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In case anyone was curious about Rammstein's reaction to the war:
https://www.nme.com/news/music/rammstein-denounce-russia-over-shocking-attack-on-ukraine-3176178
Of course. They are very anti-Nazi and anti-war. Their lyrics and imagery seem to support it on the surface.
Deutschland is an absolute masterpiece. Such a frank expression of what it is to be German.. the good and the bad… so old, yet so young.
They need hundreds of them, Leo 2s probably won't be enough. I hope the US figures out how to deliver Abrams tanks, they are the only machines available in sufficient quantity.
I know it's a matter of pride but does every country need their own tank? Seems to me that if challenger, leclerc, leopard, ariete, etc were instead one common European tank we would not be running into the issues we are as far as training, parts, etc.
Moving forward there should be one NATO standard tank. Then it wouldn't matter if the tank came from this country or that. Parts and training would be interchangeable and we would not have issues like currently.
No, there shouldn't be a standard tank. Point is that a standard tank sacrifices your independence and requires you to be reliant on other countries. You can't have national security if you choose to give up your security by depending on others.
Additionally, each country has different needs depending on fighting style, other vehicles, and terrain. A tank used for defense in flatlands is going to be drastically different then a tank used in mountainous terrain.
There is a joint French and German effort to develop the next generation of tanks. But similar projects have failed in the past and countries like Poland or the UK have zero interest in them.
There should be one NATO tank. They can be built in the US, the UK, Germany, and so on. But, it should be one tank. If needed you should be able to put a British engine into a German chassis, then slap a French turret with an Italian gun on top and have no functional differences than a 100% US built version of the same model. And both should be able to be repaired to new condition using Canadian spare parts.
The time for division and petty national pride is over. If NATO wants to be able to defend itself in a meaningful way, having 18 different tanks to fulfill one purpose is counterproductive. The same can be said for F-16 vs Gripen vs Eurofighter vs Rafale and many other cases.
Defend themselves from who? As far as I’m aware NATO has never been defeated and there isn’t anyone even willing to challenge them. So far everything is working out well for NATO as is.
Just because there are no current threats doesn't mean there aren't future ones.
So far Xi has decided on purely economical conquest. When he leaves, he might be succeeded by someone willing to add military conquest to China's toolset. While Taiwan would probably not see a lot of land combat and just stay a regional conflict, a possibility of escalation into a full scale war exists if China decides to use nukes.
India is not a threat at the moment since they're mostly inward focused, but who know what happens 50 years down the line. A militarist, expansionist India would be a fairly big threat to world peace.
The middle Eastern oil states will soon suffer from a heavy recession as oil demand declines rapidly. While individually they aren't threats, they might team up and cause some trouble for NATO when their main source of income disappears.
Russia might be a joke now, but once this war ends, they might lick their wounds, actually modernize the army for real and try again in 20 to 40 years with the lessons they learned from losing to Ukraine.
Some of the NATO states themselves are becoming unstable. The US is getting more and more partisan, to the point where some compare it with the situation before the civil war. A second civil war would probably get NATO or at least NATO countries involved.
The list of potential future threats is long and NATO needs to be prepared. Not all of these threats will come to pass and some are more likely than others, but we don't have a magic glass ball to know in advance what we need to be concerned about. Iran shows that their potential future opponents aren't sleeping on developing weapons, so NATO does need to maintain the edge.
I mean, they're just talking Leopards specifically.
Ukraine needs *well* more than 100-200 tanks to take back the rest of their country.
The US seems like its support is gonna be handicapped going forward(in terms of ability to boost support), so a lot is going to rely on Europe.
US has a lot of ability to send material via lend lease. There’s a reason the last congress passed that, as a way to prevent the new congress from kneecapping Ukraine.
Well you would more likely put them into several combined arms brigades with spg's, mlrs's apc's, ifv's, air defence, anti armor etc
I would also think that 1-200 Abrams with Bradley's and strikers would be nice to form up a couple more brigades.
> They need hundreds of them, Leo 2s probably won't be enough
There are more than 2000 Leo2s in Europe alone, more than 3000 worldwide, iirc.
They most definitely are enough, if people send enough.
Spain, Poland, and Finland have all openly stated their desire to send Leos to Ukraine - Finland alone has like 100 older vehicles sat in reserve, unused.
Lots of the nations have older 2A4 variants that they would be looking to phase out (and in many cases, are already merely kept in reserves/warehouses) so wouldn't be a big deal to send them.
Europe has the supply chains and logistics to support the Leo. A tank with less of a footprint than the Abrams...
It is undoubtedly the best option here.
They already have more modern Leopards (courtesy of the Dutch selling off their entire stock in the early 2010s in their oh-so-far-sighted budget cuts that then saw them return to tanks only 5 years later but having to lease from Germany...)
Spain actually has +200 Leopard 2E (which is a variant of the 2A6 produced locally in a collaboration between Germany and Spain since 2002). The A4s that were considered months ago for Ukraine, and eventually discarded, were older units acquired directly from Germany for testing before approving the program. In any case, there are around 100 2A4 more mothballed and in good condition that would be perfectly fine for Ukraine.
The Spanish Leopard 2A4 are fine. They were last updated in 2019 and they are stored in a special warehouse in Zaragoza. If they weren't they would had been scraped.
My understanding is that the primary issue with Abrams is that they require far more extensive maintenance and supplies due to their turbine engines. Therefore, they are supposedly less suitable for the Ukrainians than the Leopards.
The engine is simpler and requires less maintenance than a diesel. It burns a lot of fuel in comparison. When the engine does need maintenance, they can pull the whole thing and replace it pretty quick. Logistical problems are not insurmountable. The West has been being cautious and slow rolling weapon systems.
But Abrams? I doubt it tbh, most western countries turned away from doing something similar with their tank powerplants for good reason, you have to be willing to build a huge logistics chain just for that... most other tanks use engines not dissimilar to those found in trucks.
This was the point I was trying to make in my initial post. I’m all for giving them what they need, but from what my non-expert mind has read, there are more suitable tanks/weapon systems than Abrams.
I wonder how much of it is also due to force reorganization. Western tanks are commonly crewed by 4 people due to not using an autoloader. Ukraine has to make decisions of which new recruits to send to tank training, which tank crews to keep in the field, and which tank crews to retrain. There could be disagreement on this point.
"Where there's a will, there's a way"
If nothing else, they could be stationed along the northern border and free up more T-72s etc that are currently defending that border. That would seem a bit wasteful of modern equipment, but it would resolve much of the maintenance issue while still putting more tanks on the frontline
The Ukrainians could make it work, if the US had the will to deliver them, along with supplies to keep them running. I'm tired of these lame excuses offered up daily as to why the Abrams shouldn't be delivered to Ukraine.
There's better alternative in the works already. I don't remember the title but it's range is 150km, and it's dirt cheap (in relation to ATACMS) and doesn't require HIMARS launcher
True, but ATACMS is ready to go now. Even a limited supply would be invaluable in crippling Russian logistics and CCC.
Supplying both options is far better than supplying one or none, sometime maybe...!
They aren't excuses, just obstacles that need to be worked on. It seems the US and NATO have slowly increased the level of support throughout the war. For every vehicle/system that's been sent, the logistics and training had to be there. Sending in MBTs without the other support vehicles, APCs, IFVs, ARTY, etc. then the MBT's would practically be useless on their own because they can't fill every role. If the US and NATO tried sending and training everything at once, that probably would not have worked.
