Turkish Leo2 tanks struggle in the Syria

[rocketman]

Another interesting thing about the 103S was that it was fully functional with only a one man crew (not ideal of course), that had control of driving, optics and main gun. Not too many designs can do that.

[Rinaldi]

7 hours ago, antaress73 said:

Using infantry to screen tanks Will prevent huge losses to tanks near built up areas (grosnyy style) but you Will still lose some tanks. Losing 10-15 tanks out of a hundred is okay . This is what's happening to the Turks.

 

Also There is not Much you can do against well hidden infiltrated ATGM teams sniping from 3-4km. You Will lose tanks good Tactics or not. Thats where tech comes in   It can prevent normally unavoidable losses some of the Times but it wont  save you from bad Tactics or deployment.APS would have saved those tanks and revealed the launcher so it can be destroyed by Return fire.

People want no losses . Thats just not possible against a well-equipped and semi to fully competent enemy.

 

That's true as well, we may have been quick to judge the Turkish Army in how it tactically handled the situation. The more important thing to look for now is to see if this mistake repeats itself (as it so often has for the Syrians) - which would speak volumes about the quality or lack thereof in the Turkish army.

[IICptMillerII]

7 hours ago, Rinaldi said:

That's true as well, we may have been quick to judge the Turkish Army in how it tactically handled the situation. The more important thing to look for now is to see if this mistake repeats itself (as it so often has for the Syrians) - which would speak volumes about the quality or lack thereof in the Turkish army.

While this may be true for small unit tactics/SOP, it is not the case for the larger, more strategic picture. The Syrian civil war has been raging for how many years now, 5? In all that time the Turks never bothered to check in and see what what occurring, specifically that unsupported tanks (of any type/make/country) were getting annihilated by infantry based anti-tank weapons in built up urban areas, and learned nothing from it? Either they have been asleep at the wheel for the past half decade, flat out didn't care, or they really are just that incompetent. From what we're seeing, looks to be a bit of all three. 

Not a jab at you, just at the state of affairs we are seeing, and all the ludicrous media coming from it. ("MBTs are useless cause these top of the line tanks are being killed by RPGs!!!!") Earlier in the thread I made a joke about the Middle East being the place where all tanks go to get blown up. I'd like to add an addendum to that: The Middle East is where all tanks go to get blown up, and all tactics are forgotten, and one is doomed to repeat the same (laughable) mistakes over and over, ad infinitum. 

Its like a math problem for elementary school. On the chalk board it says 2+2=4, but all the students insist that 2+2= everything besides 4. At least its predictable... 

Edited February 10, 2017 by IICptMillerII

[HUSKER2142]

 

Turkish M60T in Syria.The correct way are "comrades" -
Strengthen the protection of the commander's turret, as far as possible, of course.
Set the remote installation with 12.7 machine gun and warning laser's sensors.

^{Турецкий М60Т в Сирии.Правильным путем идут "товарищи" 
Усилили защиту командирской башенки, в меру возможностей, конечно.
Установили дистанционную установку с 12,7 пулеметом и датчики облучения.}

Edited February 12, 2017 by HUSKER2142

[IMHO]

Does anyone know RWS producer/model?

[Michael Emrys]

3 hours ago, HUSKER2142 said:

That is a strange photograph. If the tank is indeed facing in the direction from which it expects to receive hostile fire, then the fighting position is incorrectly oriented. If the fighting position is correct, then the tank is facing the wrong direction.

Michael

[Machor]

5 hours ago, IMHO said:

Does anyone know RWS producer/model?

It is the Turkish ASELSAN SARP:

 

2 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

That is a strange photograph. If the tank is indeed facing in the direction from which it expects to receive hostile fire, then the fighting position is incorrectly oriented. If the fighting position is correct, then the tank is facing the wrong direction.

The tank is not in its primary fighting position. This appears to be the new Turkish tactic against armoured SVBIED following the losses mentioned earlier in the thread. The tanks wait in cover for SVBIED to emerge, exposing themselves briefly to engage them before reversing to cover. This LEO2 is in a similar position:

BTW, Bellingcat just published a report on the Turkish AFV losses:

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/02/12/battle-al-bab-verifying-turkish-military-vehicle-losses/

 

[exsonic01]

1 hour ago, Machor said:

It is the Turkish ASELSAN SARP:

 

The tank is not in its primary fighting position. This appears to be the new Turkish tactic against armoured SVBIED following the losses mentioned earlier in the thread. The tanks wait in cover for SVBIED to emerge, exposing themselves briefly to engage them before reversing to cover. This LEO2 is in a similar position:

BTW, Bellingcat just published a report on the Turkish AFV losses:

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/02/12/battle-al-bab-verifying-turkish-military-vehicle-losses/

 

Interesting. Is the bellingcat trustworthy source? 

