Lethaface

Perhaps the blessing is that upfront bottom-up critical thinking doesn't go that well if you're planning to make a career in that nation at this moment.

Not everything relates to a mathematical equation though. While I'm a big fan of 'good enough', in my line of work this way of calculating often creates more problems than it solves. It is often tried though, although not near me anymore :).

Playing with FOG of war adds immersion that's for sure. And fun is the most important imo. Although for a mirror game that would have to be implemented by both sides.

I think Israel had good practical experience with it, which should be available on internet as I remember reading about it years ago. Anyway for whatever will be the 'new' AFVs/IFVs Ukraine (or any country for that matter) is going to acquire in the longer run, APS and other protection systems will or should certainly be a consideration. Including protection against top attack munitions.

Yes this battle you can sure expect artillery and air all on your setup zone for both sides! But I like it, even without the exit objective working as intended due to the scoring. USSR forces need to utilize their doctrine to perform.

Indeed. Plus how many T-90M are even deployed / deployable in Ukraine? Also all Russian tanks are vulnerable to Javelin and other ATGMs Ukraine has. Does Kontakt-5 ERA reliably stop Stugna-P, or other tandem HEAT ATGMs with ~550+ mm RHA penetration? (because IIRC that's the penetration needed to go through T-72 turret after ERA, from T-72M1). And artillery indeed :)

That's how I understood it. I send my file when it was there and I got back both files for setup from my oppo after. Not sure if he also got to look at both while doing his setup? @jheinrichk. Anyway this battle has all the expensive toys in it (and some twists). Let's see how fast we can turn those into smoking hulks! :D.

AFAIK the upgraded T-type tanks all feature improvements in those area's. Leo2A4 might not even be much of an improvement in some cases.

Yes we are all on the same side! Anyway it seems most UKR tank losses where in the beginning of the war, when there were also a lot captured. At the moment they mostly use them as mobile fire support. From my pov they have plenty for those tasks and whatever tank they have will do fine on that. They should have enough for large combined arms operations with T-type tanks, but we don't see that happening. There are also still quite a number of those tanks still to be delivered to Ukraine (among which Czech upgrades). We can also cooperate invest in Czech/others industry to make sure the capability to service engines/barrels etc doesn't disappear during the war. To be honest that seems like a wise thing to do, until Ukraine/others have switched over which will take a couple of years for sure! The fact that we didn't see PT-91 and many of the other tanks send in battle yet, is one indication that the energy spend with the Leopard debate could have been better used on things we do see in battle often. Himars missiles, artillery, etc. IFVs are also much more often featured. And one could say that the capability gap between a BMP-1/2 vs a Bradley or CV90 is much larger than the gap between a Leo2 vs a T-72/64. Especially if they get used for fire support mainly. But for IFVs we also have a mix of Marders/Bradleys/CV90. Which are all much more complex to service and maintain compared to some m113 variant. At least the numbers of those were around 50 per type. Anyway I hope we are now closer to a 'consortium' working on streamlining defense commitments including support for Ukraine. Tanks, IFVs, planes, artillery, etc. My 'frustration' with this whole thing was more that it was, at least in my eyes, a lot of fuss about not so much bang for your buck. Which is in my allergic zone :D If the fuss would have been about a consortium and end result is long term support including logistics, manufacturing, training, finance, (the whole thing), than I would have supported it. don't care about politicians feelings getting hurt, that's suits them well/part of the job. But the resulting friction is often a reason that cooperation will become less 'fruitful' in the future and might go further then just politicians with hurt feelings. I felt it was ironic Poland pledged 14(!) Leo2A4, for which they seek reimbursement from EU, after talking so much about Germany. Will we now see Scholz talking daily about when Poland is going to send the remaining PT-91? He can reuse many of the arguments that were arranged against him/Germany. Joking aside, it certainly wasn't only Poland and I don't think Scholz is an good example for anything basically, but this episode had some touch of the old EU bickering about nothing much again, at least in my optics. Which is not a good development imo. Let's hope I'm too pessimistic and all have now found each other again in jointly delivering all kinds of AFVs to Ukraine. Maybe it can work therapeutic.

NATO/EU/Europe creating a long term vision on Defense post 2022 invasion of Ukraine is a good thing. I think we all agree on that. I think we also all agree on that somewhere along the run Ukraine will have to make a switch to NATO/Western stuff around the board. What / when / how exactly is another question. For example I don't see Ukraine burning through it's current tanks in 2023 at the 'current' rate, where's the arguments for that? If there are, like you say, another ~700 T-type tanks which could be added to what they already have in service: that's no small pocket change. That's more than they lost so far AFAIK. But less than what they still have. And there's certainly not 700 Leo2s available for Ukraine in 2023, I doubt 2024. So I still don't get all the fuss to rush about some dozen OLD Leo2A4s like it will enable a Ukraine armored fist breakthrough in a couple of months. There is also such a thing as opportunity cost. The signaling you mention can be done in many ways, not only by infighting among allies supporting Ukraine ;-). Artillery does great signaling. Building a consortium to supply UKR with a new fleet of AFVs for the future signals fine as well. That would be a good thing and pressuring countries to join the consortium would be effort well spend. Not dust off some olde tanks from the warehouse and cross off the 'support ukraine with heavy AFVs' prestation indicator checkmark. Demonstrations about releasing the leopards and creating lists of countries who haven't donated (not saying that you are doing that, but that's the hype which is going on), tensions between countries; all for a few old western tanks. That's not the sort of support which is going to help Ukraine help win the war sooner imo.

duckduckgo blocks these things anyway for me.