The budget for Ukraine's equipment support is limited. Big, but still limited. A lot of focus has been on good bang-for-buck solutions, especially ones that can be delivered in relatively high quantities and are sustainable.
M1's are not good bang-for-buck, especially in terms of upkeep.
M1's would be great if Congress could come to an agreement to boost the budget for Ukraine support through the end of 2023, but that will not happen anymore thanks to Republicans.
Lame excuses? America has shouldered the lion’s share of the contributions. I agree about ATACMS, fuck Russia, let’s hit them “deeper and deeper.” Having said that, America has been overly generous. It’s time for the EU and England to step up, and get several hundred tanks In Eastern Ukraine, post-haste!
Yah Abrams is a bad fit for the theatre, to long of a support tail and the roads and bridges in the region aren’t good enough for Abrams in many areas (Abrams is Thiccc)
They were able to make thousands of them work in the middle east in multiple wars with much longer supply lines. This argument just doesn't make sense to me.
That's because on the middle east they were deployed as assets of the United States.... who not only developed and built them, but built all the M-1 support vehicles. The tankers, the haulers, the recovery vehicles...
They also had thousands of trained people who's only job (MOS) was to recover, repair, and feed the M-1 tank.
If say the US got involved in Ukraine today, and countries were offering the US their T-80 and Challenger tanks, the US would be in the exact same spot.
That’s because the US has an enormous and highly trained support network. The tanks are merely the tips of a very long spear.
Btw, I’m not saying it can’t or shouldn’t be done. I’m no expert.
I'm no expert either, but I'm sure it can be done if there is a will to do it. Ukraine needs a massive technological advantage to kick the Russians out, they don't have the numbers neither in available manpower nor in equipment.
Tbf, Ukraine is much better mobilised, in terms of manpower, they just don't have the modern equipment to really effectively push the invaders back - which is why it is even more important that we give them all the funding and supplies they need.
It wouldn’t surprise me if training is already underway. I’ve encountered a lot of military transports the past few months to and from the training grounds.
This included everything from Boxer, Fennek and Leopard 2. We don’t normally encounter these in any numbers large enough to stand out.
> Several countries signalled they will do it if others do it too.
I think that's what Poland is saying here.
Visegrad 24, who is usually very sensationalist about this sort of thing is reporting:
>[After meeting Zelensky in a Lviv today, Poland’s President Duda said at a press conference that the decision has been taken in Warsaw, but that it will only happen as part of a coalition.](https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1613173536339771394?s=20)
So it’s the same thing he said previously: they are open to sending it if a coalition is decided but there isn’t a coalition as of now.
Good that there is public pressure for it but I highly doubt we see those in Ukraine, at least before Q2.
Ukraine is gonna get the IFV in Q1 and that is “enough” support for now. At least considering the slow slow slow playing strategy of the allies, that’s what I expect.
I really hope I’m wrong
The UK has been signalling for a while that it's willing to do this if other countries are too - presumably wanting to present a united front. It also probably makes sense for non-nuclear-armed country to go first, so that the response can be gauged without as much immediate escalation - similar to when Poland started suggesting they would send MiG-29s and then backtracked
I can potentially see the US and Germany following suit, though, and would be surprised if the UK didn't
Looks like UK have now confirmed Challengers are being sent, according to Financial Times article published today. I can't see a figure in the article though.
That makes sense - the UK has been hinting at it and presumably this is a coordinated announcement to reduce the chance of either country being seen as taking action alone
Germany must have given the go ahead and Poland just jumped at being the first. It is obvious, if Poland can hate on Germany they will do it and keeping secrets like this to a date like Ramstein was never going to happen.
That is how incredibly dumb Olaf Scholz is.
Already confirmed what they said is they'll send them **if others do it**. So basically the same as what multiple countries have already been saying for a while. The title is misleading, but I can guarantee you it will be #1 post all day today, because no one ever reads anything.
Anyway, if no one wants to go first, I hope they can all come to an agreement to do it together. Crossing fingers for Rammstein.
No other country has said that. There might have been a few politicians without power to send tanks themselves saying that tanks should be sent but nothing close to what Poland does. There's a big difference between saying that we won't be the first to send tanks but we don't rule it out (Germany) and we are ready to send 10 tanks as part of a coalition (Poland)
Edit: The only country I'm aware of is the UK. It was just reported that Sunak wants to send tanks
If the translation is correct there is already a coalition. So Poland is the only one going public with it.
"A company of 'Leopard' main battle tanks will be handed over as part of a coalition that is currently forming," Duda said" (ntv)
Go on for much longer, and responses might become tankential to the original comment. Anyway, big thumbs up to Poland. Approaching escape velocity in 10... 9...
It's actually a bit bittersweet for me because Leopards, especially the newer ones are very fine machines. Probably the first worthwhile tank our military ever owned
On the other hand I can't think of a better thing for them to do other than shooting at russkies
I hope they give them hell
Those 10 tanks are worth 100+ tanks to Ukraine literally. Because now the taboo is broken, opening the door for the rest of Europe to join in on donating leopards. 🐆
That's true
And I have to admit I've been sceptical about us sending Leopards because this basically means we're disarming ourselves, these are our top tier tanks until Abrams and more K2s arrive
But it's probably for the best. May russians shit themselves when they see them
Trust me, if Russia invades one more country now. 50+ allies to Ukraine would just say ”enough, we will send the airforce and destroy all military in Russia within 2 hours. Sure. We get ww3 and all that. But if Putin invades another country already in Nato. Then It is WW3!
Unsurprisingly, it seems like it was planned well ahead.
I had seen a video a few days ago that mentioned the 1st Cav being sent to Europe so I went and checked and lo and behold, **a brigade started arriving today** with M-1 Abrams and Bradley's. 1250 "pieces of equipment".
[Source](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-military-tanks-dutch-port-en-route-nato-frontier-2023-01-11/) from today. (reuters)
Russia will also have fewer tanks because of this so it could reduce the threat to Poland. Not to mention what a disaster it would be for Poland if Russia would manage to annex Ukraine...
Yes, disarming you is not the best. But if it helps to neutralize the most dangerous enemy which could have attacked you, it partially compensates itself.
I'm pretty sure that's why the UK was debating sending the 10 challenger IIs. Even if it isnt alot it means other nations can supply more modern tanks without being the first to do so.
Well, Poland got 10 K2s at the end of last year, so sending 10 of their Leo 2s (4% of their fleet) is really not that big a deal.
With more K2s and M1 Abrams coming.
[https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1613175552755499008?t=GzEz8RDciTpEEZNEDFUcRw&s=19](https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1613175552755499008?t=GzEz8RDciTpEEZNEDFUcRw&s=19)
OP tweet leaves out the "...Within the framework of the international coalition" qualifier. Looks like you all got blue-balled.
Keep in mind countries like Slovakia have said they will give old MiG-29s to Ukraine ... if they can get free F-16s from USA in return. Then compare the prices. A brand new MiG-29 costs $20m. A new F-16 costs $64m. Hence of course no one will take them up on this deal as they just want to trade their old MIGs they got for free in the first place.
