What Ukraine thinks of Tanks
In this video we look at an interview with a Ukrainian Tank officer talking about tank and tank combat in the Russo-Ukrainian War. The interview was released in June 2022.
Cover: Original cover from Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, creativecommons.org/licenses/..., link: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Modified by vonKickass.
Disclaimer in 2019 & 2020 I was invited by the Panzermuseum Munster.
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Original Interview
• Танки у російсько-укра...
Translation of key points on twitter
/ 1546124632125743104
Donnelly, Christopher N.: Red Banner. The Soviet Military System in Peace and War. Jane’s Information Group: 1988.
Friedli, Lukas: Repairing the Panzers. German Tank Maintenance in World War 2. Volume 2. Panzerwrecks: Sussex, UK, 2011.
00:00 Intro
00:46 Tanks are not dead
02:45 Employment of Captured Tanks
03:56 Russian Employment of Tanks
05:10 Maintenance & Repairs
07:02 Upgrading Tanks with ERA
07:28 Training
09:01 Why Russians bring old T-62, T-72 and T-80s?
09:41 Problems training with Night Vision
10:22 Sending Leopards?
11:56 Russian vs Ukrainian Tanks
#russiaukrainewar #tanks #ukraine
“Any tank is better than no tank” Logistics corps: *sweats nervously*
Engineering Corps: "The lord please have mercy"
Difficulties in logistics are not worse than no tanks at all.
@@herptek the Ukrainians disagree considering interviews with officers and the RUSI article that I forget the name of right now
@@looinrims I believe you once you come up with a direct quote by any one of their military leaders stating they would rather fight without tanks because their logistics are more or less bothersome.
@@herptek read the RUSI article linked in this video’s description kzhead.info/sun/abKTgbGNmp6saJ8/bejne.html the Ukrainians are literally ripping their hair out logistically
Tanks have always been obsolete, until they aren't. And they are when poorly handled. No weapon is invincible and they need not be to be effective. I don't know why people got the idea that the ability to destroy something makes them obsolete. Every successful weapon system is made so by proper application of doctrine.
its because its much easier to look at things in a black and white manner rather than pay attention to the nuance
Because why buy expensive thing if cheap thing destroy expensive thing
I don't think tanks are obsolete but they are heading that way. The issue of why people say that is because of the era of asymmetric warfare we've been seeing in the last 30 years. This is the first big war (notice I didn't say major) we've seen in a long time where it's two professional armies clashing and tanks as far as I can tell are still doing the job they are created for which is to act as a "mobile bunker with a gun" so infantry can advance.
Reality: No weapon system is obsolete. That myth/scam started a very long time ago. Tanks have ALWAYS been vulnerable by other weapons. In World War I, the artillery units destroyed a very large number of those lumbering, slow, poorly armored tanks. These obsolete tanks however were one of the causes of Germany's defeat. In many wars tanks have been vulnerable. In the Middle East, several wars showed how easily tanks could be destroyed. In World War II, the many Infantry Crewed AT guns, both handheld and towed destroyed a lot of tanks. On the Eastern front, the T-34 was NOT the super tank that many may have said. The mass of tanks and the destruction of factories building weapons and ammunition for the Germans made the tank assault possible. In our day, the many varieties of older PCs all the way back to MS-DOS are in fact NOT obsolete. If you have an MS-DOS version of MicroStupid Word and it does the job, it is NOT obsolete. Just because someone says it is, does not make it so. Infantry without a handy AT Weapon of any type cannot stop a platoon of tanks. You can attack a tank with a rifle and grenade all you want, it doesn't work. The battlefield is composed of many, many types of weapons. We can see the Soviet tactic of shelling an area with an extreme amount of artillery, followed by tanks worked well in World War II and it has been working well in Ukraine. Swords are outdated, but the use of knives and bayonets are still possible. It is called Combined Arms for a reason. You take away one part and diminish its effectiveness. So, now drones are a part of that Combined Arms Tactic. AT Missiles are also a part of that Tactic. Sophisticated Anti-Air systems are also a part. Modern armies going into a village with just tanks? Of course they will suffer, because Combined Arms means going into a village with Infantry support, artillery AND drones and AT Missiles.
@@Seriona1 one should be careful alot of speculation was thrown around before ww1 and the actual thing ended up completely differently than it was expected
Hey there, as a Ukrainian who watched the original interview - addressing your concern about how tweets reflect the original sense - you're very precise with the interpretation of this expert 😉 He's one of the best tank experts in Ukraine with a lot of training, maintenance, real combat usage of tanks. As well as the source of this interview - Militarny is simply the best UA-expert source, they even have EN version of their website. Plus, as this expert mentioned in another interview some real combat experience - sometimes it doesn't matter even if your tank can't penetrate the armor of the enemy, 2-3 HE rounds - and their crew is having a bad time + all of the aiming and aux. equipment on a tank is lost, which takes the tank and crew out of combat. In most of the cases it comes down to training, tactics, and motivation of crews, not the raw stats of tanks, like in a video game :)
Thanks Bernhardt.
Tanks for all the hardwork you put into these wonderful videos.
Glad you like them!
I also want to TANK him
I see what you did there xD
Tread lightly.
I was greatly surprised to see on this channel discussion about Mykola Salamaha's interview made two months ago, which I slightly forgot. In general, tweets series and this video is accurate. Unfortunately, Militarny (they made this interview and have buch of another with regularly new ones) did not add subtitles, but we ask them to do it repeatedly. Thanks for the job and salute from Ukraine!
Indeed, Soviet doctrine relied on echelon tactics to keep continuous pressure on an enemy to achieve a break through and provided depth in the case of a counter attack. The Soviets believed in quantity over quality and that the West's higher trained troops were more brittle and would be degraded with continuous combat. However, Soviet tactics also relied heavily on centralization of command and control, making it difficult to exploit rapid changes in the battle space, it also made the army vulnerable to disruptions if the its centralized command was disrupted. The US military puts a great deal of emphasis on mission tactics where local commanders are given a mission, resources, and a timeline to complete the mission. Commanders are encouraged to take the initiative to exploit conditions in their battle space and react to changing conditions. The US army also emphasizes getting inside the enemy's command decision loop timing, referred to as the OODA loop, the cycle observe-orient-decide-act, to disrupt enemy plans and kept them off balance. Each system has advantages and disadvantages. However, Soviet tactics do not work if there is only one wing in an echelon and the attack is turned back.
Americans learned from the overrun of France in WW2, the soviets did not.
@@512TheWolf512 The Americans were trained by the Prussian Von Steuben during the Revolutionary War and they learned German Auftragstaktik from the Germans after WW2.
They also begged the question: What happens when you dont really have enough echelons? The USSR could count on Army after Army after Army to throw at the problem, whether it was Soviet or Pact. The current Russian forces deployed look echelon'd at DIV level at best. Can the USSR's doctrine hold, especially in the start when they bypassed large BDE-sized elements, without enough firepower to sufficiently fix them in place.
@@512TheWolf512 You are wrong imo. The US had an excellent fighting force in WWII where lower echelon commanders would be able to take initiative within the confines of their operating orders. Especially during the Vietnam War the US army was greatly hindered by far too much medling with local commanders in the field and a lot of decision making by politicians instead of army commanders. This led to a lot of inertia and unnecessesary idiotic commands. This ultimately led to a greatly demoralized US army where the important backbone of the combat power, namely the NCO's, was lacking and morale was at an all time low. The homecoming of the US forces after the Vietnam War had ended was a cold shower for most of the veterans. It took the USA two decades from the start of the seventies to rethink their approach to warfare and rewrite their doctrine. By putting much emphasis on new training methods and frequently training the USA was able to reform their forces in an effective way, culminating in a giant victory during Desert Storm. One could say the Sovjets and their successors in the Russian federation have stayed stuck in the Great Patriotic War mode as well as their Cold War doctrine. They learned nothing from their exploits in Afghanistan and Syria and have greatly underestimated the resolve of Ukraine, who started building up their forces using Western guyidelines. Unfortunately not soon enough to prevent the taking over of Crimea and part of the donbas.
Ooooooo! Da Loop! 😄 Yeah, I imagine there are hundreds of videos on the topic if one were to search for OODA loop. Its a principle employable at both the tactical and strategic level. First time I heard about it was in the context of fighter aircraft dogfights. The second time was in the context of small wars/counter insurgencies. This doctrine’s fingerprints are all over the Ukrainian strategy as the counteroffensive unfolds.
Don't get discouraged by rude people. You have extremely cogent analysis on this channel with great citations, and your English is outstanding. Keep up the good work!
As a retired UK tank commander with more than a few "tank bites" to show to the grandchildren, thank you for this very insightful and informative video.
