holoween

Every other mineclearing vehicle si going to be a slow and obvious target. So preemtive smoke and covering units are essential. If you want to go fast use explosives.

Since all my hands on knoledge of the t72 comes from steel beasts i dont feel qualified to give a indepth comparison. Lack of reverse speed is probably the t72s biggest failing. lack of thermals is equally significant. laser dot not being in line with the primary sight really limits long range engagement speed and moving target accuracy. Biggest quality is probably the HE-FRAG rounds. they make them far more effective vs infantry targets compared to 120mm HEAT. 120mm HE airburst will flip that but that isnt in widespread use. Agreed The issue with snorkeling is there are only limited places where its even viable. For germany they were mapped out during the cold war but ukraine? if not you need specialists that know how to scout a site and prepare it. Bridging equipment seems like a better way to go at least generally. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiler_(Panzer) We use speciualized equipment for specialized jobs. The tank you posted isnt going to go at any speed during an attack so youre spending far more time in the open. If you know there is a minefield breaching it with a specialized vehicle is better. Leo2 is actually equipped for indirect fire. Noone ever trains it but its in the manuals.

I cant speak for the Abrams but id be surprised if its much different. The issue the Poles had were more that they were sold for very cheap with the agreement that KMW gets to do all upgrades. The Poles want to do their own which KMW sais they have to certify with them which the Poles dont like hence the switch. If they really didnt like them why would they ask for more during the Ringtausch programm?

So during 2 years ive seen 4 issues that stopped tanks from running. 1 was a blown cylinder on a driving school tank (failure at 9am back in action at 2pm with replaced powerpack at the slow workpace of civilian contractors), one was the engine controll unit failing on one of ours. And 2 hydraulic pump failures. one caused the tank to go to depot becaue the tc decided to ignore warning lights and caused the breaks to overheat and burst into flames and one was fixed in 15min. Yea they require constrant maintenance but that depends on a lot of factors. usually we simply take one day per week on exercise as maintenance day but that has a big margin of error for wear so skipping it isnt a big deal.

Neither exists as an upgrade to the leo2 in the german army thats done by specialized vehicles and crews. Snorkeling is not something usually trained. Its got quite limited use cases and if you want to use it for an operation you have to peplan it in advance quite a bit so training the crews on it then is the way to go. 1 they arent easily damaged. Outside of enemy action a freshly trained crew isnt going to damage the tank much more often than a seasoned crew. 2 you dont. your readiness rate is simply going to be lower as you have to ship them back until you have managed to train up the maintenance crews. If you want to create essentially a armoured brigade from scratch yes youre going to take well over a year if you want to get them to nato standards. However noone is doing that. All the training for ukrainian soldiers in western countries is training up seperate pieces. Giving them equipment they are already used to is done with priority (ringtausch) but there is only so much kit around. Getting ukrain 100leo2s is also incredibly unlikely give the generally low inventories. Realisitcally were looking at a western battlaion size (44 tanks) with 10-15 spare tanks to keep the battalion up to strength while the damaged ones are send to the west. No that doesnt give ukraine a formation that can run over the russianss as the us was running over iraq but that still gives them a fairly powerfull unit.

Gotta love how youre not even bothering to read or understand completely. 1 week is for taking a ukrainian tanker and retrain him on a leo2. As ive written 3 weeks drivers course and 3month loder/gunner course . Qualifying a unit for deployment takes 6 month on top. Those times include a lot of downtime and non tank related stuff which could be cut down. NCOs and officers would take far longer to train from scratch but even here simply cutting out all nonessentials cuts down the required time a lot. So ultimately the question is does a tank unit equipped with western tanks need to be trained to 100% the same training standard as a NATO tank unit for deployment. Id argue getting them to 80% is easily enough to have a massive impact so cutting corners to get them to that point quickly is far more valuable and has a higher impact overall. That also how it was done with Western artillery given to ukraine. It didnt take a year for pzh2000 to be in use and that system is certainly not less complex compared to a leo2.

Ive only seen them ask for actual tanks. That depends entirely on circumstances. ex adding a pzgren platoon to our company tooka a day of ncos and officers talking out what they each could do and it worked ok from that. Slotting a leo2 company in place of a t72 company should equally be fairly easy especially if a depleted company goes for refit so command structure remains largely intact and just new equipment and its capabilities have to be trained on (this is what happened with western arty btw.) If you take 150 civilians and have to train them into a tank company youre obviously taking far more time.

To use your analogy youre not asked to write a bestseller youre asked to write a 3page essay. as said noone asks to set up essentially a nato style armoured brigade from scratch. Youre looking for at best company sized units and those are far faster to stand up even from scratch.

Ive given you the time i was trained on the leo2 by the german army condensed to actual training on the tank. So no youre not going to stand up a brigade from scratch in a few weeks but thats a matter of the command structure not the equipment. A platoon you can make function by the time the training on the equipment is done. add a few more weeks per company and you have a fairly powerful unit you can slot into existing structures.

Yea ill call bs on that. At least on a Leo2 teaching a crew the essentials of using and maintaining the tank takes maybe a week. And even if were talking full training were way below your mark. It takes 3 weeks to train a driver fully. For gunner/loader it takes 6 weeks max. And for the tc getting proficient at their station shouldnt take more than a week with the overall training time just being determined by how much tactics they have to be tought. Higher level maintenance obviously takes longer but that doesnt really matter much since you can simply do it like its currently done with western systems. ship them back and have proper repair shops outside ukraine.