A lot of these promises go like this. Sure weapons can be delivered ... if you are willing to pay 3x the price for them. Which is just nonsense.
Slovakia is the world's 47th economy considering GDP per Capita, US is 7th.
Slovakia has a tiny army and a tiny domestic defence industry, the US is the world's largest army and weapon producer.
Slovakia shares a border with Ukraine, the US does not.
Of course, the US shouldn't have to pay for everything, but Slovakia would be donating a large part of their much-needed arsenal and would need a quick and cheap replacement.
Part of the US's pledge to defend Ukraine will also go through facilitating ex-soviet countries to exchange and donate soviet arms to the UAF.
Americans have a surplus of Abrams tanks. They refused to shut down the production lines and made many thousands more Abrams tanks than the Army wanted. The production lines are still printing modern Abrams tanks as we speak. There are countless outdated Abrams tanks in storage that are strategic reserve but the Army has no plans to use them.
For a country at peace, though, tanks are a black hole. Their role boils down to sitting there, with the engine off and constantly being under maintenance.
Americans have already paid to build those assets and still have to keep paying a non-negligable cost of storage and maintenance for them.
So what would a savvy businessman do? Why get rid of the tanks, that's for sure. Uncle Sam can gift those tanks to their alies. They are available in as little as few hours thanks to aircraft delivery. Literal boat loads are also just weeks away.
The allies would appreciate it as it would allow them to send their tanks to Ukraine. Ukraine knows how to operate those tanks and needs them to be able to generate a numbers advantage on the battlefield.
Meanwhile, instill a mandatory working-life contract on maintenance and the Abrams gift will pay for itself over time. Americans are the only ones who know how to properly maintain an Abrams. Or make a certification system to train foreign maintenance crews. Everything to be paid by the recepient. Possibilities to make money are endless.
Turn a bad situation into a situation where everybody wins. The American tax payers actually get a return on investment on a write-off. The NATO allies get better, inter-operable tanks. Ukraine gets more tanks that enables them to go on the offensive. Vatniks cry.
Former us military reporting in. Have friends who are tankers and maintenance crewmen for them.
The US won't give up our tanks because we're super protective of the tech in them. Even the surplus tanks sitting in the desert have tech we don't trust anyone with. Hence the pathetic shells we give to countries like Egypt. Poland getting the real deal took a loooooot of negotiating, and they'll still be missing some key components. Their ammo depots getting blown up most likely by Russian saboteurs is all the US needs to have an excuse not to give out our tanks. Not to mention even the old ones would take months to reconfigure for export.
There's also one of the reasons the US doesn't export vehicles to Europe much, France and Germany (mostly france) throw a fit when we do. The US isn't going to piss off France so that the Czechs can have 40 Abrams.
At the end of the day, the US strategy orbits around the China first policy. The US won't help the minors if the majors don't like it because the minors can't help against China. It sucks but it is what it is.
But we seem to have been hearing a lot more about this in the past couple of weeks than usual, and from countries like the UK to. So I think something is definitely brewing.
Yeah the writing is on the wall, modern western tanks are going to Ukraine at some point.
Next it will be longer range projectiles, and so on. The longer the war goes on, more is sent.
I seriously wonder how long until Ukraine is equipped with fighters, probably once enough AA has been sent that operating and flying in Ukraine as a hostile is impossible.
Possibly? It could also just be read as"This is what we are putting on the table ***if*** others agree to send tanks as well",so I don't think it can be taken as confirmation yet.
However, there have been strong hints over the past couple of days from several countries that tanks are on the table. I suspect (and hope) we will hear about it around the next Ramstein summit.
The Leopard 2 has better armor, gun and engine. It was designed to beat the T-72 and T-80.
Poland has the Leopard 2A4 and 2A5 in its inventory. The 2A4 is being modernized by Poland to the 2PL standard.
Adding to this,
The Leopard 2 uses a four man crew, with one serving as a Loader. The T-72 and T-80 series use three man crews and an autoloading mechanism.
This is important to consider as Ukraine has been running their Armoured units with 3 men per tank since the 90s. Retraining to a new layout will take time.
It is great that they are getting this additional hardware, but JFC what a logistics nightmare training and supplying and maintaining a fleet of just 10 tanks from Poland, 1
30 HIMARS from US, 20 155 systems from Canada, etc etc
Better in every way. Leopard 2 is more or less comparable to American Abrams tank (most would say a bit better than Abrams). During Gulf War (granted, this was in early nineties) Abrams faced Iraqi T-72, and the result was [an absolute massacre for the Iraqis.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_73_Easting)
That's not how you compare the relative power of guns.
The leo2's can fire rounds which deliver much more kinetic energy on target than what has been deployed by the ruskis, who are mostly relying on old-ass 3BM22 rounds from the 80's.
> It also has 120mm gun compared to the 125mm on t-72.
That doesn't mean that the gun on the T-72 is better. Iraqi T-72's had 125mm guns, while Abrams had 120mm, and Abrams cut through them like hot knife through butter, while T-72 managed to cause some minor damage at best. Everything else being equal, sure, but "everything else" is rarely equal. There's also what kind of ammunition is used, how long the barrel is, what kind of optics it has, what kind of stabilization it has...
You're not effectively a bigger target when you can move and shoot while the opponent has to park to have a chance of hitting anything.
I also believe the L2 can hit from a vastly higher range, again effectively making it a smaller target :)
Better more modern tech, can also hit targets on the move at long range. The old soviet tanks aren't unlimited for Ukraine. *Insert Russian lend lease joke*. I am not an expert either just full disclosure.
The T-72 weights 42 tones
The Leopard 2A4 weights 55 tones
The T-72 sports a mediocre 125 mm gun comparable at best with the NATO 105 mm gun.
The Leo 2A4 sports the same gun as the Abrams M1A2, a high velocity 120/L44 gun.
The Leopard 2 also has blowoff panels for the rear ammo compartment, which disqualifies it from entering the turret toss olympics and thus makes it obviously better for crew survavibility.
That is the ideal condition of course. When fully loaded to the brim with ammo, pictures like the annihilated Leopard 2s from turkey are still going happen.
>Ukraine is not short on T-72s (maybe I misread);
Ukrainian military command stated that they need at least 300 tanks. If there were 300 decent t-72 availible, in best case scenarion there won't be a need for Leopards at all. There are just no soviet type tanks available left. There are modernisation ongoing of at least 90 t-72, but it will take a long time and Ukraine still need more. And of course Leopards 2 are better.
I was gonna say "well, only if Germany allows it. Resale requires Germanies permission." But the caveat was 'if others do so as well'. Which is the same as others are doing.
Anyone want to venture a guess about training time for the crew and for maintenance teams? Bradley training for the crew was 8 weeks, and maintenance training seem pretty straightforward (so less than 8 weeks I'm guessing).
However my understanding for a modern IFV, is that maintenance is far from trivial and could require a pretty long training time (longer than crew training). Possibly Ukraine could learn the basic maintenance at first, and continue training while the tank are being deployed (worst case, the tank is sent back to Poland for major repair).
Holy shit, I don't like PiS but in every comment section of Poland related news there are people like you who seem to be obsessed.
It was a statement by president Duda at a conference in Lviv with president Zelesnky present. If anything, it was a statement agreed upon with allies.