Just by way of conversation, and ignoring the changes in politics, have you found the Russian forces better or worse than you expected?
as the chieftain said it so fittingly: A tank is designed to hurt people,, it does not care who
@@tamlandipper29 Speaking purely from a military commander's point of view, and leaving aside any political views or sympathies, I must say that from video's I have seen that I have been surprised at the quite obvious lack of discipline and basic training exhibited by the Russian forces. Lack of track discipline, piles of equipment and refuse strewn around locations indicate a lack of basic "housekeeping" and fieldcraft. which makes for very easy targets, particularly in these days where the use of drones is commonplace.Russia has made territorial gains of course, but they seem to have lost the momentum they appeared to gain following the capture of Sievrodonetsk and Lysychansk. To me, this would seem to indicate a shortage of human resources,although there may of course be other factors at play. It is my belief that with training and discipline, the Russian attrition rates could have been considerably less. That Russian military doctrine has always advocated quantity above quality is well known. I served in Germany during the cold war, and our perception was that the NATO armoured units were just a series of "speed bumps" to slow down massive columns of Soviet armour on its march westwards. I appreciate it's only Russia alone now, but I would have expected more professionalism and discipline from an army that is supposed to be the 2nd largest in the world. Please be mindful that these are just my personal observations and opinions The views of others, possibly more knowledgeable than I, may differ.
@@hkloss11 I am retired since 2009, so I am no longer a Challenger 2 commander... I merely commented to thank the uploader for the video, which I found interesting and informative. It was a neutral comment with no bias either way. You are, of course free to believe whatever you wish.
@@asmo1313 You know, I think some of them do...Call me a loony. but I do believe some tanks are not just chunks of metal, but have quirks and "personalities" of their own....We had a replacement Challenger command tank while ours was away for refit and software upgrades. I swear that new b**ch hated us. Within 2 months, my driver had lost 3 of his front teeth, my gunner very nearly lost a finger and thumb whilst doing a track repair in the field, then my driver slipped off the front and broke his leg. I could hardly get in or out of her without donating a piece of myself or a drop of blood to "The Countess" (After Countess Dracula)
This is also why German plan to sent their Leopards to other Eastern European nations and get them to then sent their T-72's to Ukraine in exchange makes a lot of sense.......Poland and Slovakia has the luxury of time to re-train their crews and personal on a new tank type. Ukraine doesnt have that luxury
T72 - cheap copy of T72 - cheap copy of T64, same cons except for the loading drum and the shape of the turret
That and the eastern european states probably will also be sending all their ammo, upgrade kits, spare parts, and repair gear. So its better for ukraine than having new vehicles without ample supplies. Yeah they get an upgraded ford, but at least they can fix it and run it. But if they get the maserati, one part breaks and they have to wait awhile for parts.
@@user-fj1tc6dq2c Your point being? The crews are familiar with these tanks, the maintenance depot is familiar with them, the ammo is available and they are not facing Abrams, Challenger or LeClerc. That's like saying the Bren is a copy of the ZB vz 26 with all the same cons when they enemy are fielding BARs.
@@aaronleverton4221 Н It makes no sense to compare the tanks of NATO and the USSR, T64 and above are deep modifications of the 50-60 years. While Leopards, Abrams and Leclerc are special vehicles to counter Soviet tanks.
@@user-fj1tc6dq2c It makes perfect sense if you are pointing out why modern NATO tanks are not required by the Ukraine. What makes no sense is your initial comment. What was your point? You added literally zero information to the discussion. If you were trying to point out the weaknesses of the tanks then my reply, pointing out that the Ukraine will not be using them against modern NATO tanks, makes perfect sense.
You may find the number of tanks per platoon varies depending on if its a Platoon in a pure Tk unit or a Tk Platoon within a Motor Rifle (Mech) unit.
Wonderful to hear your opinions regarding current conflicts. Waiting for more of your work, thank you.
About the use of tanks in 1s and 2s in 2014-15. This was because the AFU had no guided missiles capability capable of penetrating era. So the only way to give anti armor to light infantry was to give them tank support. Discussed in this video from the time kzhead.info/sun/a7t6YdaIbIl9mZE/bejne.htmlm10s
weirdly we have heard many reports from the Ukraine war of Russian tanks operating in ones or twos. For example "Wali," the well known Canadian volunteer, described being shelling by a single unsupported tank at long range while manning an observation trench in Donbass. I'm not sure if there is official Russian doctrine for this strategy or not but such incidents have been common
@@mcRydes I'm just spit-balling here, but that scenario sounds an awful lot like "recon by fire". Engaging the enemy and seeing what shoots back. I could be entirely wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the platoon were in covered and/or concealed positions somewhere else. Ready to engage any force that rushed out to meet the lone tank. Then again, not much has gone how we thought a modern war between peer combatants would. It's just as likely that a crew drove their tank out for some "gunnery practice" all by themselves with no backup.
Given the state of disrepair, poor logistics, ghost staffed units, heavy losses and slow rate of replenishment or reorganisation, it could be possible that those 1-2 tanks were the surviving machines from the platoons and companies assigned to that area, depleted and unsupported.
@@mcRydes From what I read about this incident, Wali was in a trench with a Javelin, trying to figure out if he could hit the tank, which was also dug in guarding a road or some position. This doesn’t sound like a tank on the move for an offensive.
@@Duskraven67 We are probably seeing both cases. I also imagine that more experienced tank crews (the survivors) like to send the inexperienced crews ahead (reconn by blundering) to find mines and ambushes. “Go ahead, we’ll be right behind you.” Better you than me, tovarish. Do you know the story about the old guy and the new guy that come across a pile of dog crap? The old guy demands the new guy smell it. The young guy resists, but the old guy forces him to smell it. “It smells like crap.” Then the old guy forces the new guy to taste it. “Taste! Taste or I kill you.” The new guy hesitantly tastes it. “It tastes like crap.” The old guy shrugs and says, “Good thing we didn’t step in it.”
The preference for T-72's over Leopards are a given. Too much of a logistical burden for the Ukrainians to field Leopard 2's compared to T-72's, along with difficulties in familiarizing tank crews with Leopards as opposed to T-72's. Better to have companies or slightly reduced performance tanks with crews that are very familiar with them, than higher performing tanks with crews unfamiliar with them.
In the long term ukraine will need to learn how to use leopards as NATO has a finite amount of T72s
@@christianweibrecht6555 It could be a very long time. There are a lot of T-72s and T-80s still around. For sure the European ones are better to use right away, but even those from the Middle East, etc (assuming they can be purchased) would be helpful for spare parts. For instance, S. Korea has 30+ T-80s - obviously completely unnecessary for Korean defense, so hopefully the US has made arrangements for those to go to Ukraine ASAP. Bulgaria, if you believe Wikipedia, has 250 T-72s in storage. Iraq has T-72s. Etc.
@@cv990a4 Yeah, it is lot of T-72s and T-80s still around. And about all of those in Russia :) Outside of Russia really not that many can be found now.
@@vladimirpecherskiy1910 Not true. Look at the Wikipedia articles about the T-72 and T-80 and you can find many of them outside of Russia. The open question is how many "reserve" tanks are worth anything in Russia. The fact that Russia needs to buy artillery and ammo from North Korea raises a lot of questions about how much surplus Soviet stuff there really is and whether, even if it exists, it is still any good. At the beginning of this debacle, I think Russia was given a lot of credit for Soviet surplus on a "Stalin principle" basis (referring to Stalin's dictum that quantity has a quality all its own, and everyone thought there was still mass quantities of former Soviet stuff). If Russia is already needing to buy artillery and rockets from North Korea, well, the quality of the quantity is apparently less than we all thought.
The logistical burden come from needing two separate logistic chains for each model of tank. In effect you would need to field complete armored/mechanized brigade with all of the support vehicles and systems. And we can handle the training by sending Ukrainians to the US to be trained while the equipment is pulled out of storage and refurbished. Then send 2 battalions of armored fighting vehicles with trained crews a month to Ukraine. (And have 'push logistics packages' sent forward before the tanks arrive in country.)
It is very difficult to build a new model army with a whole new system of weapons, with attendant logistical needs, while also fighting a high-intensity war on one's territory. It is no surprise it is taking the Ukrainians time to re-train. It requires pulling a number of veterans off the line to train the trainers, and having the discipline to not raid the manpower pool for the new units to fill-in the gaps in the front-lines. There isn't a pool of older veterans who could be brought in to train, and the number of specialist trainers from NATO nations is more limited, thus bottlenecking the training for the new systems.
@@Mortablunt the Z nazis? Yes. Let them choke on Ukrainian blood and fertilise Ukrainian fields. OP is spot on
They had 8 years to get ready. Maybe these trained troops have been lost.
@@clubprojects6923 True, but they had no idea in those eight years exactly which parts of their army should be most heavily trained.
Ukrainian support companies are already pulling off a miracle keeping all the various equipment from different countries repaired and maintained. I find myself often criticizing video game players yammering on about throwing new platforms into the mix (A10, Abrams, Leopards I & II, etc,). Even incorporating new munitions must be a headache, such as the HARM AGM - 88 being retrofitted on MiG 29s. Although in that case, turns out that Raytheon had previously developed a package for the U.S. Top Gun school that used Soviet aircraft for combat training. (That secret program is worthy of its own movie, imho.)
@@clubprojects6923 The 8 years were a time of political turmoil and Russian sabotage. It could have definitely been done better, but it also could have been done much, much worse.
Keep in mind that the 10 tank company referred to the organisation in 2014/2015, I do believe they have changed things since then.
