Excellent analysis as usual. I would fully concur with the assessment that western tanks are all meant for TV audiences back home. It's what you get when hollywood's running the show.
Maybe irrelevant, but in Iraq one of the jobs Special Operations forces had to do was measure ground pressure. They'd have a special stick instrument you push into the dirt, and they'd go around at night wherever the tanks want to advance the next day or week or month. The tanks need ground that's stiff enough or they sink, so special forces have to become surveyors.
Russia built their tanks and their bridges to match, they're the best tanks for advancing in the environment they're in (except for reverse speed). Western tanks are meant to fall back from prepared position to the next prepared position, and they have a great reverse speed.
Wow that's interesting I didn't know about the surveying / ground pressure stuff, particularly interesting since the Abrams has the worst 'ground pressure' (https://www.mathscinotes.com/2016/06/tank-track-ground-pressure-examples/) of any modern MBT so maybe it needs particular babying in that regard.
But in reference to bridges and such, that's a good point, I forget where else I mentioned this, but the Ukrainian's forces bridging vehicles, i.e. Soviet MTU-72's and such have a max 50ton payload because they were built to carry Russian tanks which are all well under 50t. However all the NATO tanks are pretty much in the 60-70tons range and would require an entire separate engineering infrastructure to come along with them, and that's not even mentioning yet the actual bridges in the country itself as you referenced.
And yea the tank reverse thing is an interesting point, you're right that's the common interpretation is that Russian tanks were built to advance in wide steppes and burst through the Fulda gap and not play reversing games, with that said it is a disadvantage but of course it was a design tradeoff for them to create the compactness necessary to have a much lighter, lower profile MBT than the bulky NATO ones they had to fit in a limited transmission. With that said there's some unspoken perks like the fact that its single reverse gear offers mega-torque due to the gear differential compared to western tanks which could prove handy in certain situations.
I think it was in Tom Clancy Shadow Warriors, really written by Carl Siner US army Ret. (was in special forces since ww2).
Yea the infrastructure, that's the word for it, massive. Fuel and parts too. Iraq had Abrams, until they pissed the US off and then America stopped permission for their contractors to maintain the tanks, and those tanks stopped working almost immediately. I bet they don't even risk taking the tanks off road, that'd be so risky and the Brits made it clear they don't want any captured.
Yea there's not going to be a biltzkrieg with Abrams or Challenger2s on soft ground. They can't just go here and there willy nilly where the offensive leads them. It all has to be very organized and planned. And WOW there's a lot of canals, and big ones, in Ukraine. Almost like the Soviet Union poured all their resources into it.
What it might really say is that the 'old stock' of Soviet materiel is gone now, from ALL the post soviet countries in America's sphere of influence. Now everything has to be built or bought, where before America fought the war against Russia for free, better yet, with Russian equipment. Look how they had to ship the 777 guns over, because they couldn't make soviet ammunition and there was none left anywhere. It wasn't that they were super guns, it was because of ammo. Ammo depots in Europe and Russia have been exploding with frequency after 2014 and before 2022, so both sides seem to have started sabotage fighting before hostilities got to this point.
I hope peace comes soon. The west can use peace to start a re-armament program, then go back to war in 5 years. The rest of the world can use it as a brief respite of the neverending world war we're trapped in.
<blockquote>The little late addition of, “they certainly don’t lack the courage” is just a crass eye poke, a verbal figleaf or guffawing elbow-in-the-ribs from the fat cigar man with the BAE Systems nameplate on his tartar-sauce-stained shirt.</blockquote>
'drag the tanks back' - that's lunacy surely. only a desk bound clerk could write that. on a battlefield? a tank? you don't get a couple of guys and a rope to drag a tank back... Like what on earth makes them think it would be feasible?
Man I love your writing style. Spot on with the tongue-in-cheek humor, quibs.
May the evil AFU be crushed before more Russian troops succumb to bio attacks. What a messy conflict.
Wait for General Mud to come back in the Spring. Then they might have some additional difficultly towing that heavy-ass shit out of harms way.