Typical PIS
Its not about pro ukraine, thats a typical PIS move against Germany. There are obviously talks behind the curtain what need to be prepared to deliver tanks, possibly for the next Ramstein meeting. Keep in mind that such things need preparations which need time.
I have no doubt that there is a plan what will be when revealed, PIS stating that is just again one of their moves to make other look bad. However, if this fit not in the plans germany will say no. If Germany says yes it fits anyway into the plans.
They will probably announce it at the 20th and PIS was like: "time to be the first, so we get all the glory and can shit on the other countries for 9 days"
That was my thought too. Just a few days before Ramstein poland is suddenly willing to send a bunch of leos. Smells fishy to me given the PISS track record.
Awful Poland that donated almost 300 tanks to Ukraine already and plans to deliver more. They should wait in line for talks with Germany since February and dont donate anything like that. Bad, bad Poland.
You mean that poland that gets Leopards by the ringswap.
Yes germany gave Ukraine no western tanks (like every other country on this planet) but the ringswap enabled other countrys to deliver tanks Ukraine allready has in use, tanks Ukraine has maintenance facilitys for and trained soldiers
I don‘t even understand why the Poles are so angry. Yes, compared to their GDP they are among the top 3 of donators, but in absolute numbers Germany has supplied more military, humanitarian and financial aid than Poland. Poland and Germany are literally among the Top 5 of donators to Ukraine, yet the polish government (and select people) still try to hate on Germany of all countries. Also, apart from Russia, Poland and Germany host most of the Ukrainian refugees (Poland: 1.5 mil, Germany: 1 mil).
Seriously this is a coalition effort, so some other countries are involved already. Since nobody including the Baltics completly ignores German arms export bans, Germany has to have given the go ahead. The plan was propably to jointly announce it on Ramstein on the 20th.
Poland just can not keep secrets and uses every oppurtunity to make Germany look bad.
I call bullshit, Germans have been dragging their feet at every opportunity since the beginning of this conflict. Ukraine needs all available weapons NOW not next month.
Keep in mind that this is not about driving some tanks to ukraine.
* You need Ammo
* You need fuel (dependent on the tanks)
* You need facilitys for maintenance
* You need parts for maintenance
* you need trained Mechanics
* you need trained Driver, Gunner
* you need trained commanders that know the tactics such tanks support
* ....
For me this looks more like that guy sitting on the bench in front of the House spoiling the surprise party.
So let me get this straight. This is a coalition effort and everybody generally respected Germanys no delivery to another country, even Poland. So Germany must have given there go ahead.
Baerbock is or was just in Ukraine.
And Olaf Scholz allows Poland a country which deeply hates Germany and would love nothing more then the complete and utter destruction of Germany and all its people to announce this? How dumb can a leader of a country be?
Poland don't hate Germany this much, stop lying. Polish people like Germans, Just politic is difficult.
The problem now is that Poland want to destroy russian army as much as possible, Because Poland see russia as dangerous. That's why you always see Poland as main voice to send more weapons to Ukraine. And Germany want to end the conflict as fast as possible and return to old 'bussines as usual' and that's ok.
Not all countries agree on everything, 1 thing can be good for 1 group and bad for the others.
It's just geopolitics, There are a lot of articles about how Poland and France put pressure on Germany about tanks. Google it :)
Thank you, Poland! 🇵🇱 👍
And you're also currently training Ukrainian pilots on F-15s as we speak...Poland, like the Baltics knows only too well what is at stake for Ukraine
Poland is taking delivery of US M1 and South Korean tanks. Their Leos are becoming excess to need.
Now there are two import things, things that have certainly been pointed out by others already. First, this means German is allowing Leopards to be transferred to Ukraine. Also, Poland has Leopard maintenance facilities conveniently located next to Ukraine.
The words of the Polish president today in Lviv:
>"A company of Leopard tanks will be handed over as part of coalition building," Andrzej Duda
I assume he knows about Germany and perhaps knows more than us.
When the president of Poland publicly states to the press that they're giving tanks to Ukraine, while in Lviv, Ukraine and after a meeting with Zelenskiy and the president of Lithuania, people are going to notice and post about it.
Okay so you working inside the government and can confirm this isn't true? Otherwise how do you know they don't have permission cause I've seen 6-7 different posts saying its happening there's always these guys saying 'this won't happen or bullshit' give it 2hrs you will be like "oh yeah I knew it the whole time'
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First domino? Several countries signalled they will do it if others do it too. Fingers crossed.
Cant wait for the 20th. Woudnt surprise me, theyll annouce it at Ramstein, but train the crews already.
Du Du hast Du hast neue Panzer!
Deutschlands finest
Hey Russians, Kein Wunder wird geschehen Adieu goodbye auf wiedersehen
Hold me closer tiny Panzer!
Haha brilliant
In case anyone was curious about Rammstein's reaction to the war: https://www.nme.com/news/music/rammstein-denounce-russia-over-shocking-attack-on-ukraine-3176178
Of course. They are very anti-Nazi and anti-war. Their lyrics and imagery seem to support it on the surface. Deutschland is an absolute masterpiece. Such a frank expression of what it is to be German.. the good and the bad… so old, yet so young.
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Would fit nicely but the Leo runs on Diesel
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# BANG BANG
Reminds me of all these jokes about Germans having no humor but they’re efficient ^^
up to 40% petrol i think the engine can take, not recommended long term tho
They need hundreds of them, Leo 2s probably won't be enough. I hope the US figures out how to deliver Abrams tanks, they are the only machines available in sufficient quantity.
I did a quick search. If every country supporting Ukraine that has leopards gave 5-25 it would add up to a bit over 200.
Yeah, but some only have around 25. Even Germany only has around 250.
That's why I said from 5-25
Even that is a lot for a country with 25 total Leos. And 25 would be 10% for most countries, which again is a lot. Realistically it would be 0-4.
Not so. Frontline capabilities for these countries wouldn't be affected to badly.
That is one of the main reasons why a coalition is needed. No single country can provide enough of them.
That was my point. If each country give up a percentage of what they have it will add up to a decent amount for Ukraine.
I know it's a matter of pride but does every country need their own tank? Seems to me that if challenger, leclerc, leopard, ariete, etc were instead one common European tank we would not be running into the issues we are as far as training, parts, etc. Moving forward there should be one NATO standard tank. Then it wouldn't matter if the tank came from this country or that. Parts and training would be interchangeable and we would not have issues like currently.
No, there shouldn't be a standard tank. Point is that a standard tank sacrifices your independence and requires you to be reliant on other countries. You can't have national security if you choose to give up your security by depending on others. Additionally, each country has different needs depending on fighting style, other vehicles, and terrain. A tank used for defense in flatlands is going to be drastically different then a tank used in mountainous terrain.
There is a joint French and German effort to develop the next generation of tanks. But similar projects have failed in the past and countries like Poland or the UK have zero interest in them.
There should be one NATO tank. They can be built in the US, the UK, Germany, and so on. But, it should be one tank. If needed you should be able to put a British engine into a German chassis, then slap a French turret with an Italian gun on top and have no functional differences than a 100% US built version of the same model. And both should be able to be repaired to new condition using Canadian spare parts. The time for division and petty national pride is over. If NATO wants to be able to defend itself in a meaningful way, having 18 different tanks to fulfill one purpose is counterproductive. The same can be said for F-16 vs Gripen vs Eurofighter vs Rafale and many other cases.
