US and German tanks to Ukraine

[Anonymous]

I understand that, after so many discussions, both the US and Germany are sending tanks to Ukraine. i was just surprise to learn that apparently the US is sending 31 tanks, and Germany initially 15 if I am correct. I knot nothing about war and combat but I thought that tanks are used in the hundreds on the battlefield and I am not sure how such a small number of tanks is going to make any difference. Can anybody who understand this stuff explain to know-nothing like me who would like to understand? TIA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I understand that, after so many discussions, both the US and Germany are sending tanks to Ukraine. i was just surprise to learn that apparently the US is sending 31 tanks, and Germany initially 15 if I am correct. I knot nothing about war and combat but I thought that tanks are used in the hundreds on the battlefield and I am not sure how such a small number of tanks is going to make any difference. Can anybody who understand this stuff explain to know-nothing like me who would like to understand? TIA

It's complicated. Our tanks are objectively better than the Russians' tanks, ours, and the Leopards and some of the other Western ones now making their way to Ukraine were specifically designed to hunt and kill the Russians best tanks, and to be resilient against them. They are much more sophisticated, they are faster, more accurate, computerized, and so on. Each one of our tanks is worth several of theirs on the battlefield.

But the other problem is that there aren't particularly good logistics to support our Abrams tanks in Ukraine. None of the neighboring countries aiding Ukraine have trained mechanics, parts, et cetera to support them. However, they DO have trained mechanics, parts and logistics to support German Leopard tanks. Germany was balking at sending the Leopards, we had to send Abrams to get Germany to send their Leopards. A lot of logistics still need to be built up. Ukrainian tank crews need to be trained up, mechanics need to be trained, supply pipelines and depots and maintenance facilities need to be set up - and hopefully that can then also support some of the other tanks as well, UK Challengers, French LeClercs et cetera. These tanks should do well, if well supported with intelligence and infantry. Their big challenge will be in dealing with Russian artillery. Which is why HIMARS, Caesars and other vehicles are also quite critical.

[Anonymous]

Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has never served in a US Army Armored Corps.

Abrams are incredibly maintenance intensive systems. And they consume huge amounts of fuel. And presumably all of the current tech within them will have to be removed - everything from the armor, comms, TA and FC equipment. Basically we’ll be sending them functional hulls with operable main guns and little else. And the power unit will be totally unfamiliar to people who come from a knowledge base centered around diesel engines. Turbo shaft engines are totally alien to folks who are used to pistons and fuel injectors.

We can spare the tanks of course, we have over 3,000 M1’s sitting in storage in the California desert. But what we’d be sending them won’t be a game changing weapon system.

I never crewed in an Abrams, I was in Bradley’s. But we operated with Abrams in combined cavalry/armor units pretty often, and it will be interesting to see how 40 year old M1’s do in a European theater. I’ve only seen them in deserts- a place they were not initially designed for. They were actually created to fight of the flat farmlands of Western Europe, and Ukraine is a pretty reasonable facsimile of that terrain. So we’ll finally get to see if our 80’s era tanks can hack it in the theater they were designed for.

Something interesting I noticed - this article just says “tanks”. Nothing else? No bridging gear? No mine clearing? No extraction units? No lowboy haulers? No trucks? No fuelers? Armor doesn’t go to war all by itself. Tanks don’t operate very long without support equipment and support vehicles. And there’s no mention of that. I’d like to believe that’s just sloppy journalism, but nothing would surprise me these days. But if they just sent tanks, that’s a huge oversight. And it’s an indication that the White House isn’t listening to the Pentagon.

[Anonymous]

The posters up thread did a great job explaining why these amounts likely won't help Ukraine, and may even hurt given the need to train and set up logistics for multiple disparate small units of tanks.

That leaves two reasons why this is happening. Real world testing of the equipment and the first step in a series of escalations.

[Anonymous]

The reason they are being sent is because Germany needed us to have the same skin in the game.
It’s not about our tanks, it’s about theirs.

[Anonymous]

I think Ukrainians have been training in the U.S. for a while, no? How much time would be needed to help the Ukrainians get up to speed on these tanks? They strike me as a superbly capable people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reason they are being sent is because Germany needed us to have the same skin in the game.
It’s not about our tanks, it’s about theirs.

Exactly. As already explained above. Leopards and other NATO ally tanks can be better adapted for Ukrainian use, and our NATO allies adjoining Ukraine have better capabilities to support them.