Also 10 could be 2 command plus 2 platoons of 4 each, 1 command plus 3 platoons of 2 each or 2 command plus 4 platoons of 2 each. No need to guess 2 + 3 x 4 .
Tanks are like lawyers, you dont think a lawyer is important until you need one, and when you do, you really really need one.
Everytime someone says tanks are obsolete I roll my eyes. Any weapon that could take out a tank could take out literally every other vehicle. Does that make trucks, APCs, and everything else obsolete too? I think it's safe to say tanks need an APS and APS tech needs to be upgraded, but the fire support a tank brings to battle isn't going to be obsolete anytime soon.
It's an argument that's been ongoing since 1918. First we developed large-caliber rifles and machine guns to deal with armor; then we developed towed and self-propelled anti-tank guns. Then we took those anti-tank guns and put them on tanks. Then we gave the infantryman man-portable rocket launchers. Then we started putting cannons on airplanes to destroy tanks. A tank fills a role on the battlefield that no other weapon or vehicle can fill. And when you try to modify other vehicles to meet that role, you end up with... a tank. The "obsolete because they can be destroyed" argument can be made about helicopters as well. We have seen plenty of those get shot down by manpads and air defense systems. Does that make the helicopter obsolete? Another thing a lot of people are saying is how drones are the future now and that those will make big movements hopeless. But, as always, armies will adapt. In this case, we are already seeing examples of technology going backwards. Supersonic ground attack aircraft and fast, well-armored helicopters has made platoon-level AA guns virtually useless. But slow-moving tactical-level drones like Bayraktar and Orlan-10? Perfect targets for stuff like the ZSU 23-4 Shilka or the AN/TWQ-1 Avenger.
@@TrailRider1200 Bayraktars and most recon drones normally fly too high for guns to be useful against it. It is vulnerable to missiles for that reason, but not to guns. The best way to use that class of drones against competent AA is to improve their optics and fly them behind your own lines, and use them for artillery spotting and to bait enemy long range AA to be destroyed by counterbattery fire. Smaller low flying drones like the switchblade could still be vulnerable to AA guns. But they are also much cheaper, comparable to smart mortar shells
I'd agree with anyone who says Russian tanks (and doctrines) are obsolete. Western tanks outperform them in most areas anyways.
There's a reason new models of tanks are still being made - There simply isn't another kind of vehicle that can fulfill the kind of capabilities a tank brings, i.e mobile, heavy and direct firepower that can assist an assault, or alternatively hold back an assault. As any other type of asset in warfare, there are constantly counters and tactics being developed to stop tanks, but that doesen't mean they are obsolete, it just means that tanks must be adapted and used correctly to handle those new kind of threats.
The only reason why they say that is because the missile is cheaper. But it only takes an effective countermeasure to limit or erase the threat and make the Tank relevant again. That's a pretty fragile support for an "obsolete" claim. Weapon systems are always competing against each other and flipping the tables. The eternal weapon race.
Great content as always. Been following your channel for years and it's great to have your insights.
Great video all around, thank you!
I'm just excited how the Leopard 1s will come out after facing T-62s. It's like two boxing legends going at each other again after 5 decades.
Like the 2013 movie “Grudge Match” starring Sylvester Stallone and Robert DeNiro as the old champions and Kevin Hart as the promoter. 🥊📽📺🤣
My money is on the Leo 1, its got way more upgrades and less soviet style compromises (Germany had a ton of Leo1s serving besides Leo 2s). That said, neither of those tanks has any business on a modern battlefield.
Informative as always and I won't lie, I really enjoyed your satisfaction and gloating over the haters who blasted you over the Leo 2 video. Given the tribulations of being a KZheadr, venting with some vindication is nice to see.
Much awaited much appreciated excellent as always 👌
Nice format. Thank you
I will note that African and Middle Eastern tanks will generally be export models, such as those used by Iraq during Desert Storm/Gulf War. They lack certain technical pieces, such as thermal scopes and electric turret drives, that would make them a liability on a modern battlefield.
But possibly still useful as a source of spares.
The idea that the tanks sent to Iraq by Russia were not the same ones as they were making for their own army is a myth.
Which tanks do you mean?
@@hendi1571 For instance, look at the Wikipedia page "T-72 operators and variants" and see the current operators.
@@cv990a4 I thought he may have meant some specific tanks / users variants. Because in general, his statement is somewhat incorrect.
well trained units with older equipment will always be better than poorly trained units with new equipment. Actually mastering new systems does not take a month, but years. Years.
For most branches, and for most of history, i would assume, but today there are exceptions. A poorly trained platoon with access to Javelins are going to do better then a well trained platoon with RPG7s. A well trained BM-21 crew can be very fast, but a novice HIMARS crew will likely still do more damage.
Within limits. An expertly trained 1750s infantry battalion would be slaughtered by ten guys with PKMs and 4 hours of training. And a novice run towed 155 battalion will be far more effective than an expertly trained 152 SP battalion that has no ammo supply. And a novice M1/Brad brigade with log support will be a lot more effective than a expertly trained T72 battalion that has no working tanks.
@@TzunSu I'm really not sure about Javelins, they have failed to meet expectations. They're just a pain in the ass. Go read the field manual if you want. A BM21 is going to do broad area damage, HIMARS is for precision strikes.
I don’t think they are talking about training brand new conscripts with western tanks but taking trained tankers and teaching them to use the new tank. US army tank school for new recruits Was only about 5 weeks long (until 2010)
@@Mortablunt Which expectations? The only war with extensive use of the Javelin in the anti-armor role has been in Ukraine, and they've been doing *great* work. What would reading the field manual tell me, that's written before it was ever actually used for what it was designed? Yes, they're not identical weapons, but my point was that with modern guided weaponry training is less important then it used to be. If we wamt a more direct comparison: The HIMARS and the Iskanders. I would MUCH rather have a fresh HIMARS crew then an experienced Iskander crew.
Great video as always thanks.
Thanks for covering this- great insights.
I love when you go after some of these "insightful" comments haha Great video as always!
It’s not necessarily that people disagree, but that they disagree in a disagreeable manner. The Internet makes people awfully brave and cocky.
@@JBM425 well said, well said
I have read that the weight difference between M-1 and Leapord, compared to the T-72, might be a issue in Ukraine as well, the design of the bridges and overpasses might not be sufficient to handle the weight, and also, the UAF would need new combat bridging equipment (temporary bridges), to accomodate M-1s and Leapords, as their current stuff is designed for the weight of a T-72.
also abrams is very very thirsty...
That's what combat engineers are for when imbedded with the armor and infantry .
@@georgesheffield1580 Check out Binkov channel, he had a video couple of months back detailing why Leopards and M-1s were probably not a good idea, mainly for logistical and maint. reasons, but he pointed out the weight difference issues also. Not to say never send them to AFU, but that it would be a process that took a while. It's not going to be ship them and they are on the battle field within a month. They definately would give AFU a lot of new capabilities, but it will be a long term process. The much better course, which is the one I think is happening, is to sell M-1s and Leopards to Eastern EU countries, or at least promise them to sell, put some US armor temporarily until the new M-1/Leos could be shipped, and get them to send AFU every piece of Soviet gear they have (they are modernizing anyway). This was the best option to help AFU in the fastest way possible.
@@georgesheffield1580 Well yes, but the now-inadequate bridges are some of the tools that those engineers rely on to execute their missions efficiently.
@@3idraven714 The latter thing you say is kinda what Germany tried with the Ringtausch. Didnt work too well, for various reasons.
Great video from a great interview
Such a comprehensive video. Well done!
The professionalism with which you conduct every one of these videos is incredibly refreshing. Fantastic work.
Glad you like them!
Another helpful video by MHV, danke schoen!
Glad it was helpful!
Donkey shoe! Wolfenstein reference. Sorry if anyone is offended.
@@mill2712 In my country we say “Grassy Ass”.
Bernard! I love your stuff, very insightful. Just wanted to let you know that your disclaimer about visiting the museum is actually a disclosure. Looking forward to more great content!
Thank you, Bernhard. Excellent video.
Glad you enjoyed it
There is a training gap to overcome in fielding any new equipment. Transitioning from 1980s ear infantry gear and M16A2 to new infantry gear with body armor and an M4 rifle our unit marksmanship suffered. My score dropped from 39/40 to 27/40. It takes time. The more complex the weapons systems are the more time it takes.
very interesting. I've heard before that there was a learning curve during that transition, but hearing how it actually was for you is very valuable.
I thought that T-64, 72 and 80 would be similar enough to get around muscle memory. Turns out you cannot. That itself is a very useful insight. I think that also goes to a reoccuring theme on military actions - it is not about having the best equipment, but the equipment your soldiers can use.
These can differ if they came from a different factory even if they are supposed to be the same model. All sorts of ancillaries may come from different suppliers and be put in slightly different places and be operated slightly differently. Ditto for those made at different times.
If just having equipment was enough, then the russian air force wouldve ruled supreme.
@@termitreter6545 it sure plays a big part though. If the west hadn't sent billions of dollars worth of equipment (like anti tank/air missiles and HIMARS especially) Ukraine likely would have fallen by now. There's a saying by Omar Bradley that goes something like "amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics".