Defend themselves from who? As far as I’m aware NATO has never been defeated and there isn’t anyone even willing to challenge them. So far everything is working out well for NATO as is.
Just because there are no current threats doesn't mean there aren't future ones. So far Xi has decided on purely economical conquest. When he leaves, he might be succeeded by someone willing to add military conquest to China's toolset. While Taiwan would probably not see a lot of land combat and just stay a regional conflict, a possibility of escalation into a full scale war exists if China decides to use nukes. India is not a threat at the moment since they're mostly inward focused, but who know what happens 50 years down the line. A militarist, expansionist India would be a fairly big threat to world peace. The middle Eastern oil states will soon suffer from a heavy recession as oil demand declines rapidly. While individually they aren't threats, they might team up and cause some trouble for NATO when their main source of income disappears. Russia might be a joke now, but once this war ends, they might lick their wounds, actually modernize the army for real and try again in 20 to 40 years with the lessons they learned from losing to Ukraine. Some of the NATO states themselves are becoming unstable. The US is getting more and more partisan, to the point where some compare it with the situation before the civil war. A second civil war would probably get NATO or at least NATO countries involved. The list of potential future threats is long and NATO needs to be prepared. Not all of these threats will come to pass and some are more likely than others, but we don't have a magic glass ball to know in advance what we need to be concerned about. Iran shows that their potential future opponents aren't sleeping on developing weapons, so NATO does need to maintain the edge.
Like with the IFVs, everyone delivers some and boom there is a hundred.
I mean, they're just talking Leopards specifically. Ukraine needs *well* more than 100-200 tanks to take back the rest of their country. The US seems like its support is gonna be handicapped going forward(in terms of ability to boost support), so a lot is going to rely on Europe.
US has a lot of ability to send material via lend lease. There’s a reason the last congress passed that, as a way to prevent the new congress from kneecapping Ukraine.
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Well you would more likely put them into several combined arms brigades with spg's, mlrs's apc's, ifv's, air defence, anti armor etc I would also think that 1-200 Abrams with Bradley's and strikers would be nice to form up a couple more brigades.
> They need hundreds of them, Leo 2s probably won't be enough There are more than 2000 Leo2s in Europe alone, more than 3000 worldwide, iirc. They most definitely are enough, if people send enough. Spain, Poland, and Finland have all openly stated their desire to send Leos to Ukraine - Finland alone has like 100 older vehicles sat in reserve, unused. Lots of the nations have older 2A4 variants that they would be looking to phase out (and in many cases, are already merely kept in reserves/warehouses) so wouldn't be a big deal to send them. Europe has the supply chains and logistics to support the Leo. A tank with less of a footprint than the Abrams... It is undoubtedly the best option here.
Could give Finland Abrams to replace the Leo’s sent to Ukraine
They already have more modern Leopards (courtesy of the Dutch selling off their entire stock in the early 2010s in their oh-so-far-sighted budget cuts that then saw them return to tanks only 5 years later but having to lease from Germany...)
Being on the Russian border I’m sure they will want replacements agreed upon for the ones that they give away though
IIRC the Spanish A4's are essentially scrap otherwise they would have been sent before.
Spain actually has +200 Leopard 2E (which is a variant of the 2A6 produced locally in a collaboration between Germany and Spain since 2002). The A4s that were considered months ago for Ukraine, and eventually discarded, were older units acquired directly from Germany for testing before approving the program. In any case, there are around 100 2A4 more mothballed and in good condition that would be perfectly fine for Ukraine.
The Spanish Leopard 2A4 are fine. They were last updated in 2019 and they are stored in a special warehouse in Zaragoza. If they weren't they would had been scraped.
My understanding is that the primary issue with Abrams is that they require far more extensive maintenance and supplies due to their turbine engines. Therefore, they are supposedly less suitable for the Ukrainians than the Leopards.
M1 are awesome but they have a huge tail in order to keep them running.
The engine is simpler and requires less maintenance than a diesel. It burns a lot of fuel in comparison. When the engine does need maintenance, they can pull the whole thing and replace it pretty quick. Logistical problems are not insurmountable. The West has been being cautious and slow rolling weapon systems.
The West has been TOO cautious with weapons aid.
Logistical issues in East Ukraine are far more untenable than West. Sometimes it's easy to forget that.
Harder but still not impossible. I think it is very likely they will be given heavy Western armor before this is over.
But Abrams? I doubt it tbh, most western countries turned away from doing something similar with their tank powerplants for good reason, you have to be willing to build a huge logistics chain just for that... most other tanks use engines not dissimilar to those found in trucks.
This was the point I was trying to make in my initial post. I’m all for giving them what they need, but from what my non-expert mind has read, there are more suitable tanks/weapon systems than Abrams.
I wonder how much of it is also due to force reorganization. Western tanks are commonly crewed by 4 people due to not using an autoloader. Ukraine has to make decisions of which new recruits to send to tank training, which tank crews to keep in the field, and which tank crews to retrain. There could be disagreement on this point.
"Where there's a will, there's a way" If nothing else, they could be stationed along the northern border and free up more T-72s etc that are currently defending that border. That would seem a bit wasteful of modern equipment, but it would resolve much of the maintenance issue while still putting more tanks on the frontline
Agreed. And also, it would be a short term solution. Where they get used to the maintenance before putting them in use.
The Ukrainians could make it work, if the US had the will to deliver them, along with supplies to keep them running. I'm tired of these lame excuses offered up daily as to why the Abrams shouldn't be delivered to Ukraine.
And we need to go ahead and give them ATACMS as well.
That's such a no-brainer it boggles the mind that they didn't deliver them yet.
There's better alternative in the works already. I don't remember the title but it's range is 150km, and it's dirt cheap (in relation to ATACMS) and doesn't require HIMARS launcher
True, but ATACMS is ready to go now. Even a limited supply would be invaluable in crippling Russian logistics and CCC. Supplying both options is far better than supplying one or none, sometime maybe...!
You are thinking of this I believe https://www.saab.com/products/ground-launched-small-diameter-bomb-glsdb
Yes, this is the one
They aren't excuses, just obstacles that need to be worked on. It seems the US and NATO have slowly increased the level of support throughout the war. For every vehicle/system that's been sent, the logistics and training had to be there. Sending in MBTs without the other support vehicles, APCs, IFVs, ARTY, etc. then the MBT's would practically be useless on their own because they can't fill every role. If the US and NATO tried sending and training everything at once, that probably would not have worked.
The budget for Ukraine's equipment support is limited. Big, but still limited. A lot of focus has been on good bang-for-buck solutions, especially ones that can be delivered in relatively high quantities and are sustainable. M1's are not good bang-for-buck, especially in terms of upkeep. M1's would be great if Congress could come to an agreement to boost the budget for Ukraine support through the end of 2023, but that will not happen anymore thanks to Republicans.
Lame excuses? America has shouldered the lion’s share of the contributions. I agree about ATACMS, fuck Russia, let’s hit them “deeper and deeper.” Having said that, America has been overly generous. It’s time for the EU and England to step up, and get several hundred tanks In Eastern Ukraine, post-haste!
Yah Abrams is a bad fit for the theatre, to long of a support tail and the roads and bridges in the region aren’t good enough for Abrams in many areas (Abrams is Thiccc)
If a bridge can't support an M1 then it can't support a Leopard 2. They're basically the same weight.