As a german tanker weve had a query in our company about russian speaking soldiers we had to help train Ukrainians. If, when and how the one guy we have is going to be used remains to be seen.

Yea now how did it collapse. But they were able to generate the btgs. the degrees to where they werent capable were selfmade russian issues (low morale, manpower, desertions) They then however did get stopped by ukrainian resistance. from what ive seen the usual was infantry ambush to disrupt the attack then holding them at a village and artying them when they were stuck on the road. So the core failure point during the early stages was not being able to break through such positions. The ways to fix that would be to bring enough and trained infantry first, proper arty support second but at third the afvs weren able to perform.

But thats not what happened in ukraine. the russians got their system set up although badly and got stopped at the sharp end. To go back to the earlier analogy the spear tip got stopped not the shaft broken.

Destroy enemy weapons factory Destroy logistic network attack where the enemy hasnt massed supress with arty APS exactly the same armour Its the same chain. Notice how operational art does: Attack at weakest point, surround so cut logistics, occupy production centers

That is an entirely different situation compared to early war where afv attacks were stopped by infantry ambushes with atgms and rpgs Sure but these would all be very heavy compared to a "simple" javelin. they would work but thats no longer a weapon for every squad. And that doesnt adress rpg type weapons who are essential for closer range engagements. the tank unit is easy to see, the individual tank more difficult. And what makes it difficult is that it constantly moves. A big issue with russian tank tactics from the videos ive seen is that they dont move for very long times. Also do note that with the ISR in ukraine they still arent able to fully shut down logistics. and they are just random trucks and rail. So your deep strikes can degrade supply but not stop it entirely. The big deal is that currently the spearhead gets stuck not that the shaft gets broken first. It doesnt but without it afvs are pointless. There are still other layers that mater on who wins but at the same time ultimately the battle is won on the ground and survivability matters.

Notice how i said vs infantry because if you have to rely on arty to get your anti tank work done tanks become a whole lot more difficult. should be far simpler as towards the sky there is less clutter to interfere with the radar just noone has really build it because javelin has been rare/on our side APS isnt exaclty beaten. ERA hasnt really been made obsoltet though. it at least pushes the minimum required warhead size up so fewer weapons carried around for an infantry squad. It does however work on one very important part the actually winning a specific fight which is currently ukraine and russias problem. If you have to rely on arty or other heavy assets to take out tanks they can at least advance until they have to resupply which can mean quite some distance. yea yet a tank works on its survivability. if that doesnt exist you dont have a tank. so even if it isnt perfect which it wont be it massively helps

Does everyone collectively keep forgetting that aps do exist but are currently not used in ukraine be either side? Because they do fix the core survivability vs infantry issue tanks currently have.

I wish him the best of luck but id recon there is a better chance that hell freezes over than him producing a better game than CM. Lets hope he pulls if off somehow.

Well the APS question is something CM would be amazing at representing. test your scenario with bare tanks, an APS that has a 50% chance to intercept top attack missiles, and one that has 80% chance. Id guess at 50% to somewhat reenable tank attacks and at 80%+ it practically invalidates infantry. As a sidenote id live to see how camoflage affects javelins hitchance and lickon time. At least for normal thermal imagers heavy camoflage does help a lot. couplet with smoke dischargers it could already significantly degrade their performance.

And the scary consequence of that being true is that western mechanized forces are basically just ass vulnerable to a such equipped oponent and the primary reason id argue tanks without aps are obsolete.

Being german ive only ever read it in german only really ever taking english quotes for such conversations. My background is also in sociology and political science though ive since gone on to become a soldier. I found his book(s) reasonably easy to read especially compared to some other sociology books and lets be clear that is where war studies belong. I need to start this another way though i think what is it you want to look at? Because what clausewitz provides is a framework on how to think about war. He then uses it to make several observations and then removes himself from that discussion and looks at tactics and strategy. His tactics and strategy are entirely outdated except for the very basics like concentration of force, logistics mattering etc. The how to think about war part though id consider basically timeles and ass close to the truth of the matter as were going to get for quite some time. War is the use of force by one group of people on another group to compell it to do its will Serves as a usefull check for a policy maker What do i want, what does my oponent want, how can i force him to comply with my whishes. And depending on each sides will and ability looking through this lense may sometimes lead to the conclusion that war may be unable to achieve what you want.

The definition of a war is the use of force by one group of people on another group to compell it to do its will. Sure you could narrow it down to make it only count if states are the key players but that would exclude a lot of wars. ISILs goal was creating a state of god in the middle east (and once established go further). Their means was straight military conquest where they could manage and use of terror to coerce western countries to leave them alone. Barbary Coast pirates goal is to make easy money. They fight only if one refuses to pay them

so the political motive is making money. nothing unclausewitzian about it again this is the political motive. But clausewitz doesnt consider simple body counting usefull. To paraphrase the war will be won if either side gives up or is put into a situation where it can no longer resist the other.

I dont know anyone who bought the technical issue excuse. But making an exception for a single turbine that russia cant use otherwise wouldnt help them much but basically forces them to either send more gas to fill our reserves or officially cut off the gas as has been expected.

I have yet to bounce anything with m60s so leo1 having the same gun performance (no idea about the fcs) but being smaller and faster should if anything be an improvement.