Giving Abrams was only about getting Scholz to back down from his obnoxious hesitancy.

[Anonymous]

My guess is that they're decoys trying to coax the Russians into fielding their t14 armatas in order to see how they perform in real world battlefields and to gather intelligence in their weaknesses. The higher up minds are playing with Russian hubris and inferiority comex issues and are seeing if Russian will feel the need to flex their muscle like they always do. If they field t14 to try to intimidate 40 year old tanks, it'll be great for intelligence and to improve the designs of our next gen tanks that are currently in the pipeline. It's a ploy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has never served in a US Army Armored Corps.

Abrams are incredibly maintenance intensive systems. And they consume huge amounts of fuel. And presumably all of the current tech within them will have to be removed - everything from the armor, comms, TA and FC equipment. Basically we’ll be sending them functional hulls with operable main guns and little else. And the power unit will be totally unfamiliar to people who come from a knowledge base centered around diesel engines. Turbo shaft engines are totally alien to folks who are used to pistons and fuel injectors.

We can spare the tanks of course, we have over 3,000 M1’s sitting in storage in the California desert. But what we’d be sending them won’t be a game changing weapon system.

I never crewed in an Abrams, I was in Bradley’s. But we operated with Abrams in combined cavalry/armor units pretty often, and it will be interesting to see how 40 year old M1’s do in a European theater. I’ve only seen them in deserts- a place they were not initially designed for. They were actually created to fight of the flat farmlands of Western Europe, and Ukraine is a pretty reasonable facsimile of that terrain. So we’ll finally get to see if our 80’s era tanks can hack it in the theater they were designed for.

Something interesting I noticed - this article just says “tanks”. Nothing else? No bridging gear? No mine clearing? No extraction units? No lowboy haulers? No trucks? No fuelers? Armor doesn’t go to war all by itself. Tanks don’t operate very long without support equipment and support vehicles. And there’s no mention of that. I’d like to believe that’s just sloppy journalism, but nothing would surprise me these days. But if they just sent tanks, that’s a huge oversight. And it’s an indication that the White House isn’t listening to the Pentagon.

Who do you think are making these decisions? It is laughable that you think know one but yourself has thought about logistics. The US military is incredibly good at logistics.

Let’s talk some facts, M1 can run on diesel or any type of fuel. It gets about .5 mpg. The t-84 get about 1 mpg. Yes tanks and aircraft really any military vehicle have low fuel efficiency specially armor’s vehicles. The Ukraine will use the western tanks to spear head an attack with their other tanks used to exploit the gap. They are not going to adopt nato doctrine because they do not have the nato’s capabilities.

The M1 engine is really a modified helicopter engine. The in filed service and maintenance are fairly easy. Major repairs are usually switch outs which the Ukraine have the capability to do. They have been salvaging Russians from the beginning of the war. So the Ukrainians have the equipment to transport and move heavy tanks. There will be private contractors for major repairs at the regimental or higher repair areas.

They are not going to strip the tanks of their system. If they did that they would be useless. You act like the US military logistical planners are a bunch of morons. They are not. They are paying professional with years of experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has never served in a US Army Armored Corps.

Abrams are incredibly maintenance intensive systems. And they consume huge amounts of fuel. And presumably all of the current tech within them will have to be removed - everything from the armor, comms, TA and FC equipment. Basically we’ll be sending them functional hulls with operable main guns and little else. And the power unit will be totally unfamiliar to people who come from a knowledge base centered around diesel engines. Turbo shaft engines are totally alien to folks who are used to pistons and fuel injectors.

We can spare the tanks of course, we have over 3,000 M1’s sitting in storage in the California desert. But what we’d be sending them won’t be a game changing weapon system.

I never crewed in an Abrams, I was in Bradley’s. But we operated with Abrams in combined cavalry/armor units pretty often, and it will be interesting to see how 40 year old M1’s do in a European theater. I’ve only seen them in deserts- a place they were not initially designed for. They were actually created to fight of the flat farmlands of Western Europe, and Ukraine is a pretty reasonable facsimile of that terrain. So we’ll finally get to see if our 80’s era tanks can hack it in the theater they were designed for.

Something interesting I noticed - this article just says “tanks”. Nothing else? No bridging gear? No mine clearing? No extraction units? No lowboy haulers? No trucks? No fuelers? Armor doesn’t go to war all by itself. Tanks don’t operate very long without support equipment and support vehicles. And there’s no mention of that. I’d like to believe that’s just sloppy journalism, but nothing would surprise me these days. But if they just sent tanks, that’s a huge oversight. And it’s an indication that the White House isn’t listening to the Pentagon.