@@sam8404 Mind that heavier western weapon systems only arrived in Ukraine long after they stopped the original russian advances. That said, theres a few reasons why Russia was unlikely to "really" beat Ukraine. Russia only had 200-300k personal, which isnt nearly enough to conquer a country. Let alone occupy it. 500k wouldnt be enough if there was resistance movements. But even before that, one major reason is that Russia fucking sucks at urban warfare. I think the only city they really sieged was Mariupol, and that took a very long time, they had to destroy most of the city. It bound a ton of russian troop and material and they incurred losses even during the later sieges. The only way Russia wouldve "won" is by having the Ukrainian political leadership instantly break down and the public follow suit. Of course, in reality the opposite happened.
Love this video, lots of great information you don't hear much of.
Great work 👏🏼
Ungrateful Ukrainians not wanting the beautiful Leopard tank..... Joking it would be a maintenance nightmare (unless the Germans provide "volunteer" trainers and maintainers...)
More like stupid sholtz and his lame excuses. Blocking even Spanish 40 leopards that they were ready to just gift to us l.
Little grey men
I don’t get the logic: training and logistics for panzerhaubitze 2000 and MARS2 are ok, but for leopard 1 and 2s it would break their logistics suddenly? Nonsens.
@@Grimshak81Tanks are heavier on logistics than SPGs.
@@Grimshak81 Don't overlook the difference in unit numbers we're talking about. PHZ 2000 is a complicated sytem and there are 20 of them deployed. After a fortnite there are already problems to keep them combat fit because of intense use. Mars and Himars are a bit less sensitive since the ammo is the real high tech thing about these. The 152mm ammo shortage creeping up was the main reason why western artillery systems were pushed first and all the different guns work with the same 155mm shells regardless. When it comes to tanks we're talking front line deployed units that get a whole lot more exposure than just wear and tear from salvos fired - thus a greater need for rotation.
When you are in a highly contested area with large amounts of artillery and grad exchanges, the tanks are great to have around. I have seen them used from cas evac, fire support and general scouting rolls. Calling in a tank for infantry, to do a quick fire support, then leave must be invaluable. Especially against enemy armour doing the same thing to you. Massive line changes are things of the past I think.
Super interesting and informative!
Love your content.
Glad you enjoy it!
No need to worry about Leo 2s. Scholz just axed the contract for A7. Delivery was 3 years off though, so not that important, unless they are planning the war to last 10 years like Iran/Iraq one.
those are old hulls and not so many still laying around.
A very interesting summary and very neat to hear the input from this Ukrainian specialist. I'm sorry that you have to deal with morons and their comments. I guess it is inevitable in such an open forum, but keep your head up. Those idiots are like the crabs at the bottom of the proverbial bucket. They don't know they're full of shit because that's the way they've always been. Keep up the great work!
There’s plenty of dumbasses that have learned to wisely intone the old saw about “amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics”, but still have no idea what logistics entail. Sure, we have all seen the results of bad logistics, but do people really understand the huge undertaking of providing sufficient supply logistics from the Eastern border to the front lines. Do they understand that Ukrainian maintenance companies and battalions are stretched thin maintaining the different vehicles being sent by various countries? There seems to be the assumption that you can flip a switch between good logistics and bad logistics with no understanding of the effort involved. You’re right. Its a videogame mentality.
hervorragendes Video wie immer mein Herr
Great video keep going
I can already hear the War Thunder players and Red Effect fans give their opinions: "Lmao this tank is trash it doesn't have 3rd generation reactive Armor" "This tank sucks it doesn't have commander's independent thermal sight" "This tank cannot shoot the latest APSFDSABCD round so it's useless" Yadda yadda yadda. These might be valid points, but you see, I bring forth my counterpoint: tank is tank. Sure, everyone would like to have large numbers of the biggest, meanest, newest, state of the art tank with the best armor and best gun and APS and all of that good stuff, but people overestimate how necesarry it is for a tank to be the best tehnologically to perform its duties, and severely underestimate how important numbers are in a conventional war, especially a slow paced attritional war like the war in Ukraine, that's especially since the T90M and the T64BV will both be killed just as easly by a Javelin, an attack helicopter or a guided Howitzer shell. Might sound cruel to not send your tanker in the best tank money can buy, and instead send him in a cheaper one, but at the macro level the most important thing is to have a tank that you can produce (or continue buying from a reliable supplier) , repair, mentain and supply. You need to get the best tank that fits all of those requirements, not the best tank that you can possibly get upfront. Just my 2 cents for now, waiting on the video to see what you guys have to say about the importance of the importance of each individual tank model. Edit: **Commander's independent thermal sight, not gunner's, my bad
Numbers and logistics matter. Ask history whether the PzV and PzVI stopped the tides of M4 and T34.
@@bartoszbaranowski604 Sorry I meant "commander's independent thermal sight" . Having thermal sights is crucial yes, but many tanks only have gunner's thermal sight which the gunner and commander have to share. Having independent commander's thermal sight which can rotate around helps a lot with visibility, but it's an extremely complex and expensive module to add to your tank. If you can't afford it, you can't afford it. What's the point in buying the best, most modern, baddest most kickass tank if you have an army of 200,000 and you can only afford 50 of them, and when they break down you won't have spare parts for them? That's what I meant.
@@bartoszbaranowski604 while it is crucial it is not the be all end all of the tank in question
you just go throught the italian doctrine and the "guerra celere" or "fast war", with small tanks to support inf and just capable of holding light gunfire, if big tanks will be blown up easy, just make smaller and cheaper ones and use them rightfully (not like the italians during WWII) or in modern ways, just use tacticals with 50 cal mounted on and a few plates on the front and forget about any kind of MBT.
@@maxstirner6143 With all due respect, that's stupid and not at all what I meant. Tanks are great because they provide a huge amount of direct fire manpower on a mobile chasis that is very hard to crack with anything but modern dedicated heavy anti tank munitions, airpower or another tank. You take away their big guns and armor and they become useless.
As the war passed the six month mark Its all about raising new units now and training fresh recruits, the worldwide supply of Soviet era equipment and ammunition is drying up while equipment veterans from destroyed units will be needed to infill casualties in other units using the same equipment, theres only so much that can be done to absorb fresh troops with only a basic familiarization (through e.g. assigning as tank loaders and logistics train). Fresh artillery and mechanized infantry units have to be created both as strategic reserve and to rotate exhausted frontline units out, these have been created and about 8,000 Ukrainians have passed out of the three week Infantry course in Britain which is now being extended to a five week training course with additional modules. Earlier in the war of course you had a lot of Territorial units coming to Poland to be trained in hand held anti-tank weapons.
We are now starting to see a difference in the war as Ukraine is now able to field some of these new weapons once crews are trained. Depending on the equipment, training may be more of a matter of familiarization, while others are complex enough that it’s difficult to shave anything out of the training.
Points on twits is pretty accurate reflected interview. As in twits in interview underlined good use of barrel launched ATGM. Biggest point of whole interview "best weapon is the weapon you familiar with"
"Tank bites" !!! I was a young US naval LT. sent to "visit" the US Armour school at Ft. Knox in the early 1980's. A really cool Col by the name of J.W. Thurman insisted that I drive a M60A1 tank. J.W. was crazy. After the ground schooling and simulator training his CSM took me to "my" tank for my first open country drive. The one thing I remember most clearly about that 3 weeks of TDY was when the CSM ( Joe Whitworth ), took me aside and told me : " Remember, there is NOTHING on that tank that wont hurt or kill you". Those words remain with me more than 40 years later.
> " Remember, there is NOTHING on that tank that wont hurt or kill you". Very good point!
What lay people often forget is tanks are not oversized cars, they don't really have standard layouts every country does something slightly different and each tank is different with many different systems on it. Training is required, i think Jet fighters is the only other thing i can think of that compares, Planes as a rule for Civvies are all similar layouts, Cars.. even guns are such simple tools. Having the required parts the required training these things just don't enter the lay persons mind they think ooo big tank go boom.. if it gets blown up whats the issue.. but taking a crew away from a reliable tank to one that don't understand could yield bad results when it breaks down it'll have to be left possibly giving the enemy a free tank they could repair or just end up being in the way requiring extra effort to blow it up to make sure it isn't captured.
An interesting point about civil commercial aviation: a pilot is only qualified on one model at a time. To switch models, you need months of retraining and qualification. And once you are qualified on a different model, it takes retraining to switch back. The idea that a fighter pilot can be combat effective on a different plane (even of the same airframe if the cockpit layout is different) with only a few weeks training is ridiculous. And even if you integrate same airframe planes from different countries (which does help in the support end), the idea that you can easily integrate completely different platforms/airframes is the pinnacle of stupidity (I’m looking at you, A10 fanboys).
Running multiple combat systems at the same time could only be a messy, ridiculously overcomplicated process. No "desperate need" for Leo 2s at this point anyway. Keeping it simple makes perfect sense for the Ukrainians.
Think of the various artillery platforms and other vehicles already being incorporated. The logistics and support chain, especially repair & maintenance, is already being pushed to the limits.
@@MarcosElMalo2 most use the same ammo. as for spare parts military always have many different vehicles already.
