A couple of thoughts, given I am not a military tank expert.
Even if you dropped 1000 tanks or some other number of tanks into Ukraine today, it would take months to become competent in mobile tank warfare.
The parts, fuel and ammunition would also need to be delivered, plus several months of training before they can be used.
Throw in potential German and British tanks into the mix and I don’t see how Ukraine could possibly handle that mix of equipment, unless US personnel were manning those tanks.
From my (limited) understanding, the M1s are a logistical / maintenance hard road for the Ukrainians.
I wouldn’t be surprised if no maintenance takes place in Ukraine. Any ‘repairs’ and the M1 gets shipped out of the country.
Read the M1 uses jet fuel and not diesel like the Leopards.
It seems to me, the M1 deployment is mostly to entice the Germans and EU to send the Leopards.
Because of the weight of the M1s, they maybe confined to certain areas of the Ukrainian front lines.
What's the equivalent to Ebay for mil. eq?
All arrives just in time to be set up for the Spring offensive into the Crimea.
You know more than you think you do! Combined arms training in the US Army at the Battalion/Brigade level takes years of both field and classroom education. By the time an officer commands a battalion he usually has 15-20 years’ service. If they are training to just be ‘good enough’ to rolll out of the laager and come online long enough to plink a few Russian targets, it can be done more quickly by cutting corners.
Also, the tanks we might ‘loan’ them will almost certainly be ‘monkey models’ minus most of the sophisticated stuff, therefore easier to train. We’ve been down this road before training the Iraqi Army on the Abrams, and I’m sure we learned all the lessons we need to train these non-English speaking 3rd worlders just as well as the Iraqi’s (sarcasm alert).
Your assessment of logistics are also spot on. Military Classes of supply are very different from country to country. The only similarity may be the main gun ammo: standard NATO 120mm rounds should fit any NATO tank.
You were pretty close on the roles of the Americans on the battlefield. They won’t (by and large) be soldiers, rather, an army of contractors will maintain/repair and service the beasties. Some fun facts about the Abrams: Fuel Capacity: 503 gallons. It burns 5 gallons just to hit the starter. MPG: 0.6. Type of fuel: Generally JP-4 (mostly kerosene), but it is supposed to be a ‘multi-fuel’ engine so you can run diesel or regular gasoline, but all the fuel filters will have to be replaced each time they switch. Planning figures: 60 gallons per hour in the field and will need approximately 300 gal of fuel every eight hours. That’s just one tank. A US tank company consists of 14 tanks (and a bunch of other thirsty support vehicles).
The Leo and Chally units will face similar issues. If this happens, my faith in the senior leadership of the army will be completely crushed. They have to know this is a bad idea, (for many reasons) but no one will fall on their sword. And if they don’t know, then they don’t deserve to be in a position to risk American soldiers in a war that isn’t ours.
(Rant off) Cheers!
Zelensky, that grifting little weasel will sell the things to the highest bidder so his wife can go to Paris on a shopping spree.