Who do you think are making these decisions? It is laughable that you think know one but yourself has thought about logistics. The US military is incredibly good at logistics.

Let’s talk some facts, M1 can run on diesel or any type of fuel. It gets about .5 mpg. The t-84 get about 1 mpg. Yes tanks and aircraft really any military vehicle have low fuel efficiency specially armor’s vehicles. The Ukraine will use the western tanks to spear head an attack with their other tanks used to exploit the gap. They are not going to adopt nato doctrine because they do not have the nato’s capabilities.

The M1 engine is really a modified helicopter engine. The in filed service and maintenance are fairly easy. Major repairs are usually switch outs which the Ukraine have the capability to do. They have been salvaging Russians from the beginning of the war. So the Ukrainians have the equipment to transport and move heavy tanks. There will be private contractors for major repairs at the regimental or higher repair areas.

They are not going to strip the tanks of their system. If they did that they would be useless. You act like the US military logistical planners are a bunch of morons. They are not. They are paying professional with years of experience.

They don't need to plan out the logistics much when the whole point of these tanks is to get destroyed and justify the next round of escalation. If they were meant to actually be useful on the battlefield, there would be a lot more of them.

[Anonymous]

The US tanks will take until next winter to get there with trained units.
The kill ratio of western tanks to enemy tanks should be over 15 to 1; could be higher in right situations. That is a big difference in infantry and armor combat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has never served in a US Army Armored Corps.

Abrams are incredibly maintenance intensive systems. And they consume huge amounts of fuel. And presumably all of the current tech within them will have to be removed - everything from the armor, comms, TA and FC equipment. Basically we’ll be sending them functional hulls with operable main guns and little else. And the power unit will be totally unfamiliar to people who come from a knowledge base centered around diesel engines. Turbo shaft engines are totally alien to folks who are used to pistons and fuel injectors.

We can spare the tanks of course, we have over 3,000 M1’s sitting in storage in the California desert. But what we’d be sending them won’t be a game changing weapon system.

I never crewed in an Abrams, I was in Bradley’s. But we operated with Abrams in combined cavalry/armor units pretty often, and it will be interesting to see how 40 year old M1’s do in a European theater. I’ve only seen them in deserts- a place they were not initially designed for. They were actually created to fight of the flat farmlands of Western Europe, and Ukraine is a pretty reasonable facsimile of that terrain. So we’ll finally get to see if our 80’s era tanks can hack it in the theater they were designed for.

Something interesting I noticed - this article just says “tanks”. Nothing else? No bridging gear? No mine clearing? No extraction units? No lowboy haulers? No trucks? No fuelers? Armor doesn’t go to war all by itself. Tanks don’t operate very long without support equipment and support vehicles. And there’s no mention of that. I’d like to believe that’s just sloppy journalism, but nothing would surprise me these days. But if they just sent tanks, that’s a huge oversight. And it’s an indication that the White House isn’t listening to the Pentagon.

Who do you think are making these decisions? It is laughable that you think know one but yourself has thought about logistics. The US military is incredibly good at logistics.

Let’s talk some facts, M1 can run on diesel or any type of fuel. It gets about .5 mpg. The t-84 get about 1 mpg. Yes tanks and aircraft really any military vehicle have low fuel efficiency specially armor’s vehicles. The Ukraine will use the western tanks to spear head an attack with their other tanks used to exploit the gap. They are not going to adopt nato doctrine because they do not have the nato’s capabilities.

The M1 engine is really a modified helicopter engine. The in filed service and maintenance are fairly easy. Major repairs are usually switch outs which the Ukraine have the capability to do. They have been salvaging Russians from the beginning of the war. So the Ukrainians have the equipment to transport and move heavy tanks. There will be private contractors for major repairs at the regimental or higher repair areas.

They are not going to strip the tanks of their system. If they did that they would be useless. You act like the US military logistical planners are a bunch of morons. They are not. They are paying professional with years of experience.

The Ukes have never even seen an Abrams power unit. They’re used to soviet-era diesel technology. The transmission and reduction gearbox is another thing they’ve never seen before, too. The training pipeline for techs that maintain turbine engines is about 20 months long. But you go ahead and tell us what you know, lolz!


