How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[JonS]

Why such a hard-on for death?

Also, lol at you for thinking Putin is going to end this in anyone's custody, let alone "your" custody.

Edited January 16, 2023 by JonS

[JonS]

57 minutes ago, potato4212 said:

Is anyone in NATO starting to produce new equipment for Ukraine instead of drawing down from existing stocks? How much can they produce and how fast can they do it?

 

Lots of new ammo, AIUI. 155mm especially, and also whatever the Gepard eats (20mm? 30mm? One of those)

[kevinkin]

58 minutes ago, potato4212 said:

Is anyone in NATO starting to produce new equipment for Ukraine instead of drawing down from existing stocks?

Nothing large and costly. Even new munitions take the will and time to do so. See below. 

59 minutes ago, potato4212 said:

How much can they produce and how fast can they do it?

Ask an engineer once the political class (and in some cases their tax payers) give projects an OK to move forward. Some replacement components might make it to the battlefield new. Otherwise, big ticket items will have to supply the peace effort and not the war effort. 

[potato4212]

from a laymen's perspective it seems like the U.S is the only option for tanks. If Ukraine wants a large and somewhat uniform fleet of MBTs.  most of Europe is either unable or unwilling to give tanks to Ukraine. Greece and Turkey most likely wont give any as those Leopards are aimed squarely at each other. Spains Leopards are either too broken or too busy deterring morocco. Switzerland wont give any. Austria and Hungary are highly unlikely to give any. Slovakia, Portugal, Denmark, Norway and Czechia barely have any to give. 

Now countries that giving the current military and political situation are more likely to give Ukraine tanks Poland might be able to give a battalions worth but their stocks are dangerously depleted. they are waiting on their ex marine m1a1 feps to arrive and later m1a2 sepv3s. Finland might give a company's worth. they could give more. But they still seem quite nervous of the Russian army. Sweden could probably send a little more than a company's worth. How many Stridsvagn 103 could they send? Canada could probably send 20ish tanks. Germany if they grow a pair could send a battalions worth plus maybe a 100 more from Rheinmetalls stocks? So in Total perhaps 250 Leopard 2s. 150 of which come from Germany. It seems that at least in the near term Germany is not giving away leopard 2s. 

what about the other European tanks? Italy has 200 Arietes of which 40 are not in operational units so maybe 20 Arietes? The UK has roughly 400 challenger 2s. they are upgrading 150 to challenger 3s they use roughly 100 more for spares and training. leaving 150 max as surplus. I doubt they would give all 150 spares maybe to Ukraine. If I had to guess the most they will send is 75. France has ~225 Leclerc's I doubt they would send more that 25. 

So If All of the willing European Nations (plus Canada) send the max amount of tanks they can, without degrading their operational strength too much. (Poland seems willing to Sacrifice its tank capability much more than others) They can muster very roughly 370 tanks. Of wildly different make, model, capability and readiness. In my opinion this estimate is higher than what Europe will send in the near term. But If the political will materializes. They can send and just maybe produce more for Ukraine.

The U.S Army has roughly 6000 tanks either in active service or in mothball. The USMC no longer has tanks but it did operate ~400 m1a1 Feps of which 116 have gone to Poland. If The U.S simply sends the rest of the ex marine Abrams. That would rival the amount the entirety of Europe could optimistically send.

I'm sure the U.S army could carry on without 600 Abrams sitting in mothball. Considering These Abrams were meant to fight the Russians. it seems Highly unlikely The U.S will ever need 6000+ Abrams, unless The Chinese Come over the Himalayas. 

No doubt the Abrams is harder to maintain than European tanks and the factory is in Ohio instead of Europe. But It seems that operating a pure fleet of recently ex marine m1a1 feps, would make more logistical sense than operating A small amount of Challengers, a small amount of  Leclerc's, a small amount of Arietes, a reasonable amount of Leopards that are divided into two different variants. 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, paxromana said:

OK, so the ICC cannot pass a death sentence ...

Could we reconstitute a Nuremberg Tribunal (with US, UK, UKR Judges? Or maybe US, UK, POL? Though there would be no functional difference between UKR/POL I suspect) and give it that power? Since the originals were really created almost whole cloth I don't see why not. But IANAL ...

Sure, but impractical.  First of all, pretty much no European nation would participate in such a tribunal because of societal and government opposition to the concept of the death penalty.  Therefore, the US would have to go it pretty much alone, which it obviously won't do.

This not a topic worth further discussion.  Time to move on to other things, like what are the expectations now that Ukraine has withdrawn from Soledar.