[John Kettler]

Michael Emrys,

Started out in total concurrence with you regarding that bizarre tank and firing position, but then Machor came along with a wicked curve ball. And now I know Bellingcat, which I mistakenly believed was just about Ukraine, has entered the Turkish fray, too. I took a few seconds to skim the report, and I stand in awe of the OSINT analysts.

Regards,

John Kettler

[IMHO]

Thank you, @Machor!

Edited February 13, 2017 by IMHO

[Duckman]

Whoa, that's quite a few! As has been pointed out in thread tanks are not collector's items, but just like the the rest of the military an instrument of state policy so losses have to be judged against the stakes in Syria for the Turks.

Having said that, I'm sure there are tactical lessons to be applied. As far as I know the Turks have always been preparing for a conventional war against Greece, Russia, Syria, Iraq, and/or Iran so their equipment and tactics are in all likelihood geared towards that. The Leopard 2s, for example, were stationed in Western Turkey facing the Greeks and their similar tank force. Having so many potential enemies also means a big army where everything can't be top notch if you're a low or even middle-income country. 

Regarding tanks and AFVs specifically I'm wondering to what degree protection is optimized for kinetic threats compared to ATGMs. My guess is also that nice-to-have things like remote sensors and weapons stations are not available on most Turkish tanks due to the need to have such a big force.

[IMHO]

Watching ISIS VBIED propaganda videos it's remarkable combat security is nonexistent in Turkish-sponsored forces. Plus insufficient saturation of light AT weapons and underslung GLs. Very telling...

[A Canadian Cat]

LOL don't pollute your brain with propoganda videos. No nations propoganda videos are worth watching really but ISIS videos might be the worst. I don't think you can get any kind of accurate impression from any of that.

[IMHO]

1 hour ago, IanL said:

I don't think you can get any kind of accurate impression from any of that.

Why? If one remembers how creative ISIS with its propaganda videos...  It's actually quite striking even from FSA-labelled videos. Obviously there're Turkoman ragtag "tribal forces" with heavy equipment of regulars attached and limited Turkish SOF involvement. It seems that even low level command is done by "tribal leaders" rather than professionals. Now it seems they have started providing combat security for heavy vehicles. SAA-labelled side looks more experienced.

Edited February 13, 2017 by IMHO

[A Canadian Cat]

Because anything in those videos will be severely tainted by the message they are trying to convey. Attempting to reach conclusions about anything meaningful from material like that is inappropriate. 

[IMHO]

I don't read Arabic so propaganda messages miss the point

[Ivanov]

16 hours ago, exsonic01 said:

Interesting. Is the bellingcat trustworthy source? 

It's one of the best sources available on the net. Almost as they were professionals.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Bellingcat.....You are kidding right? 

I guarantee you at least 60% of the people reading this thread know more about Syria than that muppet:

"Higgins' analyses of Syrian weapons, which began as a hobby out of his home in his spare time, are frequently cited by the press and human rights groups and have led to questions in parliament."

"Higgins has no background or training in weapons and is entirely self-taught, saying that "Before the Arab spring I knew no more about weapons than the average Xbox owner. I had no knowledge beyond what I'd learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rambo." Higgins does not speak or read Arabic."

This is from Wikipedia by the way, not RT:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Higgins

Just follow the links from there.....The bloke is a first class chump. 

Right up there with the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Observatory_for_Human_Rights

One bloke, in a bedsit in Coventry (That's a city in the UK Midlands, it's just up the road from me BTW).....Another one of those 'authorative sites' so often quoted by the media or politicians with an agenda. 

Ever get the feeling you've been sold a crock? 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[John Kettler]

Sgt.Squarehead,

Did you bother to actually read the Wiki you're using to bash the man?

