[corlorde]

Yeah they don't have the reactive armor that we employ. But the problem is, these tanks are hard to operate. All the tankers I knew while I was in the Army trained non stop on these tanks, and they required lots of downtime and repair/refit after every training not to mention, combat mission. Very expensive to operate and also require a robust parts and maintenance schedule. I think giving Ukraine these tanks is bullshit.

[ansel12]

“””Yeah they don’t have the reactive armor that we employ. But the problem is, these tanks are hard to operate. All the tankers I knew while I was in the Army trained non stop on these tanks, and they required lots of downtime and repair/refit after every training not to mention, combat mission. Very expensive to operate and also require a robust parts and maintenance schedule. I think giving Ukraine these tanks is bullshit.”””

That was the controversy over sending them.
It will be interesting to see if Ukraine found a niche to make these tanks useful or if decision inertia and image pressure got them sent when it wasn’t practical to do so.