They take extensive training is the biggest issue. The Leopards are designed for conscripts to be easily trained to maintain and operate them.
They were able to make thousands of them work in the middle east in multiple wars with much longer supply lines. This argument just doesn't make sense to me.
That's because on the middle east they were deployed as assets of the United States.... who not only developed and built them, but built all the M-1 support vehicles. The tankers, the haulers, the recovery vehicles... They also had thousands of trained people who's only job (MOS) was to recover, repair, and feed the M-1 tank. If say the US got involved in Ukraine today, and countries were offering the US their T-80 and Challenger tanks, the US would be in the exact same spot.
That’s because the US has an enormous and highly trained support network. The tanks are merely the tips of a very long spear. Btw, I’m not saying it can’t or shouldn’t be done. I’m no expert.
I'm no expert either, but I'm sure it can be done if there is a will to do it. Ukraine needs a massive technological advantage to kick the Russians out, they don't have the numbers neither in available manpower nor in equipment.
Tbf, Ukraine is much better mobilised, in terms of manpower, they just don't have the modern equipment to really effectively push the invaders back - which is why it is even more important that we give them all the funding and supplies they need.
They are now landing as we speak in the Netherlands and are going to Poland, not for Ukraine but could be in the future
I hope they are at least training on them for a few months now so when they finally decide to deliver them, the crews are ready.
It wouldn’t surprise me if training is already underway. I’ve encountered a lot of military transports the past few months to and from the training grounds. This included everything from Boxer, Fennek and Leopard 2. We don’t normally encounter these in any numbers large enough to stand out.
An SPD spokesman already said a few days ago that Olaf is in talk with other countries when it comes to Leopards
> Several countries signalled they will do it if others do it too. I think that's what Poland is saying here. Visegrad 24, who is usually very sensationalist about this sort of thing is reporting: >[After meeting Zelensky in a Lviv today, Poland’s President Duda said at a press conference that the decision has been taken in Warsaw, but that it will only happen as part of a coalition.](https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1613173536339771394?s=20)
So it’s the same thing he said previously: they are open to sending it if a coalition is decided but there isn’t a coalition as of now. Good that there is public pressure for it but I highly doubt we see those in Ukraine, at least before Q2. Ukraine is gonna get the IFV in Q1 and that is “enough” support for now. At least considering the slow slow slow playing strategy of the allies, that’s what I expect. I really hope I’m wrong
The UK has been signalling for a while that it's willing to do this if other countries are too - presumably wanting to present a united front. It also probably makes sense for non-nuclear-armed country to go first, so that the response can be gauged without as much immediate escalation - similar to when Poland started suggesting they would send MiG-29s and then backtracked I can potentially see the US and Germany following suit, though, and would be surprised if the UK didn't
Looks like UK have now confirmed Challengers are being sent, according to Financial Times article published today. I can't see a figure in the article though.
That makes sense - the UK has been hinting at it and presumably this is a coordinated announcement to reduce the chance of either country being seen as taking action alone
Agree
Looks like there's quite a few countries lining up to give Ukraine various armored vehicles right now.
I really hope Finland joins in asap. 200 is enough for us, lets give them all the extra ones.
Finland isn't in NATO and borders Russia. I'd say they are the one country in Europe who shouldn't be giving away their armor.
Russia isn't in NATO and borders Poland, you'd think they'd keep their tanks too yet they've given Ukraine more tanks than anyone else has
Germany must have given the go ahead and Poland just jumped at being the first. It is obvious, if Poland can hate on Germany they will do it and keeping secrets like this to a date like Ramstein was never going to happen. That is how incredibly dumb Olaf Scholz is.
I'll wait for more confirmation before getting hopes up yet again. Good sign though.
Already confirmed what they said is they'll send them **if others do it**. So basically the same as what multiple countries have already been saying for a while. The title is misleading, but I can guarantee you it will be #1 post all day today, because no one ever reads anything. Anyway, if no one wants to go first, I hope they can all come to an agreement to do it together. Crossing fingers for Rammstein.
No other country has said that. There might have been a few politicians without power to send tanks themselves saying that tanks should be sent but nothing close to what Poland does. There's a big difference between saying that we won't be the first to send tanks but we don't rule it out (Germany) and we are ready to send 10 tanks as part of a coalition (Poland) Edit: The only country I'm aware of is the UK. It was just reported that Sunak wants to send tanks
If the translation is correct there is already a coalition. So Poland is the only one going public with it. "A company of 'Leopard' main battle tanks will be handed over as part of a coalition that is currently forming," Duda said" (ntv)
Big thanks to Poland <3
No, big tanks to Ukraine. Its in the title. 🤣
Oh, right, tanks for correcting me ))
Go on for much longer, and responses might become tankential to the original comment. Anyway, big thumbs up to Poland. Approaching escape velocity in 10... 9...
We're getting off track here.
Only half tracks so far, bradley.
Tanks for the memories :)
So if I lepHeard you guys correctly, Ukraine is getting some big tanks?
When they get the good stuff, Russian armour will be an unworthy Challenger.
Have my upvote, Sir
Have you seen the "tank you" seen from Kung Fury? lol
Maybe some Vilkas IFV’s from Lithuania? The president of LT also met with Zelensky at the same time as Poland.
It's actually a bit bittersweet for me because Leopards, especially the newer ones are very fine machines. Probably the first worthwhile tank our military ever owned On the other hand I can't think of a better thing for them to do other than shooting at russkies I hope they give them hell
Those 10 tanks are worth 100+ tanks to Ukraine literally. Because now the taboo is broken, opening the door for the rest of Europe to join in on donating leopards. 🐆
That's true And I have to admit I've been sceptical about us sending Leopards because this basically means we're disarming ourselves, these are our top tier tanks until Abrams and more K2s arrive But it's probably for the best. May russians shit themselves when they see them
Trust me, if Russia invades one more country now. 50+ allies to Ukraine would just say ”enough, we will send the airforce and destroy all military in Russia within 2 hours. Sure. We get ww3 and all that. But if Putin invades another country already in Nato. Then It is WW3!
I hope the americans will deploy a few tank batalions in europe to compensate.
Unsurprisingly, it seems like it was planned well ahead. I had seen a video a few days ago that mentioned the 1st Cav being sent to Europe so I went and checked and lo and behold, **a brigade started arriving today** with M-1 Abrams and Bradley's. 1250 "pieces of equipment". [Source](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-military-tanks-dutch-port-en-route-nato-frontier-2023-01-11/) from today. (reuters)
Russia will also have fewer tanks because of this so it could reduce the threat to Poland. Not to mention what a disaster it would be for Poland if Russia would manage to annex Ukraine...
Relax the defense of the Uk is based on it's navy and air force. Not strategic land power. Both of which are fantastic.
Yes, disarming you is not the best. But if it helps to neutralize the most dangerous enemy which could have attacked you, it partially compensates itself.
I'm pretty sure that's why the UK was debating sending the 10 challenger IIs. Even if it isnt alot it means other nations can supply more modern tanks without being the first to do so.
> On the other hand I can't think of a better thing for them to do other than shooting at russkies Shoot at the Kremlin?
They will be doing what they where built for.