Good point, agreed on the social poison media ;-).

My guess was people gave themselves some copies of Guderian's/Balck memoirs for Christmas and found some inspiration in those ;-). Good reads though. But indeed before the mud came Ukraine achieved some major results, I don't see a reason to think they have lost the capability to achieve those results and or need 300 western tanks for that.

Ok to stay on tanks One thing which I think will be interesting to see unfold is who exactly sends what kind of tanks. Leo2A6 is much more capable compared to 2A4. The same goes for M1A2SEPv2 (or 3) vs the M1A1SA. If countries send old junk (2A4 / M1A1SA) they might as well (finance) send upgraded T-72s, or probably preferably. FWIW CMSF(2) shows that the Turms-T package isn't much worse compared to the Leo2A4. Especially with some decent ERA and modern /good ammo (which does exist, but not in CMSF). AFAIK that was what US, Czechia and NL (maybe others) decided upon a couple of months ago, but I haven't seen deliveries / whatever of those yet. A couple of hundred of those are imo still much better for Ukraine compared to a few dozen of Leo2A4s, especially because they already use the platform. Same thing probably goes for the PT-91s. If I was on the tank bandwagon I'd be pushing for these tanks to be shipped to Ukraine yesterday, all of m (and cooperate on replacing capability based on a shared platform). All the old 2A4 etc could be upgraded in the meantime while eventually Ukraine joins the same shared platform as the rest. From a logistics, effectiveness and efficiency POV that seems superior imo. But I guess PR wise there was more to win with the 'free Leopard' campaign. /rant :D.

I'd keep my expectations low about Dutch F-16s anytime 'soon', it will be at least 'Steve soon' . But please do bash Hoekstra and Rutte for any reason you can imagine .

Indeed. If there is a wunderwaffen it will be A) Ukrainian perseverance and B ) maintaining unity among those that support Ukraine in making sure they can stay supporting Ukraine, including politics and domestic affairs. I worry more about B ) so I hope that now that everybody will agree to send tanks the ranks can be closed again and support done more discretely.

I just read about it not that far back ;-). But what we read here is that the FIRST Leo2s MAY arrive in ABOUT three months. I don't read in there that the first operational brigades with Leo2s in it will be ready for operations in 3 months. I read there that there might arrive some Leo2s in 3 months, but it might also take longer. How long from there to be operational is another subject, or for what kind of operations they might even be used etc.

thanks for these type of vids. Having watched a couple over the last weeks I get the impression that these type of command centers are getting more and more common, not only on higher level of operations.

Including the imaginary heavy western equipped brigades churned out in weeks (!) that will smash through the Russian lines and drive them in the sea of Azov. I mean I would like to see that, like I'd like to win the lottery. But I don't feed myself with improbable stuff all the time. If anything it sets up unnecessary disappointment and blurs the vision of what is actually going on. Emotions are a great good but they can cloud ones observation / analysis. Perhaps the relative lack of new developments the last months fuels these type of social events.

As the video was from NL, this was announced not long ago: 1275 vehicles from a US army unit docking in Vlissingen and from there moving to Poland and Litouwen mostly via rail. Operation will take place until February, indeed specifies it's the rotation of 1st cav although it doesn't specify whether there's also vehicles shipped away again / no specifics about the brigade being rotated out. https://www.defensie.nl/actueel/nieuws/2023/01/09/amerikaanse-landmachteenheid-met-zwaar-materieel-door-nederland

Sad news.

Some ex-general here has commented that UKR might be planning to use the Western MBTs as a mobile reserve to deal with any potential new Russian offensives. Not sure if that makes sense, he sometimes does and sometimes doesn't imho. Is the delta between capabilities that Abrams/Leo2 give versus the tanks UKR already have large enough to enable new type of operations we haven't really seen so far? But enough has been said already on the subject here by people more in the know so I'll just observe and draw conclusions when they are to be drawn. I am curious if Ukraine can make (another) large move this winter. I had expected there to be some new developments. But the winter isn't over yet.

I share that sentiment and for quite a while, although I might give it another name. I know many Germans think/feel that nobody is ready for them to to 'fill in their place', but as their neighbor I can at least say 'go ahead, the job is waiting for you'. But with all paradigm shifts (this are probably several) this unfortunately takes time and goes step by step, sometimes a couple back.

No rush!

A good description of the 'German affair' on the thread. I'm not German and usually don't have the need to defend them, as I rather opt for Germany to take more responsibility on certain matters almost exactly like you describe in your post. But I don't fully agree that it's a major disappointment. Watching solely the facts of what's been delivered/done, including non-military (financial) support, Germany has 'showed the right colors' when it was required to show hand. It hasn't shown as much initiative as they could/should have, true. And PR-wise they're making a disaster sort of, at least for people 'invested' into media about the war. But I wouldn't call it a major disappointment, more like 'expected'. Major disappointment would be if they would have tried to go the neutral way like Switzerland, one could say Israel and some other countries I don't feel like naming. It is important that Germany keeps following along the rest of the herd. Not sure if playing hard ball by other countries is the best way, but what do I know. From my perspective there's quite a bit of evolution in the support delivered/promised to Ukraine. I understand Ukraine keeps making sure we don't lose interest but overall things could have been worse support wise, imo. Including ze Germans.