Steve

[Huba]

23 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Nothing large and costly. Even new munitions take the will and time to do so. See below. 

Ask an engineer once the political class (and in some cases their tax payers) give projects an OK to move forward. Some replacement components might make it to the battlefield new. Otherwise, big ticket items will have to supply the peace effort and not the war effort. 

Ukrainians ordered 3 battalions of Krab ( 54 vehicles + associated support) sometimes in April I think. Rumor is that these were delivered from PL stocks already,  but production is in full swing and destined for Ukraine. The main reason we are buiyng K9s is that there are no Krabs available from the producer in a foreseeable future.
There's nothing more official from PL, except a vague contract for ammunition, but surely there is more. I guess that for example modernized ZU-23s are being build as fast as possible. FlyEye and Warmate observation drones/ loitering munitions are also certainly being built, cause I donated some money for one (as are the Switchblades, these are all new builds basically).

Ukrainians also ordered 18 RCH-155 SPGs from Germany and these are being produced right now.

The VAMPIRE AA system based on APKWS missiles is being produced as new, as are NASAMS and IRIS-T systems.

And of course various ammunition, from rifle bullets up to big guided missiles.

That is off the top of my head, I think there might be some more.

 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Huba

[Huba]

51 minutes ago, potato4212 said:

from a laymen's perspective it seems like the U.S is the only option for tanks. If Ukraine wants a large and somewhat uniform fleet of MBTs.  most of Europe is either unable or unwilling to give tanks to Ukraine. Greece and Turkey most likely wont give any as those Leopards are aimed squarely at each other. Spains Leopards are either too broken or too busy deterring morocco. Switzerland wont give any. Austria and Hungary are highly unlikely to give any. Slovakia, Portugal, Denmark, Norway and Czechia barely have any to give. 

Now countries that giving the current military and political situation are more likely to give Ukraine tanks Poland might be able to give a battalions worth but their stocks are dangerously depleted. they are waiting on their ex marine m1a1 feps to arrive and later m1a2 sepv3s. Finland might give a company's worth. they could give more. But they still seem quite nervous of the Russian army. Sweden could probably send a little more than a company's worth. How many Stridsvagn 103 could they send? Canada could probably send 20ish tanks. Germany if they grow a pair could send a battalions worth plus maybe a 100 more from Rheinmetalls stocks? So in Total perhaps 250 Leopard 2s. 150 of which come from Germany. It seems that at least in the near term Germany is not giving away leopard 2s. 

what about the other European tanks? Italy has 200 Arietes of which 40 are not in operational units so maybe 20 Arietes? The UK has roughly 400 challenger 2s. they are upgrading 150 to challenger 3s they use roughly 100 more for spares and training. leaving 150 max as surplus. I doubt they would give all 150 spares maybe to Ukraine. If I had to guess the most they will send is 75. France has ~225 Leclerc's I doubt they would send more that 25. 

So If All of the willing European Nations (plus Canada) send the max amount of tanks they can, without degrading their operational strength too much. (Poland seems willing to Sacrifice its tank capability much more than others) They can muster very roughly 370 tanks. Of wildly different make, model, capability and readiness. In my opinion this estimate is higher than what Europe will send in the near term. But If the political will materializes. They can send and just maybe produce more for Ukraine.

The U.S Army has roughly 6000 tanks either in active service or in mothball. The USMC no longer has tanks but it did operate ~400 m1a1 Feps of which 116 have gone to Poland. If The U.S simply sends the rest of the ex marine Abrams. That would rival the amount the entirety of Europe could optimistically send.

I'm sure the U.S army could carry on without 600 Abrams sitting in mothball. Considering These Abrams were meant to fight the Russians. it seems Highly unlikely The U.S will ever need 6000+ Abrams, unless The Chinese Come over the Himalayas. 

No doubt the Abrams is harder to maintain than European tanks and the factory is in Ohio instead of Europe. But It seems that operating a pure fleet of recently ex marine m1a1 feps, would make more logistical sense than operating A small amount of Challengers, a small amount of  Leclerc's, a small amount of Arietes, a reasonable amount of Leopards that are divided into two different variants. 

I this we were theorizing about that already around May  But you are of course absolutely right. Realistically, either majority of European nations agrees to send a significant, perhaps major part of their armored forces to Ukraine, which would allow centering their new tank units around few variants of Leo2, with some on Chally2/ Leclerc/ Ariette, or US will have to step up with older M1s, or even M60s which, as you said, are available in thousands in various state of repair.
The third option would be to employ a Grand-Ringtausch scheme where US would lend/ give/ sell M1s from the stock to nations donating their Leo2 to Ukraine - this would make the most sense IMO, but is a hard sell politically, and European arms industry wouldn't like it one bit I think.