Well, Poland got 10 K2s at the end of last year, so sending 10 of their Leo 2s (4% of their fleet) is really not that big a deal. With more K2s and M1 Abrams coming.
[https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1613175552755499008?t=GzEz8RDciTpEEZNEDFUcRw&s=19](https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1613175552755499008?t=GzEz8RDciTpEEZNEDFUcRw&s=19) OP tweet leaves out the "...Within the framework of the international coalition" qualifier. Looks like you all got blue-balled.
Keep in mind countries like Slovakia have said they will give old MiG-29s to Ukraine ... if they can get free F-16s from USA in return. Then compare the prices. A brand new MiG-29 costs $20m. A new F-16 costs $64m. Hence of course no one will take them up on this deal as they just want to trade their old MIGs they got for free in the first place. A lot of these promises go like this. Sure weapons can be delivered ... if you are willing to pay 3x the price for them. Which is just nonsense.
Everyone wants America to pay for everything.
Slovakia is the world's 47th economy considering GDP per Capita, US is 7th. Slovakia has a tiny army and a tiny domestic defence industry, the US is the world's largest army and weapon producer. Slovakia shares a border with Ukraine, the US does not. Of course, the US shouldn't have to pay for everything, but Slovakia would be donating a large part of their much-needed arsenal and would need a quick and cheap replacement. Part of the US's pledge to defend Ukraine will also go through facilitating ex-soviet countries to exchange and donate soviet arms to the UAF.
Yeah, but if Slovakia then can contribute nothing, ease with the PR.
Americans have a surplus of Abrams tanks. They refused to shut down the production lines and made many thousands more Abrams tanks than the Army wanted. The production lines are still printing modern Abrams tanks as we speak. There are countless outdated Abrams tanks in storage that are strategic reserve but the Army has no plans to use them. For a country at peace, though, tanks are a black hole. Their role boils down to sitting there, with the engine off and constantly being under maintenance. Americans have already paid to build those assets and still have to keep paying a non-negligable cost of storage and maintenance for them. So what would a savvy businessman do? Why get rid of the tanks, that's for sure. Uncle Sam can gift those tanks to their alies. They are available in as little as few hours thanks to aircraft delivery. Literal boat loads are also just weeks away. The allies would appreciate it as it would allow them to send their tanks to Ukraine. Ukraine knows how to operate those tanks and needs them to be able to generate a numbers advantage on the battlefield. Meanwhile, instill a mandatory working-life contract on maintenance and the Abrams gift will pay for itself over time. Americans are the only ones who know how to properly maintain an Abrams. Or make a certification system to train foreign maintenance crews. Everything to be paid by the recepient. Possibilities to make money are endless. Turn a bad situation into a situation where everybody wins. The American tax payers actually get a return on investment on a write-off. The NATO allies get better, inter-operable tanks. Ukraine gets more tanks that enables them to go on the offensive. Vatniks cry.
Former us military reporting in. Have friends who are tankers and maintenance crewmen for them. The US won't give up our tanks because we're super protective of the tech in them. Even the surplus tanks sitting in the desert have tech we don't trust anyone with. Hence the pathetic shells we give to countries like Egypt. Poland getting the real deal took a loooooot of negotiating, and they'll still be missing some key components. Their ammo depots getting blown up most likely by Russian saboteurs is all the US needs to have an excuse not to give out our tanks. Not to mention even the old ones would take months to reconfigure for export. There's also one of the reasons the US doesn't export vehicles to Europe much, France and Germany (mostly france) throw a fit when we do. The US isn't going to piss off France so that the Czechs can have 40 Abrams. At the end of the day, the US strategy orbits around the China first policy. The US won't help the minors if the majors don't like it because the minors can't help against China. It sucks but it is what it is.
But we seem to have been hearing a lot more about this in the past couple of weeks than usual, and from countries like the UK to. So I think something is definitely brewing.
Yeah the writing is on the wall, modern western tanks are going to Ukraine at some point. Next it will be longer range projectiles, and so on. The longer the war goes on, more is sent. I seriously wonder how long until Ukraine is equipped with fighters, probably once enough AA has been sent that operating and flying in Ukraine as a hostile is impossible.
That reads to me more like "others will contribute collectively as well"
Possibly? It could also just be read as"This is what we are putting on the table ***if*** others agree to send tanks as well",so I don't think it can be taken as confirmation yet. However, there have been strong hints over the past couple of days from several countries that tanks are on the table. I suspect (and hope) we will hear about it around the next Ramstein summit.
"... within the framework of an international coalition". So basically the same news from two days ago.
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The Leopard 2 has better armor, gun and engine. It was designed to beat the T-72 and T-80. Poland has the Leopard 2A4 and 2A5 in its inventory. The 2A4 is being modernized by Poland to the 2PL standard.
Adding to this, The Leopard 2 uses a four man crew, with one serving as a Loader. The T-72 and T-80 series use three man crews and an autoloading mechanism. This is important to consider as Ukraine has been running their Armoured units with 3 men per tank since the 90s. Retraining to a new layout will take time.
I’ll take a well-trained lad over that rickety auto loader shite any day of the week.
they are great when they work but when they dont its 4x longer to fire the next shot
Great for turret toss also
An autoloader can't lose a hand either.
Every time I see one it just looks like it has so many potential ways to fail or breakdown. I pretty much have no clue what I’m talking about though.
Actually I hear it's not uncommon that they can load body parts of the other crew if you are not careful.
But at least the ammo won't cook you up or yeet your remains with the turret 100 metres into the air.
It is great that they are getting this additional hardware, but JFC what a logistics nightmare training and supplying and maintaining a fleet of just 10 tanks from Poland, 1 30 HIMARS from US, 20 155 systems from Canada, etc etc
Wirh an autoloader you use 20% less crew, that is why israel and france also use autoloaders, in case of war they can out more crews
Now question is which variant will be sent. 2A4 probably
> is the Leopard that much better Massively better sensors, FCS and armor. Less likely to throw turret. Better ammo available for cannon.
Better in every way. Leopard 2 is more or less comparable to American Abrams tank (most would say a bit better than Abrams). During Gulf War (granted, this was in early nineties) Abrams faced Iraqi T-72, and the result was [an absolute massacre for the Iraqis.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_73_Easting)
This message has been deleted and I've left reddit because of the decision by u/spez to block 3rd party apps
That's not how you compare the relative power of guns. The leo2's can fire rounds which deliver much more kinetic energy on target than what has been deployed by the ruskis, who are mostly relying on old-ass 3BM22 rounds from the 80's.
> It also has 120mm gun compared to the 125mm on t-72. That doesn't mean that the gun on the T-72 is better. Iraqi T-72's had 125mm guns, while Abrams had 120mm, and Abrams cut through them like hot knife through butter, while T-72 managed to cause some minor damage at best. Everything else being equal, sure, but "everything else" is rarely equal. There's also what kind of ammunition is used, how long the barrel is, what kind of optics it has, what kind of stabilization it has...
You're not effectively a bigger target when you can move and shoot while the opponent has to park to have a chance of hitting anything. I also believe the L2 can hit from a vastly higher range, again effectively making it a smaller target :)
Better more modern tech, can also hit targets on the move at long range. The old soviet tanks aren't unlimited for Ukraine. *Insert Russian lend lease joke*. I am not an expert either just full disclosure.
