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Posted on 03/18/2024 5:37:36 PM PDT by Navy Patriot
The Ukrainian army is losing tank after tank as Vladimir Putin's Russian troops advance.
The example of a Challenger 2 tank is alarming.
Donbass - Little by little they are left behind on the battlefield of Ukraine: Western tanks that the treacherously invaded country received for its defensive battle against Russia.
Weapons for Ukraine: Challenger 2 main battle tanks have major weak points
The inventory of British Challenger 2 main battle tanks is also suffering seriously in the Ukraine war.
According to various media reports, as of mid-March, only seven of the steel giants are still operational.
To put it into perspective: London delivered 14 of the heavy battle tanks to Kiev last year.
However, these have ultimately proven to be too heavy in recent months due to adverse weather.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsrnd.com ...
I'm sure all is well!
They burn like all the others when hit from behind.
“They burn like all the others when hit from behind.”
Perhaps, but the extra 20 or so tons may make the UK Amalgamated Steelworkers Union happy, but it does cause them to sink in the mud before they even see combat.
“...it is Western tanks sent to Russia that are being lost....” being sent to Russia via Ukraine.
I read in a British paper (wish photos) last year that there is now a museum in or near Moscow of foreign tanks and other equipment captured in Ukraine in perfect condition.
Ah yes. I remember well the joys of trying to get a tank out of mud pits.
I like the ones where the drone drops a grenade down the tank’s hatch.
Kaboom!
“only seven of the steel giants are still operational.
To put it into perspective: London delivered 14 of the heavy battle tanks to Kiev last year.”
7 lost in a year?
Russia has been losing about 100 tanks per month since this invasion began, and replacing them with reconditioned older tanks out of storage.
The only supposedly “new” tanks being produced are T-90M models from a single factory (UralVagonZavod).
Last year (2023) they delivered a grand total of 44, but at least some of them have been shown to have been retrofitted T-90A models, out of the approximately 200 that were in Russian inventory before the 2022 invasion. No T-90A models have appeared on the battlefield in Ukraine. They apparently get some M variant upgrades applied, before they are sent to die.
Russia apparently cannot manufacture whole new tanks yet, or even breech blocks or barrels for their howitzers, because of basic lack of capacity for high strength steel production, which had been decommissioned. Howitzer storage yards have already fully emptied at some large Russian storage sites.
They can crank out lots of Artillery rounds with soft steel, and with explosives and propellants from their plentiful oil and gas, but for major combat platforms like tanks, Artillery, Attack Helicopters and Jets; they are rapidly burning through their inheritance from the old Soviet Union.
To be sure they are massacring each other,
.
“Ah yes. I remember well the joys of trying to get a tank out of mud pits.”
Geeze, almost forgot that myself!
You were in a tank unit?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_pressure
These tanks aren't getting "stuck in the mud," they're getting high-sided because they they're being driven down trails with ruts that are too deep because they're too heavily trafficked in the wet. The tanks are getting "beached" because their tub has run up onto the ridge between the rust. High-sided, same as any 4-wheeler on a deeply-rutted road.
The tankers are afraid to drive across open fields for fear of land mines, which they figure they're less likely to encounter on a well-worn trail.
The fact that they're getting high-sided is a foreseeable consequence of driving down a trail with standing water without taking precautions against this very possibility.
It's not the tank's fault that the tank commander is either an idiot or is deliberately disabling his vehicle.
And the reporters who write this drivel are in the same boat. They're either idiots of they're deliberately spreading misinformation.
Even more joyful if you break a track while you're unsticking it.
I certainly would like to get my hands on the idiot that cloned Abrams.
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