An exciting notion is that quite probably we'll at least get a hint about how this is being planned already this week after the Ramstein meeting.

Edited January 16, 2023 by Huba

[Battlefront.com]

30 minutes ago, JonS said:

Why such a hard-on for death?

Also, lol at you for thinking Putin is going to end this in anyone's custody, let alone "your" custody.

Yeah, if Putin is in a position of vulnerability for extradition to The Hague (e.g. a coup) he will be killed before he gets there.  Perhaps even by his own hand.  Probably the same for most of the other senior rats.

However, situations can change. 

For a long time the only people on trail in The Hague for crimes in the Balkans were the mice, not the rats.  Some of the big ones were dead (some assassinated), the rest were in hiding or protected by Serbia.  In different ways for different reasons and by different methods some of the biggest rats in the whole place (Milosevic, Mladic, and Karadzic in particular) were eventually brought to The Hague to face trial.  So, never say never.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, potato4212 said:

Is anyone in NATO starting to produce new equipment for Ukraine instead of drawing down from existing stocks? How much can they produce and how fast can they do it?

 

Haven't seen it mentioned specifically, but Javelin and other ATGMs that were donated early and in huge numbers have been in increased production for some time now.  Just about double in the case of the Javelin:

https://www.raytheonmissilesanddefense.com/news/2022/10/10/ramping-up-javelin-production-to-support-increased-demands

Went from c.2000 per year to c.4000.  I'm sure the others have stepped up production as well.  Britain announced buying an additional 500 NLAW for themselves to replace stocks sent to Ukraine.  No mention in the article about increased production rates, but I'm sure it is higher than it was in 2021.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2022/12/07/britain-ramps-up-anti-tank-weapon-production-to-refill-stocks/

Steve

[kevinkin]

The armor to UA discussion is interesting operationally. In the past you would want to concentrate mobile firepower at a few key points and not disperse your armor. Today's battlefield continues the trend toward dispersal. So I am not sure what the UA leadership plans to do with packets of armor being delivered. I think they would hold back the best and most uniform types for decisive actions. The early on stuff being used for training I suppose. The temptation is to send packets of armor all over the battlefield to shore up defenses and stiffen local counter attacks. Perhaps the UA's operational thinkers and planning something new. Maybe you can send them to the front for low risk seasoning and concentrate for a hammer blow at a latter date. Late summer. 

[The_MonkeyKing]

summary of the Finnish situation with the Leopards: https://corporalfrisk.com/2023/01/15/free-the-leopards/

some picks:
Because Finland “can’t send many tanks“. And here is where I call a foul. Finland can send a significant number of tanks, but it would be expensive and we would take a national security risk.

The short version is that we could send all Leopard 2A4, which would mean the tank part of an under-strength armoured brigade.

The Leopard 2A4-force was slated for a mid-life upgrade already a decade ago, but that was eventually scrapped due to cost and the opportunity to buy second-hand 2A6NL from the Netherlands at throwaway cost. The word then was that they would replace the 2A4 which we couldn’t afford to upgrade, but as it turns out the Finnish Defence Forces decided to instead double the armoured force.

Here we run into a particular quirk of the Finnish Defence Forces: The Army doesn’t like to talk. This isn’t just restricted to tanks, but in general they don’t discuss their wartime formations, and as such they don’t talk about their plans for the future as that would lead to people getting ideas about the current situation.

 If we send the Leopard 2A4s somewhere else, they would obviously need to be replaced, and for once we have something approaching a reasonable cost-estimate. The Norwegian project to acquire new tanks sport a budget of approximately 1.8 billion Euros (19.3 Bn NOK) for 72 new tanks.

So why would Finland send tanks to Ukraine? Why can’t anyone else do so? The whole point was that the Leopard 2 is in widespread use, right?

Scratch the countries in Asia and South America, because so far the Ukraine aid has been a decidedly North American and European affair. Then you can remove Greece and Turkey, since neither will part with any armour before it literally is falling into pieces. This leaves Norway, Spain, Poland, Canada, and Finland. 

The counter-argument is obviously that we aren’t a NATO-member (yet), which makes things tricky. I agree on that, and that is indeed the key question which only the top-diplomats can currently answer – how safe does the current status as applicants make us feel? How much of a risk would we take by halving our tank force for half a decade?