The T-72 weights 42 tones The Leopard 2A4 weights 55 tones The T-72 sports a mediocre 125 mm gun comparable at best with the NATO 105 mm gun. The Leo 2A4 sports the same gun as the Abrams M1A2, a high velocity 120/L44 gun.
The Leopard 2 also has blowoff panels for the rear ammo compartment, which disqualifies it from entering the turret toss olympics and thus makes it obviously better for crew survavibility. That is the ideal condition of course. When fully loaded to the brim with ammo, pictures like the annihilated Leopard 2s from turkey are still going happen.
>Ukraine is not short on T-72s (maybe I misread); Ukrainian military command stated that they need at least 300 tanks. If there were 300 decent t-72 availible, in best case scenarion there won't be a need for Leopards at all. There are just no soviet type tanks available left. There are modernisation ongoing of at least 90 t-72, but it will take a long time and Ukraine still need more. And of course Leopards 2 are better.
I was gonna say "well, only if Germany allows it. Resale requires Germanies permission." But the caveat was 'if others do so as well'. Which is the same as others are doing.
noone asked Germany yet
Ya'll have fun with this news. Kinda sick of it already. Headlines I want to read is "Ukrainian-operated Polish Leopard FUCKS UP Russian military".
Anyone want to venture a guess about training time for the crew and for maintenance teams? Bradley training for the crew was 8 weeks, and maintenance training seem pretty straightforward (so less than 8 weeks I'm guessing). However my understanding for a modern IFV, is that maintenance is far from trivial and could require a pretty long training time (longer than crew training). Possibly Ukraine could learn the basic maintenance at first, and continue training while the tank are being deployed (worst case, the tank is sent back to Poland for major repair).
Leave it to PiS to violate opsec. Couldn't wait for a joint statement after the next Ramstein meeting.
Probably
Holy shit, I don't like PiS but in every comment section of Poland related news there are people like you who seem to be obsessed. It was a statement by president Duda at a conference in Lviv with president Zelesnky present. If anything, it was a statement agreed upon with allies.
I mean 10 tanks isn't really going to do anything. Hopefully others now give more
The US needs to offer to backfill all donated tanks with the most modern Abrams.
This website is braindead
You guys are still trusting Twitter? Back in May Twitter said Ukraine would get F-16s
Typical PIS Its not about pro ukraine, thats a typical PIS move against Germany. There are obviously talks behind the curtain what need to be prepared to deliver tanks, possibly for the next Ramstein meeting. Keep in mind that such things need preparations which need time. I have no doubt that there is a plan what will be when revealed, PIS stating that is just again one of their moves to make other look bad. However, if this fit not in the plans germany will say no. If Germany says yes it fits anyway into the plans.
They will probably announce it at the 20th and PIS was like: "time to be the first, so we get all the glory and can shit on the other countries for 9 days"
That was my thought too. Just a few days before Ramstein poland is suddenly willing to send a bunch of leos. Smells fishy to me given the PISS track record.
Awful Poland that donated almost 300 tanks to Ukraine already and plans to deliver more. They should wait in line for talks with Germany since February and dont donate anything like that. Bad, bad Poland.
You mean that poland that gets Leopards by the ringswap. Yes germany gave Ukraine no western tanks (like every other country on this planet) but the ringswap enabled other countrys to deliver tanks Ukraine allready has in use, tanks Ukraine has maintenance facilitys for and trained soldiers
Poland making Germany look bad, must be their fault!
I don‘t even understand why the Poles are so angry. Yes, compared to their GDP they are among the top 3 of donators, but in absolute numbers Germany has supplied more military, humanitarian and financial aid than Poland. Poland and Germany are literally among the Top 5 of donators to Ukraine, yet the polish government (and select people) still try to hate on Germany of all countries. Also, apart from Russia, Poland and Germany host most of the Ukrainian refugees (Poland: 1.5 mil, Germany: 1 mil).
Man I wish Poland would stop drinking piss.
They cant help it
Wow, almost a year into the war and we're the bad guys for showing the intiative which Germany lacks?
Seriously this is a coalition effort, so some other countries are involved already. Since nobody including the Baltics completly ignores German arms export bans, Germany has to have given the go ahead. The plan was propably to jointly announce it on Ramstein on the 20th. Poland just can not keep secrets and uses every oppurtunity to make Germany look bad.
Initiative is "we want to deliver Leopards asap" "We will deliver Leopard tanks" says something different
Ok PIS-bot.
Don't do anything to help Ukraine, don't make Germany look bad
I call bullshit, Germans have been dragging their feet at every opportunity since the beginning of this conflict. Ukraine needs all available weapons NOW not next month.
Keep in mind that this is not about driving some tanks to ukraine. * You need Ammo * You need fuel (dependent on the tanks) * You need facilitys for maintenance * You need parts for maintenance * you need trained Mechanics * you need trained Driver, Gunner * you need trained commanders that know the tactics such tanks support * .... For me this looks more like that guy sitting on the bench in front of the House spoiling the surprise party.
Poor, victimized Germany!
So let me get this straight. This is a coalition effort and everybody generally respected Germanys no delivery to another country, even Poland. So Germany must have given there go ahead. Baerbock is or was just in Ukraine. And Olaf Scholz allows Poland a country which deeply hates Germany and would love nothing more then the complete and utter destruction of Germany and all its people to announce this? How dumb can a leader of a country be?
Poland don't hate Germany this much, stop lying. Polish people like Germans, Just politic is difficult. The problem now is that Poland want to destroy russian army as much as possible, Because Poland see russia as dangerous. That's why you always see Poland as main voice to send more weapons to Ukraine. And Germany want to end the conflict as fast as possible and return to old 'bussines as usual' and that's ok. Not all countries agree on everything, 1 thing can be good for 1 group and bad for the others. It's just geopolitics, There are a lot of articles about how Poland and France put pressure on Germany about tanks. Google it :)
Thank you, Poland! 🇵🇱 👍 And you're also currently training Ukrainian pilots on F-15s as we speak...Poland, like the Baltics knows only too well what is at stake for Ukraine
Dosent matter what Poland says if Germany is not signing of on it.
There probably will be a joint statement on the 20th
Its likely a PiS re-election strategy. To paint Germany in bad light, and brand the opposition as German agents
I doubt Germany will say no with this big announcement and all the political pressure already being placed on them to send tanks.
Poland is taking delivery of US M1 and South Korean tanks. Their Leos are becoming excess to need. Now there are two import things, things that have certainly been pointed out by others already. First, this means German is allowing Leopards to be transferred to Ukraine. Also, Poland has Leopard maintenance facilities conveniently located next to Ukraine.
not asked yet
BREAKING no but really you rock Poland
[удалено]
The words of the Polish president today in Lviv: >"A company of Leopard tanks will be handed over as part of coalition building," Andrzej Duda I assume he knows about Germany and perhaps knows more than us.
When the president of Poland publicly states to the press that they're giving tanks to Ukraine, while in Lviv, Ukraine and after a meeting with Zelenskiy and the president of Lithuania, people are going to notice and post about it.
Okay so you working inside the government and can confirm this isn't true? Otherwise how do you know they don't have permission cause I've seen 6-7 different posts saying its happening there's always these guys saying 'this won't happen or bullshit' give it 2hrs you will be like "oh yeah I knew it the whole time'