks—and then counterattack with superior force. “Russian forces may seek to successfully defeat a Ukrainian counteroffensive and deprive Ukraine of the initiative by destroying a significant proportion of mechanized Ukrainian forces,” ISW explained.
Read somewhere, maybe here, that UK had more generals than tanks. Not sure they can spare any tanks.
6,485 Leopard tanks
In total, 6,485 Leopard tanks have been built, of which 4,744 were battle tanks and 1,741 were utility and anti-aircraft variants, not including 80 prototypes and pre-series vehicles. In service: 1965–present
What is that? Villa claimed, and many believed he was right, that if only one kind of rifle had ever been invented he would have won the revolution.
Instead he had to contend with men showing up bearing their own arms -- dozens of different types. Different parts, different ammunition, different repairs required, etc. A logistic nightmare.
Ukraine is getting into the same situation. But with much more complex arms than just rifles. A few tanks from the UK, a few different ones from Poland, and maybe a few more from the US. All requiring different supply trains, different training for the troops, etc. And not all are as capable of fitting into and army of other types of tanks as NATO thinks.
The point of the article is that the UK is sending a whole brigades worth of equipment, and one presumes this includes support vehicles and equipment. Britain has also been training Ukrainian troops for years now. I expect a good number of them have been trained to support some or all that British stuff. 14 tanks is rather light armored support for a brigade, but Britain is rather short of them especially.
‘Hundreds? Don’t think so.”
Most of the British armored vehicles are Technicals with a slightly reinforced windshield.
Its pretty bad in the case of light armored vehicles.
Artillery ammo is not that bad, because of NATO standardization, so the western stuff is only 155mm and 105mm. Mortar ammo is usable even on ex-Soviet mortars, so much less of an issue. Small arms are either western or Soviet. So they come in five ammo types - 5.45x39 Soviet, 5.56x45 NATO, 7.62x39 Soviet, 7.62x51 NATO, 7.62x53R Soviet. Not good, but not THAT bad.
Up to this point the tanks have been basically ex-Soviet, so not really a support problem.
Worst diversity problems in Ukraine -
- Light armor - Humvees, M113, MRAP, FV103, ACSV, Sisu, M1117, Bushmaster, etc.
- AT RPGs - I count about a dozen types. To be fair, Ukraine had quite a mix to start with.
- ATGMs - I count nine types.
- Automotive part of several western SPG’s. The ammo is standard, but the vehicle part is not.
Good article about how, when Ukraine gets modern tanks, the Russians could plan a tank battle.
The unknowns are many though:
1. On the Ukrainian side, would they actually do this
2. On the Russian side
2.1. how effective would raw conscripts really be? Even in the Soledar instance it was Wagner conscripted prisoners thrown in body waves that pushed forward and that too not by much
2.2. how effective would Russian logistics be? They have been bad throughout this war and there is little to show that they have improved
2.3. Russian military factories have supplied non-electronic weapons, but sporadically and they have had breakdowns due to lack of equipment needed (supplied by Western firms).
So a lot of unknowns.
This isn’t Ukraine “going downhill” - not yet. We need to wait and see how things look by the end of March to make any statement.
One thing this war has shown - right from the outset - is that short and medium term (short = 1 month, medium = 1 to 3 months) predictions on all sides have failed.
Russia in May destroyed 20 of the Ukrainian HIMARS (which Ukraine received in July).
They also made the Moskva into an underwater missile cruiser.
They also sneakily destroyed their own ammunitions and troops by telling Ivan to smoke there.
Rossiya stronk!
1. the UK has 227 challenger tanks. Giving 7% of those tanks to fight the only land enemy the UK and EU face is not “weakening the UK”.
1.1. Let’s face facts - no way is Russia (or any other country for that matter) going to have a land war ON British soil in the next 20 years (beyond that predictions are impossible imho).
1.2. Though the UK would fight land wars in other areas of its interests - most notably continental Europe and perhaps the Middle East. In that case, the 227-14 = 213 tanks are pretty good combined with their air power and superior logistics. Plus they would be fighting alongside France, Poland, Sweden etc. who have pretty good stocks.
2. “Will burn just like the rest” — despite Russian claims of destroying 20 of the 16 HIMARS in Ukraine, they still fire on Putin’s army. the “burn just like the rest” means “will not burn at all”
14 top grade tanks can hold their own against larger numbers of bad quality tanks.
Russia — looking at its operations - seems to have lost 1,450 of its 3000 (in total all over Russia) tanks. This also points out to their quality AND the bad quality of troop training and logistics/support.
14 tanks used effectively in formation with other military weapons can be more than a match for even much larger numbers of Russian operated Russian tanks
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