As mentioned, the Leopard 2A4 are by now approaching a decade since the planned MLU was cancelled, meaning that they will need either a serious upgrade or a replacement within the next five to ten years in either case. As such, the option of shipping them off to secure Finnish interests in another country is not as outrageously expensive

As such, it’s not that Finland can’t deliver a serious number of tanks to Ukraine – it’s that we aren’t prepared to pay the costs and take the risks such a decision would include. And I for one does not know for certain if that is the correct decision or not.

 

[Grossman]

2 hours ago, potato4212 said:

from a laymen's perspective it seems like the U.S is the only option for tanks. If Ukraine wants a large and somewhat uniform fleet of MBTs.  most of Europe is either unable or unwilling to give tanks to Ukraine. Greece and Turkey most likely wont give any as those Leopards are aimed squarely at each other. Spains Leopards are either too broken or too busy deterring morocco. Switzerland wont give any. Austria and Hungary are highly unlikely to give any. Slovakia, Portugal, Denmark, Norway and Czechia barely have any to give. 

Now countries that giving the current military and political situation are more likely to give Ukraine tanks Poland might be able to give a battalions worth but their stocks are dangerously depleted. they are waiting on their ex marine m1a1 feps to arrive and later m1a2 sepv3s. Finland might give a company's worth. they could give more. But they still seem quite nervous of the Russian army. Sweden could probably send a little more than a company's worth. How many Stridsvagn 103 could they send? Canada could probably send 20ish tanks. Germany if they grow a pair could send a battalions worth plus maybe a 100 more from Rheinmetalls stocks? So in Total perhaps 250 Leopard 2s. 150 of which come from Germany. It seems that at least in the near term Germany is not giving away leopard 2s. 

what about the other European tanks? Italy has 200 Arietes of which 40 are not in operational units so maybe 20 Arietes? The UK has roughly 400 challenger 2s. they are upgrading 150 to challenger 3s they use roughly 100 more for spares and training. leaving 150 max as surplus. I doubt they would give all 150 spares maybe to Ukraine. If I had to guess the most they will send is 75. France has ~225 Leclerc's I doubt they would send more that 25. 

So If All of the willing European Nations (plus Canada) send the max amount of tanks they can, without degrading their operational strength too much. (Poland seems willing to Sacrifice its tank capability much more than others) They can muster very roughly 370 tanks. Of wildly different make, model, capability and readiness. In my opinion this estimate is higher than what Europe will send in the near term. But If the political will materializes. They can send and just maybe produce more for Ukraine.

The U.S Army has roughly 6000 tanks either in active service or in mothball. The USMC no longer has tanks but it did operate ~400 m1a1 Feps of which 116 have gone to Poland. If The U.S simply sends the rest of the ex marine Abrams. That would rival the amount the entirety of Europe could optimistically send.

I'm sure the U.S army could carry on without 600 Abrams sitting in mothball. Considering These Abrams were meant to fight the Russians. it seems Highly unlikely The U.S will ever need 6000+ Abrams, unless The Chinese Come over the Himalayas. 

No doubt the Abrams is harder to maintain than European tanks and the factory is in Ohio instead of Europe. But It seems that operating a pure fleet of recently ex marine m1a1 feps, would make more logistical sense than operating A small amount of Challengers, a small amount of  Leclerc's, a small amount of Arietes, a reasonable amount of Leopards that are divided into two different variants. 

Tanks are offensive weapons in the main. If Russia attacked any Nato member ( incl Finland or Sweden) NATO would use the full power of its air force, and the US would deploy. The European Nations have no need to keep stockpiles of tanks when they needed in Ukraine. 

[chuckdyke]

Best form of defense is to attack. It means seizing the iniative. The present Russian regime not only putin are not the type of people you can have diplomatic relations with.

Edited January 16, 2023 by chuckdyke

[Zeleban]

 

[Huba]

1 hour ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

As such, it’s not that Finland can’t deliver a serious number of tanks to Ukraine – it’s that we aren’t prepared to pay the costs and take the risks such a decision would include. And I for one does not know for certain if that is the correct decision or not.

Won't, not can't. And it's the same with basically all European countries. There's cost, and there are some security risks, though as members of NATO we really shouldn't worry about that too much. Finland and Sweden are a special case, but the intermediate treaty with US and UK should cover you  until Sultan is appeased enough. I'm repeating it since April - it is only the lack of political will that is holding us back, and Ukrainians pare paying for it with their blood.