Regional segregation makes sense. Start on the west side of Ukraine with western equipment and logistics and work your way eastward toward the front as more comes in and eastern stuff goes out. By the time the soviet era equipment is used up you should be more than ready to employ the western equipment on the front.
@@winstonsyme7672 Yeah, and it's working well.
Great content as always.
Very interesting. The last point about the different effectiveness of the t64s in some cases and t72s and t80s in other cases particularly. Could you maybe look into why this would be or give some more exmplanation as to why this would be? In general they are the same so that is why I am asking.
@Military History Visualized Please be aware, that at times it is difficult to ascertain which forces, Russian, or Ukrainian, you are referring to. Love the videos Cheers Edit: almost certainly due to my own lack of knowledge of which particular units the Ukrainians are operating vs. the Russians. Thanks again
Also worth mentioning that Ukraine is training up new units..as such it would make sense to train and send western tanks to then. But not Leopards of which their are few older types that can be spared. A better choice would be older US reserve unit Abrams tanks...And yes armies can and have added new tanks mid war.
@@brokeandtired How effective newly trained personnel will be is drastically increased by deep institutional knowledge. While you could no doubt take Ukrainian recruits to the US and train crews and maintainers on Abrams when they get back to Ukraine they will all still be brand new at their jobs, trained but still all rookies. Unlike a new tank crew in the US military or those that service them there will be no one that already has years of experience to help them that know all the ins and outs for them to fall back on. That is why it has been commented on repeatedly that Ukraine losing some of their experienced maintenance and repair personal in that attack was such a disaster, there isn't any substitute for someone that has ten years experience and can diagnosis an issue right away and then repair it without ever even glancing in the manual. Plus they know all the things that aren't in the manual and what's in the manual that doesn't work in the real world. Those people are indispensable. Yes an army can start using a new tank in a war but as the Ukrainian officer says he would much prefer getting all the T-72's available first, that's because he knows that there is no substitute for the knowledge base the Ukrainian Army has built up for them.
@@brokeandtired Of course new tanks get added mid war, usually organically. You have the various iterations of Panzer III and IV at one end. Then you have big platform changes to Tiger II for example. But the big Tigers were few in number and did suffer from logistical issues. The Panzers were still in continuous production. And the resources put into the brand new platforms took resources away from the manufacture and logistics of the older models. Maybe WWII German tanks are a bad example of successful integration 😉 Shall we use the example of the British in North Africa? There were long pauses between operations, allowing for tank crews and repair/maintenance crews to get up to speed on new equipment. These periods entailed more than just build up of forces and accumulation of supplies.
@@oryxland3994 You make many excellent points. There’s also the matter of where do you find the personnel to train when your repair crews are working around the clock to maintain the equipment already in use. There is a gamer mentality that says, “Just train more crews” like you can flip a switch or spend resource points.
@@brokeandtired it doesn’t make sense to do any such thing 1. Putin AND Zalensky are both Ratschild Kissinger & Associates globalist pawns, and World Economic Forum Assets. You know who ELSE is a World Economic Forum Asset? I’ll tell you: Johnson and almost certainly his replacement, Macron (also a former Ratschild debt slavery central banker), Olaf Scholz, Justin Trucastreau, PedoJoe Mashed POTATUS Brainlette- Biden, etc etc etc ad fucking nauseam. Ever hear of a little something called the Cuban Missile Crises? I don’t care how shitty and unprepared for this war Russia seems. Our globalist p.o.s. “leaders” are going for broke for WWIII whilst simultaneously engineering a global famine. And if you think THATS bad? Look up declassified Kissinger (whom other declassified documents prove was the one who ordered the is that the Watergate Hotel or than plugged and ordered them leaked to the press- why was an unelected p.o.s. ordering the C.I.A. around? Because he worked for Ratschild who is the largest owning shareholder of the “Fed”, “Federal” nor does it have any “Reserve”.) National Security Memo #200… It’s a D pop pull elatioN Age endA using V hacks sceneS, that HE got from MI5. But there’s MORE, especially on THAT score… There’s the World Economic Forum video they uploaded to their own self-named YT chan (the arrogant, narcissistic, elitist freaks), of one of their little Stadium sized get togethers of fellow globalist psychopaths, where Yuval Noah Harari was their keynote speaker, and PedoJoe illegitimate “President” Biden was sitting in the FRONT ROW. You might want to watch some of Yuval’s WEF videos, or clips from him on his own channel, and others. He’s the elitist lunatic who said, (speaking of the globalists agenda in general) “If we can pull this off, we will be gods”. But what ELSE did he say, at that meeting where he was keynote speaker, that Biden sat in the front row for? He said: “… we we will soon be able to control people by hacking their DNA… this has been a long-time dream for dictators…” And what exactly WAS your little mRNA “vaccine”, that the CDC here in the states got caught holding it’s DICK, and had to ADMIT that they CHANGED THE DEFINITION of from: “… confers immunity…” to: “… may combat the symptoms…”? Well, let’s just see here, it was an “Experimental mRNA ‘treatment’” Grow some balls like our ancestors had and feed these motherfuckers to the TREE. It’s an American thing, The Tree of Liberty, and it feeds on the Blood of TYRANTS.
Whats with Ukrainian/Russian doctrine in using tanks as indirect fire units? I've heard a nearly unbelievable long tank on tank kill was scored in this fashion. No clue if it's true or not
I haven't look into yet, but I noticed in a WW2 report by the Germans that they noted that the Soviets used their tanks sometimes for indirect fire after taking some losses by AT guns. Also I know that Leopard 1 personnel was trained in some instances to do indirect fire as well.
The real question is why not? If you have a lack of artillery, any gun will do.
I am not sure about tanks being used as indirect fire weapons, but “back in my day” we were told that Soviet artillery could be used as direct fire weapons, and even the ZSU 23-4 could be used as a direct fire weapon. I would definitely not want to cross paths with a ZSU used in that mode! I don’t know if they have built that capability into their most recent systems.
If it's the report I saw it was a range of around 10k using HE rounds and about 20 were fired to achieve the kill. Usual caveats apply, this is reporting from an active war zone. That said, I've seen reports of the Allies using tanks in indirect fire roles in both WWII and Korea.
Super in sightfull! I've seen more of your videos, I love the accent! Don't get rid of it! It marks your videos!
Aloha; well done! Mahalo
The 10 tank company is probably referring to the old organization (Ukraine used the Russian style organization in the past, I forget when they switched over to the NATO 14 tank company)
While I do not believe it would be prudent to comment on specific military events in Ukraine in 2022 I do think your viewers would be interested in a video on the Great Raid of 2014 - the longest armoured raid behind enemy lines in military history.
I thought you mentioned in your Leopard video that they could be used in places like Kiev so the home defence soviet tanks could be put forward to the front? I still think that stands if you could get Spain or Canada to train home guards on Leopards. It's not gonna make much difference if they reach Kiev again probably but it gives you a chance to move assets and keep the deterrent.
You should do a video on the SU-25s effectiveness of both sides of the war since it seems to have popped up the most compared to other jets.
2:01 2) Tanks are used in a variety of roles, they are even used a self propelled artillery with the help of drones. There is even video of destroyed russian tank at 10km. Link kzhead.info/sun/ndutZb5tomSwZ5E/bejne.html . 3) In the early part of the war (2014-2015) they used tanks to support infantry. Usualy infantry consisted of non experienced personnel, conscripts who served several years ago when army wasn't taking any combat training very seriously (before the war). The moral of that personnel was relatively low and It showed that when reinforced by a tank or two It got noticeably better. Therefore army deployed a tank with each infantry unit mostly for moral reasons. 10:01 Ukrainian T-64-BV 2017 variant termal vision vs tda(smoke system) kzhead.info/sun/ddCak6eJkaKPmGg/bejne.html
Let me go point by point to provide more context with what Саламаха was saying in the original interview. 1)Tanks started to perform new roles He meant that some tank units used their vehicles for indirect fire support with HE rounds, using tablets similar to "Kropiva" called "GisArma" for ballistic calculations. They were firing on distances up to 6-10 km. The tankers were trained for it before the war. The second point regarding new roles, is the use of barrel-fired ATGMs. Despite the fact that Ukraine had them, there was inadequate supply of such missiles and low count of vehicles which could fire those as well as crews trained for it. Old soviet missiles are mostly dead, and new Ukrainian missiles are present in very low numbers. Along with russian tanks, new missiles, in substantial quantities, were captured. It added a new capability for UAF tank force. 2)Russian tanks abandoned without fuel. Well, Саламаха elaborated that T-72 has multiple fuel tanks. Primary front tank (left nose tank) has large capacity and there is a special procedure required in order to fill it. Procedure that is unknown to random tanker. I presume, a technician was responsible for refueling at base and tankers could fill only a smaller fuel tank. 3)Tank factories in russia. He goes into detail there. I'll try to summarize. 1st factory (Atamanovka near Chita) a couple of years ago had only guards, accountant and director. Current condition is unknown. 2nd (Strelnya) is smaller scale factory specialized on T-80 B/BVM, and they tried to repair T-72, but it is unknown if they succeeded. Omsk factory presumably is capable of repairing 100 tanks per month tops. He emphasized that realistically, the number should be closer to 50. How many Uralvagonzavod per monnth does is unknown. 4)On the topic of training optimization. People who trained on T-64 got assigned on T-80/72. When he talked about optimizing, he meant that tankers should wait in line for a tank the best suitable for them, not hastily re-trained for a different type. 5)Why T-72s from Africa should not be considered? They were poorly stored and maintained. I can translate this interview for you free of charge without all the paraphrasing.