"Higgins is credited with being among the first to report on the widespread use of improvised barrel bombs by the Syrian government, a phenomenon which has spread to other troubled nations such as Iraq to combat insurgencies and opposition forces.^[5][6]

Other aspects of the Syrian conflict uncovered and documented by Higgins include the use of cluster bombs in 2012, which the Syrian government previously denied using; the proliferation of shoulder-launched heat-seeking missiles known as MANPADS; and the proliferation of Croatian-made weapons which was reportedly connected to the United States, a story later picked up by The New York Times.^[1] He has also investigated the Syrian regime's alleged use of chemical weapons, including the Ghouta chemical attack in detail.^[7][8] Theodore Postol, a professor at MIT, and Richard Lloyd, a former UN weapons inspector, criticised some aspects of Higgins's work.^[9]

Higgins used geolocation to publish an estimate of where the James Foley execution video was made outside Raqqa, an Islamic State stronghold in north-central Syria. Higgins used visual markers in stills from the video and his interpretation of satellite images of the terrain around Raqqa.^[10]

In 2015, Higgins partnered with the Atlantic Council to co-author the report Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin's War in Ukraine which examined direct Russian military involvement in Ukraine. The report was the inspiration for the documentary Selfie Soldiers in which Vice News correspondent Simon Ostrovsky followed digital traces left by a Russian soldier named Bato Dambaev who was sent to fight in Eastern Ukraine. In June 2015 on the invitation of former Belgium Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, Higgins together with his report co-author Atlantic Council's Maks Czuperski presented Hiding in Plain Sight at the European Parliament alongside Russian opposition figure Ilya Yashin and former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.^[11]

Eliot Higgins joined the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab as Senior Non-Resident Fellow in 2016.^[12]"

 

<sup>Info on the Atlantic Council here. It's a prestigious think tank, and I feel safe in asserting they don't hand out positions like that to dolts and dunderheads.

A real blithering idiot, that one. Yeah. Sure.</sup>

"Reception[edit]

Higgins has received significant praise and support from human rights groups, journalists, and non-profit organisations. "Brown Moses is among the best out there when it comes to weapons monitoring in Syria," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch.^[1] The New York Times war reporter C.J. Chivers said that fellow journalists should be more honest about the debt they owe to Higgins' Brown Moses blog. "Many people, whether they admit or not, have been relying on that blog's daily labour to cull the uncountable videos that circulate from the conflict," he said.^[1] Amnesty International said that the Brown Moses Blog was vital in proving the Syrian government was using ballistic missiles, information then used to send a research mission to Syria.<sup>[13]"

In turn, he then founded Bellingcat, whose excruciatingly detailed work in ferreting out the particulars of who did what, how, when and with what was an important part of the evidence the Dutch government used in deciding to officially charge Russia with the responsibility for downing MH17. Steve considers Bellingcat an important source, and he's a professional military historian, someone highly trained in evaluating sources!</sup>

Eliot Higgins started from zero. So what? Tons of people, including the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, the Wright Brothers, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Thomas Edison--all were autodidacts.

Though I'm hardly in their league, so am I. No one taught me to be a Threat Analyst. I did that myself through reading, wargaming and thinking, started writing defense white papers for my dad, then set out to get paid for my deep thinking and hard work. In turn, that led to a successful interview at Hughes Aircraft Missile Systems Group--and a position which had to be created expressly for me. In very short order, I was dealing with Intelligence pros and high ranking officers, not to mention being consulted by the CTO. It matters not he knew nothing to begin with. It's what he did subsequently. Everyone has to start somewhere, and Eliot Higgins is a pioneer in what has become a very important, some would say vital, field.

Regards,

John Kettler

 

Edited February 16, 2017 by John Kettler

[Kinophile]

[John Kettler]

kinophile,

I know that's a trap, but who's it intended to agonizingly catch? In other news, I see I made a rather glaring antecedent mistake.

3 hours ago, John Kettler said:

. In very short order, I was dealing with Intelligence pros and high ranking officers, not to mention being consulted by the CTO. It matters not he knew nothing to begin with.

