Replies

oh! I didn’t know that! I assumed Russia took out the Ukraine Airforce on day 1. I never hear anything about air battles and such in the news about the war.

They did but we've provided Ukraine with effective ground-air defense systems.

It's why Kiev doesn't look like Grozny. Russia can't risk losing aircraft which are an integral part of their nuclear deterrence.

I do have to wonder how effective these 200 tanks will be without trained maintenance crews. I work in Naval Aviation. A squadron of six helicopters has about 200 maintainers doing work round the clock to keep them flying. Not to mention the countless scheduled and unscheduled inspections, high-time components that need to be replaced at regular intervals, and broken components that need to be replaced immediately

And to facilitate all of this maintenance requires countless specialized tools, calibrated test sets, tons of support equipment, and administrators with computers keeping track of all of it.

And the tests sets and support equipment has their own division of maintainers who's job it is to make sure all of this equipment is properly maintained.

Granted, tanks don't fly so I'd guess their maintenance needs aren't nearly as rigid as aircraft but still, they're multi-million dollar, highly technically advanced assets and they do need skilled, trained maintainers and regular spare parts.

It's not nearly as simple as "Here's 200 tanks! Good luck!" The logistics behind deploying these assets are extensive and unless Ukraine is going to drive these tanks back to Poland for maintenance, I just don't see how this can be a successful endeavor without NATO boots on the ground helping them out.

I just don’t see how this can be a successful endeavor without NATO boots on the ground helping them out.
——-
Sounds like you have been there done that. I have. The massive convoy of ammo, fuel, maintenance and support vehicles following a western tank company or even platoon is huge, and they usually ( depending on mission) are less than 30 miles behind.

This is going to be a HUGE embarrassment to the collective West.

"Granted, tanks don't fly so I'd guess their maintenance needs aren't nearly as rigid as aircraft but still, they're multi-million dollar, highly technically advanced assets and they do need skilled, trained maintainers and regular spare parts."

I don't pretend to have any special knowledge, but it seems I recall US tanks using gas turbine engines. That would seem to involve a particular set of skills to maintain not easily found in Ukraine.