And a bit of tongue-in-cheek request, but if you think of it, I don't see why it couldn't be fulfilled with enough lead time:

 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Huba

[The_MonkeyKing]

11 minutes ago, Huba said:

Won't, not can't. And it's the same with basically all European countries. There's cost, and there are some security risks, though as members of NATO we really shouldn't worry about that too much. Finland and Sweden are a special case, but the intermediate treaty with US and UK should cover you  until Sultan is appeased enough. I'm repeating it since April - it is only the lack of political will that is holding us back, and Ukrainians pare paying for it with their blood.

Indeed, and even much the costs and risks can be argued away quite effectively. 

- Security risk have lowered (also in part permanently) now that Russia is using up its military heritage of the soviet superpower.
- Much of the equipment sounds expensive but it is in most cases sunk cost to equipment that would have to be replaced or modernized anyway.
- Aid given further lowers Russian capacity and so the threat environment
- The shorter the war the less expensive it is. Now only balancing the UKR budget is taking at least billion a month.

I think the only argument that is too elusive to argue away is "the escalation" fear. Good thing is that west is starting to get over that fear. Russian capacity to expand the war is diminishing by the day, RUS red lines have been crossed 10 times too many, only one left is the nuclear war fear that is also losing its fear factor.

[Butschi]

3 hours ago, potato4212 said:

Germany if they grow a pair could send a battalions worth plus maybe a 100 more from Rheinmetalls stocks? So in Total perhaps 250 Leopard 2s. 150 of which come from Germany. It seems that at least in the near term Germany is not giving away leopard 2s. 

Rheinmetall has 22. I didn't look it up but maybe some other companies still have some?

Now this is pure speculation. But I guess there will be a token contribution from Bundeswehr units and a promise to give more "later" (produced, or refurbished). Just enough for saving face. (Understandable) reluctance because of the sorry state of Bundeswehr is one reason, the other (more important, I think, although connected) is that further reducing Bundeswehr stocks would currently be political suicide - or at least giving the opposition a powerful weapon. Why? Because almost a year after Scholz' "Zeitenwende" speach, the promise to bring the Bundeswehr up to meaningful standards and taking 100 billion euros extra debt - not much has happened. And by now most people realize that, if the money is spent at all on the military and if it isn't just used for replacing the regular budget in some way (the promise that the money would be on top of increasing the regular budget to 2% gdp was already taken back), it will most likely vanish in increased costs and new levels of incompetence. So instead of actually strengthening the Bundeswehr, further stripping down units in order to give tanks to Ukraine seems really hard to sell. Add to that, as mentioned before, that the population is against sending tanks in the first place... Well just my 2 ct. We'll see and maybe we'll be surprised.

[Huba]

1 hour ago, Butschi said:

Rheinmetall has 22. I didn't look it up but maybe some other companies still have some?

Now this is pure speculation. But I guess there will be a token contribution from Bundeswehr units and a promise to give more "later" (produced, or refurbished). Just enough for saving face. (Understandable) reluctance because of the sorry state of Bundeswehr is one reason, the other (more important, I think, although connected) is that further reducing Bundeswehr stocks would currently be political suicide - or at least giving the opposition a powerful weapon. Why? Because almost a year after Scholz' "Zeitenwende" speach, the promise to bring the Bundeswehr up to meaningful standards and taking 100 billion euros extra debt - not much has happened. And by now most people realize that, if the money is spent at all on the military and if it isn't just used for replacing the regular budget in some way (the promise that the money would be on top of increasing the regular budget to 2% gdp was already taken back), it will most likely vanish in increased costs and new levels of incompetence. So instead of actually strengthening the Bundeswehr, further stripping down units in order to give tanks to Ukraine seems really hard to sell. Add to that, as mentioned before, that the population is against sending tanks in the first place... Well just my 2 ct. We'll see and maybe we'll be surprised.

There are also the Leo1, enough for whole brigade more or less right? IIRC there is also a considerable number of Leo2 owned by KMW, more than RM has, no idea about their status though. The scheme of donating BW tanks and refurbishing the industry stock to replace them sounds quite doable - but of course there are the politics in play, as you described. Still, Leo1 and token Leo2, plus green light for consortium and maintenance support would be a reasonable middle ground.

In the meantime, I spoke to one British bloke who said that in internal discussions the company of Challenger2 they are going to donate is almost always mentioned as "initial". Even ideas of just giving them all away are reportedly being floated around - let's see, but it would be great if somebody could lead the way like this.