For the record, the CTO, Dr. Hans Mauer, was an OPERATION PAPERCLIP missile scientist and a brilliant man. He was a tall bespectacled gaunt man, an excellent listener who talked little but asked deadly and totally on point questions. Phil Eklund was a Hughesite who worked with him.

https://rpggeek.com/blogger/6086/phil-eklund

(Fair Use)

FLEDGLING ROCKET SCIENTIST. The next year I landed my first big aerospace job with Hughes Aircraft and worked on various Star Wars projects such as the exoatmospheric kill vehicle. Among the remarkable rocketeers I worked with at Hughes was Dr. Hans Mauer, one of the transplanted von Braun rocket team who collaborated with Howard Hughes himself to found the aerospace division. Dr. Mauer distanced himself from my crazier projects, such as my 1982 paper on catalyzed fusion propulsion. This was instead sponsored at the Joint Propulsion Conference in Cleveland by Dr. Leik Myrabo, inventor of the Myrabo Lightcraft, and tireless promoter of rockets and aircraft powered by laser beam. Leik gave me his book, gave advice for my game, and in general baselined the rules for remotely-powered rockets, and the ESA special ability.

My understanding from Dr. Mauer was that he was in some capacity running the Hs-293 (rocket boosted glide bomb) guidance system production, so the von Braun reference is something of a surprise.

Image Credit: VeryFullHouse via Wikimedia Commons.

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited February 16, 2017 by John Kettler

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Oh yes.....I've read it, and many of the articles it linked to.  

Quote

In very short order, I was dealing with Intelligence pros and high ranking officers, not to mention being consulted by the CTO. It matters not he knew nothing to begin with.

TBH the phrase 'useful idiot' springs to mind here.....I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about the merit of Mr Higgins 'work'.  

We do seem to have rather strayed from the topic of Leopards in Syria into areas that are open to interpretation based on ones' individual perspective.....Probably better to stick to talking about the tanks. 

 

Edited February 16, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Lethaface]

@Sgt.Squarehead

Why is Higgins a bad source just because he 'self thought' on the subject. He doesn't claim he got his knowledge from x-box and Rambo, but rather that a couple of years ago he didn't know more than that (which is nothing, just to be clear). I appreciate honesty, plus it's not that military technology is a well kept secret. There is plenty of information about the subject. available. Armed with experience in scientific research methodologies and a good 'filter' for information, I'd say one can learn everything he is proclaiming to know in a couple of dedicated months.

On what basis do you challenge his information? Just because he said a couple of years ago he knew nothing? I personally have bellingcat quite high on the 'good information' scale. Everything Ive read from them is very well argumented with plenty of verifiable facts provided.

As for the Syrian Observatory for human rights: it is run by a Syrian activist that fled Syria a while ago, iirc before the war. He claims to have a large network of people inside Syria which provide the information. In general I believe the information provided by them aren't challenged by other trustworthy sources. If you rule out the worthiness of his information because he is based in UK, you are basically saying that a company like BBC can only report on UK things simply because it's based in the UK. However, good media use journalists to go to area's to report directly from the 'warzone'. If he does have a lot of Syrian contacts (and I have no reason to challenge that), using them as a source is a very regular thing in information gathering. With modern technologies anyone with a cell phone can be a great source of information.

Anyway I don't mean to offend you but this is an important subject, imho. BTW people on this forum might on average have a lot of knowledge about military hardware and tactics. It doesn't mean they are also that qualified when it comes to information analysis and or critical thinking. One doesn't need to know the precise mm RHA protection an armor plate provides to be able to judge the difference between an APC and a tank. Most media mess up things like that, bellingcat doesn't (afaik).

[Wicky]

6 hours ago, John Kettler said:

then set out to get paid for my deep thinking

Ah yes, who can forget classics like Panzers on Mars;

The artifacts he claimed to have found were only a few feet long but were recognizably martial. Gun emplacements and the shattered remnants of a tank seemed apparent to this writer, a former military analyst. One of the vehicles looked very much like a World War II German Panzer I, right down to its peculiar track work. Others seen in the vicinity looked like a World War I rhomboid tank and a U.S. M-48 of 1960s vintage.

and the immune to reason 'deep thinking' that led you to convince yourself that V2 missiles could be shot out smaller diameter hole from a supposed missle silo (in reality naval gun mounts) than the missile's diameter. Which IIRC was the final straw that lost you the job!

But undeterred soon led onto craziness such as Nazi UFOs with underslung Panther turrets and Nazi A-Bomb vs. Russia-Kursk, 1943!

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Here is one dissenting voice:  http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/expert-criticizes-allegations-of-russian-mh17-manipulation-a-1037125.html

There are plenty more if you look for them.