Thanks, please do the translation. I think the citation of “sending us leopards wouldn’t help” desperately needs to be put into context.
I wish Bernhard had a channel or video series dedicated to teaching German language. Hard to find very well put together lessons from what i've uncovered.
It will be interesting to receive an update on this topic, especially given the possible breakthrough of some significance in Kharkiv Oblast in the past week (and ongoing).... (are Ukrainians deploying armor rapidly in these advances?)
Emptying our warehouses of all Soviet equipment or Russian if they happen to have it, is of course obviously the first thing to do. But let us not forget that we could have and should have front-loaded the training for personnel both in maintenance and logistics as well as combat crews for Western weapon systems and when enough have been trained and are up to speed, then start massively moving Western tanks other weapon systems, there. The problem lies with the fact that we keep on reacting rather than thinking ahead. We should have been training Ukrainians for combat use on various weapon systems long before we were ready to send such weapon systems in. Understand that the total number of actual people that you would need to train isn't that high, in so much as a total manpower available to Ukraine. It is tho, extremely high compared to our capacity to both train and equip in a timely manner, and it was this what was lacking. I don't think that's the case anymore. With the United States having established an actual command, to handle the Ukraine conflict, rather than passing on, on a weekly basis, to officers and other personnel already employed in other capacities, the orders and requisitions of these systems, is a huge step in the right direction. With Britain institutionalizing a training program for Ukraine, followed up by other NATO countries, we now have what is necessary step up and scale up with training of the personnel of Ukraine. Many of us while using a shorthand of "we need to send heavy equipment now", really were envisioning or assuming an actual system in place for doing this... And up until pretty much a month ago, we simply were not seeing that. But now we are...
If we assume that this war will continue for a while (an additional 1 year at least), then it would make sense to introduce NATO tanks to Ukraine's army. Heavy fighting takes a toll on the existing fleet and a depletion of stock from other ex-Soviet countries will happen. There is never a good point to make changes, but Ukraine's army leadership must already contemplate the possibility of switching to NATO tanks. As many have already explained it does not make sense to have a large variety of tanks in an army, which means one tank manufacturing country will be the chosen country to supply tanks in the future to Ukraine. Today that might look like a losing proposition, but long term a country like Germany with a large military mfg complex must have the interest to become the tank supplier of choice for Ukraine. The PZ2000 Haubitze supplied to Ukraine is already based on Leopard 1 chassis, hence the maintenance problem is already a challenge that needs addressing today. Allowing Leopard 1 or 2 to be delivered to Ukraine in sufficient numbers from other countries (e.g. Spain) or industry stockpiles might provide sufficient numbers of tanks of one sort even in the short term to be of interest and makes sense to start re-training personnel. Germany being first in allowing Leopards to be imported by Ukraine could give Germany an advantage to become the future tank supplier. This is not a small business proposition for the German Ruestungsindustrie.
yes agreed, even if the war ends within the next year Ukraine will still need to modernize and replace its existing fleet, if only due to wear and tear from use. Virtually the entire base of equipment used by Ukraine will need to be replaced. Their allies can and should assist this process
The problem with that is that most all old Leo hulls have been passed on and Germany no longer has them. Most countries that received them aren't looking to give them up either with things being how they are. This leaves a small pool of available units to send unless they start building new hulls in a major way and that is going to be probably more money than the people involved want to spend. Meanwhile at Anniston and Sierra Army Depot there are thousands of Abrams just lying around. Some just recently turned in by the USMC and awaiting a new home. The US is really the only option here if you want to arm yourself in a hurry with modern gear and not break the bank as they are the only ones that still have an intact stockpile of war materiel that isn't obsolete junk. I think after the dust settles we are going to see a Poland-type situation with three different tanks in operation. Modernized Soviet stuff (likely T-64s), localized surplus Leopards (for the reasons you mentioned), and whatever Abrams the US wants to give out as aid to make up the numbers. Yes it is going to be a logistics burden but that can be mitigated a bit by grouping them under different command structures so that the logistics streams don't cross. We already saw this a bit with how Ukraine doled out the T-64/T-72/T-80s they have. Tank brigades get X, Mech/Motor units get Y, Marines get Z. That kinda thing.
IMO the only way to get sufficient numbers of thanks would be to start refurbishing the M1A1 tanks in storage at Sierra Army Depot. That's the only pool of similar tanks that can be fielded in a manner that gives Ukraine a fleet of tanks that are substantially identical within a year. And there are issues with building the factories needed to build 1,000 tanks a year. One of which is that after that production run is complete the factory no longer has work. Another is the time it will take to build the factory, make the tooling, and train the workforce.
@@colincampbell767 The USMC just turned in ~250 M1A1s in lightly-used condition and there are a bunch of others that were recently turned in by Army units that upgraded to M1A2s. I believe the plan is to deal these out to NATO countries as "backfill" and them sending to Ukraine their old Soviet-era stuff. That is why Poland shipped off their T-72s and, I think, their PT-91s. Lots of familiar gear can be displaced like this.
@@rwaitt14153 Poland's getting M1A1s as temporary replacements. Long term, they're getting M1A2 SEP V3's.
I appreciate that military equipment strategies are not an easy analysis.
Thank you for reminding me about tank logistics. What is difference between M60 and M1 in required support?
The professionalism and fighting spirit of the Ukrainian military is something with something😮 to say that I'm surprised is to say nothing bravo👏🏻👏🏻 how they managed to withstand more than 6 months against the second most armed country in the world😳 it's just something incredible Ukrainians heroic people✌🏻
Donbass militia held out for 8 years
No, no, you've got it backwards. THey're LOSING after more than 6 months while having a 4:1 advantage and the Arsenal of Democracy. It's quite pathetic.
@@nevduplenko 1. І researched there was never any militia, these were gangs from different parts of the CIS mixed with Russian military armed forces financed-armed by Russia, in a percentage ratio somewhere 50/50. 2.Ukraine, the Ukrainian people have always sought peace, the Ukrainian leadership of 11 asked to present peacekeepers from different countries, including from Russia to separatist regions, everyone supported it, only the diplomats of the Russian Federation, all these eleven races vetoed the resolution. Why do you think Russia refused the peacekeepers? Yes, because why those territories were teeming with Russian soldiers and the invasion on February 24 is a direct proof! 3.you are either a paid troll or on the hook of Russian propaganda...
@@Mortablunt As you can see, the longer Ukraine fights, the more weapons it gets. The world was afraid of the Russian army, but the resilience of the Ukrainians and their willingness to fight for their country changed the situation. Now, no one, except for the Kremlin’s marionettes, considers Ukraine a fail state, a fragment of a scoop and the Kremlin’s zone of influence, but they see a nation and a strong state that knows what it wants and is ready to defend its will. As we all have already seen, the Ukrainians did not surrender, did not run away, did not meet anyone with flowers. This caused respect for Ukrainians in the world, it also gives the world reasons to give them money and weapons.
@@Tom-pt5wm Actually, Donbass and much of the South met Russia with flowers. How's that Herson offensive going? 3000 Nazis dead for................. I can't tell.
0:53 I find it hilarious that you have statements that sound like they're from an article or a research journal, but no they're from some guy named *childsacrifice1* lmao
I made the account 2 years ago to follow meme pages, didnt exactly imagine i'd be translating stuff on a major european war and getting used by military history visualised as a source lol
Naturally, no major media pundit/hack will repeat this hard field data.
You do your best to get as accurate information as possible. Looks like there is a fog of war and a fog about war. Still, I like the fact that the tank officer spoke about different situations and how they affect things. It is the nuance that helps verify the information.
The Problem is - where to get more T-72s from? Bulgaria is for example problematic due the inner politics of the country.
Poland still has hundreds in service and in storage. Various smaller countries have a few dozen each.
The experience of the US National Guard (Reserves ) is that Driver, Loader and Commander jobs on the M-1 Abrams tank can be learned in one day. The gunner takes a little more time to train, say one to two weeks. Basic maintenance can be done by the crews using only the manuals. Most subsystems are designed to be replaced like the Power Pack or as a Modular box, this simplifies the mechanic's job tremendously, Built In Test Equipment makes trouble shooting somewhat easier. excellent
The thing is those replacement subsystems, they were designed to be removed and sent to 2nd level depot maintenance, refurbished and issued back out. Stuff like that just isn’t happening in Ukraine when the vehicles are literally on the front line.
sounds like ukrainians should be training on abrams tanks now and then we send 1000 of them
Russian doctrine used to be different, a crew would trade their damaged vehicle for a working one at depot. But realistically I don't see how this works. They must have repair shops closer. In the 60s when the 62 was out, each company had factory techs with them to repair them as they broke down all the time.