In other news, Switzerland might change the laws. Their recent blockade of Aspide/ Spada met with a lot of critique, it's nice that they seem to be responding to it:

 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Huba

[Bulletpoint]

How are Challengers and Leopard 2s expected to do against Russian ATGMs?

[Zeleban]

34 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

How are Challengers and Leopard 2s expected to do against Russian ATGMs?

as well as Ukrainian tanks. They will shoot from closed positions.

 

How many videos of the destruction of Ukrainian tanks with the help of anti-tank systems have you seen

[Bulletpoint]

1 minute ago, Zeleban said:

as well as Ukrainian tanks. They will shoot from closed positions.

 

How many videos of the destruction of Ukrainian tanks with the help of anti-tank systems have you seen

None. But it was an honest question.

[Beleg85]

Not that it would be unexpected- it seems mobilization is coming closer daily:

 

[Kinophile]

Every tank goes pop when hit correctly. 

RUS ATGMs are no joke and if used correctly can totally take out any Western tank, super-duper OP God Mode Abrams included. Western armor is probably better but it's not invincible. 

I guess the two factors affecting the kill rate are 1) Quantity  and 2) Usage. 

RUS does not appear to have enough units in use,  in comparison to UKR. I've seen this noted in some OSINT circles, and it's odd.  They're not hard to make,  the electronics did use some Western stuff but nothing irreplaceable and they must have had a large pre-war stockpile. 

One interesting idea I read was the state of RUS training -  because their infantry wasn't strong after training,  the churn was high and dedicated contrakti not very numerous. So perhaps the smarter higher ups put emphasis on  aggressive armored mech attacks, with vehicles providing the hitting power to the spotting infantry, who were emphasized to urban assault, support and not long range tank sniping. This created an officer corp and mindset that focusses on mech,  ie vehicle formations. 

This used the plethora of barrels available without the onerous actual training of infantry.  Like with all corrupt organizations,  the easiest way wins out, every time. 

Of course,  that was while RUS was on the attack. I suspect we'll see a lot more ATGM use when UKR starts assaulting prepared RUS lines. 

I'm also curious about ATGM usage during the defense of Kherson...

 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Kinophile

[Bulletpoint]

34 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Not that it would be unexpected- it seems mobilization is coming closer daily:

 

I have the feeling that Putin might just be waiting for a declaration of Western tanks to Ukraine before announcing more mobilisation to "counter the Western aggression".

On the other hand, Germany might be waiting for him to annnounce mobilisation before announcing the tanks in response.

[The_Capt]

Just now, Kinophile said:

Every tank goes pop when hit correctly. 

RUS ATGMs are no joke and if used correctly can totally take out any Western tank, super-duper OP God Mode Abrams included. Western armor is probably better but it's not invincible.

So this is one of the central problems with "send them all the tanks!"  We are not even sure tanks will work, while creating extra burden on the UAs sustainment systems.  Everyone goes back to "tanks have been dead before etc", but this is the first real peer-to-peer war with 21st century weapons and ISR.  We have read a raft of reports that send some really weird signals on the tank, and by extension heavy mass.  

3 hours ago, Zeleban said:

 

This is the problem.  A cheap man-portable fire-and-forget ATGM system, some of them with obscene ranges.  To the point that the RUSI report, one of the few actual comprehensive professional reports done on this war, has noted that UA tanks are currently majority employed in an "indirect fire" capacity at ranges of 10kms.  When last we thought about Soviet vs Western equipment an ATGM that could reach out to 3000m had vulnerabilities - missile was large and slow, straight line and had to be visually and actively guided onto the target by a human.  The weapon systems were larger, much less portable.  Modern systems have improved enormously while the defensive feature of the tank is still armor.  In fact we never really tested modern tanks to the actual environment of the Cold War, so we have a lot of theories but little evidence.

The answer is "well sweep the enemy infantry with our own infantry".  Well when that ATGM has ranges in kms, that is a lot of ground to sweep before one can secure the area for tanks.  I am sure tanks still have a role on the battlefield, but it is likely far more niche (e.g. breakout battles as opposed too break in) and definitely more supporting.  At least until someone can figure out a counter.

I am sure we will send the UA tanks, but for anyone expecting a quick victory I would just be cautious.  Also you can expect a lot of pictures of burning western equipment coming out of the Russia info sphere to demonstrate how Russia is fighting and winning against NATO.  The only good news is that Russia has a lot of older ATGM systems so we have that on our side, and the Chinese don't seem interested in selling them this:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HJ-12.