The unfortunate reality here is that y’all don’t even know enough to know what you don’t know. That’s why is so difficult for you to understand this stuff. And why you think you understand more than you do.

The only thing you’re correct about is our military being very good at logistics. We are. Logistics are what allow something as complex and maintenance intensive as an M1 to stay in service.

You know what isn’t being included in this shipment of tanks?

The entire logistical tail to keep them working.


Carry on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has never served in a US Army Armored Corps.

Abrams are incredibly maintenance intensive systems. And they consume huge amounts of fuel. And presumably all of the current tech within them will have to be removed - everything from the armor, comms, TA and FC equipment. Basically we’ll be sending them functional hulls with operable main guns and little else. And the power unit will be totally unfamiliar to people who come from a knowledge base centered around diesel engines. Turbo shaft engines are totally alien to folks who are used to pistons and fuel injectors.

We can spare the tanks of course, we have over 3,000 M1’s sitting in storage in the California desert. But what we’d be sending them won’t be a game changing weapon system.

I never crewed in an Abrams, I was in Bradley’s. But we operated with Abrams in combined cavalry/armor units pretty often, and it will be interesting to see how 40 year old M1’s do in a European theater. I’ve only seen them in deserts- a place they were not initially designed for. They were actually created to fight of the flat farmlands of Western Europe, and Ukraine is a pretty reasonable facsimile of that terrain. So we’ll finally get to see if our 80’s era tanks can hack it in the theater they were designed for.

Something interesting I noticed - this article just says “tanks”. Nothing else? No bridging gear? No mine clearing? No extraction units? No lowboy haulers? No trucks? No fuelers? Armor doesn’t go to war all by itself. Tanks don’t operate very long without support equipment and support vehicles. And there’s no mention of that. I’d like to believe that’s just sloppy journalism, but nothing would surprise me these days. But if they just sent tanks, that’s a huge oversight. And it’s an indication that the White House isn’t listening to the Pentagon.

Who do you think are making these decisions? It is laughable that you think know one but yourself has thought about logistics. The US military is incredibly good at logistics.

Let’s talk some facts, M1 can run on diesel or any type of fuel. It gets about .5 mpg. The t-84 get about 1 mpg. Yes tanks and aircraft really any military vehicle have low fuel efficiency specially armor’s vehicles. The Ukraine will use the western tanks to spear head an attack with their other tanks used to exploit the gap. They are not going to adopt nato doctrine because they do not have the nato’s capabilities.

The M1 engine is really a modified helicopter engine. The in filed service and maintenance are fairly easy. Major repairs are usually switch outs which the Ukraine have the capability to do. They have been salvaging Russians from the beginning of the war. So the Ukrainians have the equipment to transport and move heavy tanks. There will be private contractors for major repairs at the regimental or higher repair areas.

They are not going to strip the tanks of their system. If they did that they would be useless. You act like the US military logistical planners are a bunch of morons. They are not. They are paying professional with years of experience.

They don't need to plan out the logistics much when the whole point of these tanks is to get destroyed and justify the next round of escalation. If they were meant to actually be useful on the battlefield, there would be a lot more of them.

I suspect this poster is correct.

[Anonymous]

An m1a2 weighs 55 tons
A leopard 2 is over 69 tons.

A t-72 is like 42 tons.

When the advanced t-90/armada broke down in a parade is sat in middle of Moscow for weeks as they could not find anything to tow it out with.
It only weighs 52 tons and they relied on trains to get them to the parade.
Ukraine will rely on trains to move the bigger tanks around. If Russia was struggling to move theirs I doubt Ukraine has any way to move them.

Tanks are like toddlers - plop and play for short periods of time and modern tanks make the tiger tank look like a Toyota for repair and maintenance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An m1a2 weighs 55 tons
A leopard 2 is over 69 tons.

A t-72 is like 42 tons.

When the advanced t-90/armada broke down in a parade is sat in middle of Moscow for weeks as they could not find anything to tow it out with.
It only weighs 52 tons and they relied on trains to get them to the parade.
Ukraine will rely on trains to move the bigger tanks around. If Russia was struggling to move theirs I doubt Ukraine has any way to move them.

Tanks are like toddlers - plop and play for short periods of time and modern tanks make the tiger tank look like a Toyota for repair and maintenance.

Ehhh just leave it to creative Ukrainian farmers. At this point they probably know more about moving heavy military equipment than most militaries do.