That’s if you are taking experienced tank crews. Even your comments are an oversimplification; you can train anyone in the basics in a day so they can drive out of the motor pool to a training area, but to get them up to combat effectiveness would take at least equivalent to an annual training period, as my unit did when we transitioned from the M60A3 to the M1IP. Training inexperienced soldiers with no experience in armor will take more time; if the war drags on, you may see more of that as they have to replace crew losses. Don’t forget that Ukrainian mechanics may not have experience with turbine engines and would need some training for those and perhaps the thermal systems and firing computers.
Tanks for the memories.
It would be interesting to cooment further on this based on the events of the last week, which would seem to bear out a lot of this, e.g. captured weapons and combined arms operations...
Blanket statements like that one viewer who thought Ukraine should take every tank they can get their hands on, is outright stupid. It is far better to give Ukraine the equipment that their Army is trained to use and is familiar with than to hand over armored vehicles that they are neither familiar with, nor know how to operate effectively. Training takes time, lots of it, and just like in this video, you also need to train the guys who have to repair and maintain these vehicles, and then there is the added problems of logistics, if you have lots of different tanks that all have different gun calibres, need different kinds of fuel or oil or ammunition for their machine guns mounted on them, it quickly can turn the supply of men and vehicles for the front line into a nightmare, with the wrong kind of ammunition or supplies going to the wrong platoons and halting the forward motion of an advance. The big picture is a much more important thing to pay attention to. If Ukraine was operation from a more NATO based system then it would be okay to take the Leopards but they are operation on a Soviet based system of equipment, so Russian equipment is a far better option for them to receive say from all of the other ex-soviet nations, like Poland, who has switched over to NATO equipment. In the middle of a war, is not the time to start making a switch to weapons that have NOTHING in common with all of your other equipment. Now, if trained crews and logistics units cam with those peopards, that would be an entirely different situation, but that is NOT going to happen any time soon, unless the war takes an entirely different turn that involves Nato countries and their armies, and we should pray that this does not happen because that would mean an escalation nobody wants.
Then explain why sholtz still hasn't replaced the polish t-72s with leaopards, like he is contractually bound to have done half a year ago already? Poland isn't at war
That pretty good points. But one problem exists - there are not many more soviet types tanks available in the world to supply to Ukraine. As mention in interview it can be collected like 100 more and that is it - and that was 2 month ago.
Agree. It’s better to find the equipment Ukraine can field quickly like T-72s and send that to Ukraine, and backfill the lost equipment with Leopards, Challengers, M1s, etc.
@@vladimirpecherskiy1910 At some point, they may have no other choice but to do that. For now, send them what they can field expeditiously, and start planning for other items and the training & logistics packages.
@@512TheWolf512 he's not replacing their old soviet equipment with leopards, because he is replacing them with M1 Abrams METS. Who said he is contractually bound to buy leopards? And more to the point, what does Poland have e to do with Ukraine's need for equipment that is easier to field? Other than that they gave Ukraine all their old soviet tanks?
Poles, Romanians, or Czechs, former soviet countries who know FULL WELL what living under the Kremlin's boots is like? Helping Ukraine? Noooo, neeeeeveeeeeeer ; DDDD I wish we, the Europeans, did even more, i'd gladly agree to additional 10% tax if the funds were spend directly on building equipment for the Yellow-Blue army. GLORY TO THE UKRAINE!
Tbf the support of western countries to Ukraine is pretty massive and it seems theres few hesitatoins left. All in all im pretty happy how much europe stayed together during this crisis. There was no backstabbing.
Poles: still salty the Russians beat them out in the race to become the power and Eastern Europe hundreds of years ago. Czechs: fascist remnants waited out the communist and then rewrote history. Romanians: Misattributing their mismanagement by their own dictator to the Russians. Ukrainians: Nazis. All these people forget if the Russians hadn’t rescued them from the Germans they would they would not be here to bitch about the Russians.
@@Mortablunt Oh look, it another racist clown that thinks the Soviet Union was Russia.
It's a very informative video, thank you! Only point is that a twitter account with the name childsacrifice does not create the feeling of a source to be trusted.
The inside of that tank is so complex! I would be scared to crawl in there and simply ride around. How do they deal with claustrophobia? At least in the new Russian tanks you don't have to worry about getting out quickly if it's hit by an AT shell. (the turret opens automatically).
People thought that cavalry was obsolete with the pike and shoot, then with the flintlock and bayonet, then with bolt action and machine gun, and then one day, after having cried wolf 100 times, it was finally true and cavalry slowly vanished from the front between WW1 and the Cold War. Same will happen with the tanks, it will be replaced by something that fills its roles more effectively and efficiently, what will do it is left for us to find out over time. But I think the restructuring happening in the US Army foretells of a future where drones and smart munitions are the focus of combat, not big armored vehicles. Just like the Battleship vanished from the sea in favor of maneuverable destroyers with long range guided missiles instead of cannons. PS: if you asked WW1 generals in 1916 about how they thought the breakthroughs would finally happen in the Western front, they'd probably mention cavalry more often than tanks. "Experts" are not always very good at thinking outside the box, nor predicting the demise of their trade. Just as typists didn't argue for computers to make them redundant, and Kodak didn't push for digital to make their expertise worthless.
laughs in Chinese cav battalion during the japanese invasion or in nort korean during the korean war of 1950 or in cammel mounted egyptian in the egyptian revolution back 5 years agos or in Taliban horse mounted last year. Cav will never be obsolete, just placed in the back till the cool toys are broken and warfare goes back in time during the war. If the war keep going, the ukranians are not resuplied by the western countries and they're willing to keep the fight, they will use horses again, if necessary. Same for the Russians. They will devolve to clubs if necessary. I bet that those days some had been clubbed to death in the trenches in Kherson
Cavalry never went obsolete. They exchanged their horses for iron horses with big guns. also known as tanks. Many people seem to lack knowledge about what cavalry is, it's role on the battlefield, and how effective it is when properly applied. The concept of cavalry was never about horses, but having units specially trained and equipped for breaking trough enemy lines at their weakest point. That is the very same role cavalry units employing a combination of MBT's and IFV's are fulfilling today. Tanks also have a defensive role in infantry formations, as mobile defensive installations. A natural evolutionary change due to how immensely effective artillery has gotten at taking out things that can't run away.
Drones and smart munitions are not going to replace the tank, or IFVs and AFVs, because they do not fill the same roles. A drone and smart munitions cannot take ground. They cannot hold ground. They cannot push an attack at the point of friction, nor can they plug holes in defensive lines. Drones and smart munitions are more likely to change the nature of artillery and other fire support. You are correct that cavalry was replaced by tanks and AFV/IFVs. However, that is because armored vehicles filled the traditional roles of cavalry better and expanded upon them. Tanks and IFVs will be replaced by more advanced vehicles that can do the same job and expand upon them, but they won't be replaced by airborne vehicles or smart munitions.
It's likely more complicated than that, because a mobile, heavily armed vehicle will always be necessary, and the way a country goes about introducing such a vehicle may be different. Pretty much it comes down to doctrine, and for all we know, a revolutionary way of protecting a tank could come up in the next decades to put them in the spotlight once more, similarly to how they were treated in the cold war. Plus, consider that smart munitions and drones aren't infallible either, and we already have the technology capable of severing the connection between it and the operator in the hands of ordinary soldiers. Like everything, it needs an experienced crew in the hands of competent officers who will use them at their strongest, not when it's convenient. If you talk about a tank being replaced by something that largely does the same thing, just as they replaced cavalry, then it's possible, but not guaranteed, since I can't see anything substantially different replacing them like they did horses. But who knows, maybe they'll figure out how to make armored mobile mechs that are faster, more powerful, and more tactically useful, but I wouldn't count on that for many, _many_ reasons.
People too often frame this question as whether the technology itself is obsolete, as if as long as there is a role that ONLY it can fill, it's not obsolete and still has purpose. While this is true, the question actually needs to be whether the role itself is obsolete, ie, the material cost to perform that role/tactic becomes too prohibitive to consider a viable way of achieving objectives. Take airborne assaults supported by Attack Helicopters...yes, undeniably, attack helicopters are necessary for these kind of operations to succeed, but if technological developments only work in a direction to make this type of operation MORE costly to perform, eventually, it no longer remains as a viable tactic, and attack helicopters will become obsolete
Fills with EU patriotism to hear about Europe repairing written off tanks. I hope this capability is expanded.
Patriotism for an economic and political block of 28 countries, ran by unelected bureaucrats? And you want them to build tanks?
@@janbo8331 28 countries each trying to build their own little military is inefficient. The 50 US states, which have the GDP and population of countries, combine their efforts and get a lot more for their tax dollars. As for elections, federal elections are a joke. Real political power is wielded by states and member countries. Try building a nuclear power plant, or a high speed train or even some housing and you'll discover the neither the EU or US federal govt controls these things. The EU bureaucrats are fine.
@@janbo8331 every single nation is an economic bloc ran by unelected gangster bureaucrats, what planet do you think youre on?