Excellent analysis as usual. I would fully concur with the assessment that western tanks are all meant for TV audiences back home. It's what you get when hollywood's running the show.
Maybe irrelevant, but in Iraq one of the jobs Special Operations forces had to do was measure ground pressure. They'd have a special stick instrument you push into the dirt, and they'd go around at night wherever the tanks want to advance the next day or week or month. The tanks need ground that's stiff enough or they sink, so special forces have to become surveyors.
Russia built their tanks and their bridges to match, they're the best tanks for advancing in the environment they're in (except for reverse speed). Western tanks are meant to fall back from prepared position to the next prepared position, and they have a great reverse speed.
Wow that's interesting I didn't know about the surveying / ground pressure stuff, particularly interesting since the Abrams has the worst 'ground pressure' (https://www.mathscinotes.com/2016/06/tank-track-ground-pressure-examples/) of any modern MBT so maybe it needs particular babying in that regard.
But in reference to bridges and such, that's a good point, I forget where else I mentioned this, but the Ukrainian's forces bridging vehicles, i.e. Soviet MTU-72's and such have a max 50ton payload because they were built to carry Russian tanks which are all well under 50t. However all the NATO tanks are pretty much in the 60-70tons range and would require an entire separate engineering infrastructure to come along with them, and that's not even mentioning yet the actual bridges in the country itself as you referenced.
And yea the tank reverse thing is an interesting point, you're right that's the common interpretation is that Russian tanks were built to advance in wide steppes and burst through the Fulda gap and not play reversing games, with that said it is a disadvantage but of course it was a design tradeoff for them to create the compactness necessary to have a much lighter, lower profile MBT than the bulky NATO ones they had to fit in a limited transmission. With that said there's some unspoken perks like the fact that its single reverse gear offers mega-torque due to the gear differential compared to western tanks which could prove handy in certain situations.
I think it was in Tom Clancy Shadow Warriors, really written by Carl Siner US army Ret. (was in special forces since ww2).
Yea the infrastructure, that's the word for it, massive. Fuel and parts too. Iraq had Abrams, until they pissed the US off and then America stopped permission for their contractors to maintain the tanks, and those tanks stopped working almost immediately. I bet they don't even risk taking the tanks off road, that'd be so risky and the Brits made it clear they don't want any captured.
Yea there's not going to be a biltzkrieg with Abrams or Challenger2s on soft ground. They can't just go here and there willy nilly where the offensive leads them. It all has to be very organized and planned. And WOW there's a lot of canals, and big ones, in Ukraine. Almost like the Soviet Union poured all their resources into it.
What it might really say is that the 'old stock' of Soviet materiel is gone now, from ALL the post soviet countries in America's sphere of influence. Now everything has to be built or bought, where before America fought the war against Russia for free, better yet, with Russian equipment. Look how they had to ship the 777 guns over, because they couldn't make soviet ammunition and there was none left anywhere. It wasn't that they were super guns, it was because of ammo. Ammo depots in Europe and Russia have been exploding with frequency after 2014 and before 2022, so both sides seem to have started sabotage fighting before hostilities got to this point.
I hope peace comes soon. The west can use peace to start a re-armament program, then go back to war in 5 years. The rest of the world can use it as a brief respite of the neverending world war we're trapped in.
Re Soviet era bridges; one or two overweight (by 10 - 20 ton) MBTs won't critically damage a bridge, but a column of them? Will be interesting to see.
However I don't believe they will allow the tanks anywhere near the Dneiper.
I wonder how long before some enterprising ukrainian just diverts one to russia like they did the Cesars?
<blockquote>The little late addition of, “they certainly don’t lack the courage” is just a crass eye poke, a verbal figleaf or guffawing elbow-in-the-ribs from the fat cigar man with the BAE Systems nameplate on his tartar-sauce-stained shirt.</blockquote>
Savage, funny, and true.
Subscribed.
200 western tank operators mabey. Good Post.
'drag the tanks back' - that's lunacy surely. only a desk bound clerk could write that. on a battlefield? a tank? you don't get a couple of guys and a rope to drag a tank back... Like what on earth makes them think it would be feasible?