The EU strongly opposes patriotism, what are you talking about lol
@@janbo8331 "28 countries" nope, 27, unless you already added Ukraine to the list, which is really sweet of you. "ran by unelected bureaucrats" that's also wrong, but I'd be happy if you name a single EU governing institution whose members aren't elected (aside from maybe the Council of EU where each country is represented by their entire government rather than a one specific representative).
as far as the tank numbers go in regards to how many are in a company and their groupings, one has to keep in mind that for practical purposes the number of equipment you have is typically only deployed at half its value to rotate for maintenance. even people need downtime, so you don't have everyone on an operation at the same time. in fact due to support and bureaucratic requirements you will only have about 60% of a company in the operation (based on my own experiences in the US Navy on the Expeditionary side of things). this means that the 4 groups of 4 that you had assumed would result in 4 groups of 2, and 1 or two tanks for command. this can surge to about 90% personnel in operations and all tanks fielded, but that can't be sustained for very long. how long that is really depends on how far the command is willing to push the troops and how experienced the troops are. green troops will start to break down in a day or two at that optempo, experienced troops could sustain that optempo for two to three months before they start to degrade. experienced maintenance people with good logistics and independent authority to modify things to make them work can get the (4 man patrol craft, as that is what i am used to) well enough to last a couple of weeks before they need to be taken out of operation for maintenance for at least a day (time down depends on issues that arise), while green maintenance people or without the authority to modify things will be able to get 90% of the vehicles up and going for 1 or 2 days before needing to be down for at least a week. if the logistics is poor then just keeping the company at half vehicle strength is in the realm of the experienced people, while green people will have trouble fielding more than 1 team. as you might have noticed maintenance is a huge factor in being able to operate for sustained periods. the maintenance skill set is slower to train up, and requires people with a good head on their shoulders, so it is out of the realm for most conscripts, and tough for centralized commands that want to concentrate all the knowledge and authority into a handful of people that stay away from the front.
Good point about the tanks. I guess it's the same issue as with the F16's . They don't have anyone to fly or operate these things. They would also need to train all of the support staff on a very short notice probably creating more problems than what the equipment is worth on the battlefield.
I am ukranian and know ukranian well. If you would need any clarification with translation fell free to ask
I'll still be an advocate for sending Leopard 1s and Leopard 2s or even Abrams M1A2s and Bradley IFVs as the US certainly has plenty of these in stock. This war doesn't look like it'll be done in 3-4 months anyhow so let us look at what Ukraine would need to break the stalemate outside of the current slow rolling offensive, an offensive which can't be replicated elsewhere unless Russia gets themselves into more logistical constraints over x numbers of water crossings. Yes, sending in BNs of equipment would be a disaster if just dumped on the Ukraine with no prep but if that amount of people were being trained up out of the country for several months they'd be a boost to capability after this Fall and Winter. Just like the various western artillery systems and ADA systems required a train up time it is worth the wait. The logistical troubles will be easier if they are used near the units using the PzH2000s too as they'll be some common parts/systems though they are the biggest headache to overcome. Additionally, the better capabilities (superior thermals), if trained on out of the country first would be a potent addition on the battlefield as the Ukraine might be able to have armor that can effectively fight at night, a capability gap the Russians seems to lack (for training reasons mostly) that could give Ukraine an edge in pushing their attacks well outside of daylight hours if paired with similarly equipped infantry. Not to mention they wouldn't be relying on scrounging the world for 2nd hand serviceable T72 series vehicles into next year. It's an old vehicle and there's a rapidly dwindling supply of replacements available. Getting vehicles that have current production lines that can be ramped up to provide spares seems better than relying on countries x y and z to refurbish an old vehicle as best as possible.
There are serious issues with 'ramping up' assembly lines. You can increase output by 50% for couple of months before you burn out your workforce. Any new people you hire are going to need to be trained. Then you have to find subcontractors to make components - and they have to ramp up production. And you will have severe bottlenecks with specific components - such as the barrels for the main guns. Production of these requires specialized machines (that will have to be built) with limited capacities. Even worse - these require very highly trained (and experienced) personnel. Engines, thermal sights, traversing/elevation systems, transmissions, are also bottlenecks because production of these requires additional subcontractors - and many of them are 'long lead time items' (things that have to be ordered several months before you start assembling the tank they will go on). In World War Two we were able to quickly ramp up production because we started our industrial mobilization two year before we entered the war. No NATO country (including the US) has anything close to the necessary defense industrial base needed to suddenly start producing 200 tanks a month.
I'm curies did he say anything about tanks that were send from Poland? Ukraine get all of ours (slightly modernized) T-72M1R and some of (heavily modernized) PT-91
I don't think many people expect tanks to become useless, but they will not have people inside same for most military vehicles apart from those designed to carry infantry. We are already at the point where an unmanned vehicle would be more effective in most situations but it will take a while for people to trust them they can be shorter, react faster with no stress or fear, better armoured and carry more ammunition. Perhaps initially each manned tank will be followed by one or two drone vehicles (or put one in front if possible to hit mines first)
until link with unmanned vehicle is cut and you end up with bunch of really expensive steel... or like how iran got american drone few years ago.
Sending the robot in to clear the house is always going to brief well. The US experimented with some of these prototypes in Iraq. The Russians have some prototypes now. The real delay isn't so much in "trust" as it is sensors and situational awareness. For the expense, a real human is going to deliver more capability and flexibility across a wider span of scenarios than a robot with software.
12:30 T 64 > T 80 confirmed
Russian reactive armor is working perfectly. Most analyst misunderstand the purpose of Russian reactive armor. Russia doesn't care about their soldier's lives. Heck, they don't really care about their equipment. They have more of both. Russia's biggest problem is finding soldiers willing enough, to actually get into the tank, in the first place. The phoney reactive armor, is to give them false confidence. When soldiers question their survivability, commanders just point to the reactive armor and goofy tank cages. Get them drunk and drugged enough to actually believe it's survivable. Put FSB in the rear to shoot anyone who won't go. It's the carrot and stick approach to combat. It's the illusion of safety, and invincibility, that gives Russian soldiers the bravery to go into battle.
When has the reactive armor not worked?
@@voidtempering8700 it's not so much it not working "as designed" as in it not working against the weapons used against them. like.. you're worried you'll be shot. comrade gives you a helmet and says it protects you. and sure, it protects your head against shell shrapnel but you got shot in the head with a rifle instead(and many people do forego wearing a helmet because "it doesn't protect you from a bullet"). russian troops have had reported failures in fitting the ERA properly on the tanks though too. anyhow the whole thing about how the general attitude is just different in the russian army affects how they got so many intact tanks too: you can't just blow up your tank just because you had to abandon it if you don't have orders to do so and you're abandoning it because you had no support and/or orders in the first place and you as the tanker have no idea where your troops are or if you're on the front or behind your own lines and the radio you were given is possibly just playing abba and you had no training for such a situation and were on purpose trained to not have initiative.
Would u do a video on Ukraine artillery tactics and doctrine in the future
a tank lieutenant (CO of a tank platoon, ~3-5 tanks) in the Soviet army had a nickname "5 minutes glory/hero"
One cannot fight a Soviet style war with Russia's meager resources. Long and short, it seems the Russians wanted to conduct Soviet style armor warfare, but are hampered because the support elements of Soviet Doctrine no longer exist, or are greatly diminished. Poor training, no second wave, poor logistics planning (and manning) slow and insufficient tank repair capabilities, tanks in poor shape, or parts outright stolen in depots. Insufficient training programs for new tankers, and redundant crews for tanks brought back into service. Russia since Putin has taken over have made all the classic mistakes of the resource starved military that is asked to do too much with too little. Priority is given to shiny new weapon systems, that are sexy and deter, instead of the decidedly less sexy things like logistics, support and training. Unfortunately for the Russians, it is the unsexy logistics and support that win wars. Typical dictator mistake, Vlad.
It sounds pretty sovietic to me
Unfortunately most of this also describes the state of the Ukrainian army at the start of the war.
Yet the Ukrainians still can't win in the end
Lol, Ukraine
Leopards would be useful just not in a direct way. Using them as a tank company for, say, a TDF brigade far from the front tasked with keeping an eye on Transnistria or Belarus or guarding some other place would free up other more familiar equipment to be sent to the front. This would take the pressure off for training and maintenance and supply as they would not be involved in active combat operations with the problems of working them into the end of a long logistics chain. They would just be filling in some security role in case a Russian general gets a wild idea. Other oddball donated armor could do this as well. Like if Romania decides to give up some of their TR-85s/T-55s or something.
Are you suggesting that Leopard tanks be used as scarecrows to frighten the minimal forces in Transnistria? Or used symbolically on the Belarus border? I question your intelligence.
@@MarcosElMalo2 I think @Randall Waitt's suggestion has merit, Ukraine needs to monitor the situation in Transnistria and on the Belarussian border, in the long run Ukraine needs to transition to NATO equipment so why not start with those areas? Learn the usage and logistical requirements of new kit in the quiet areas so you can spread that knowledge to the noisier areas as new kit comes on line in the future. The lads fighting in the East and South want kit they know and understand and some of that kit is tied up watching Transnistria and Belarus. I do not think that @Randall Waitt's intelligence is the one in question here.
@@MarcosElMalo2 Do you think they do not need equipment in second-line units pulling security duty in the rear or something? A rapid response force made up of oddball armor manned by local undeployable militia that the Border Guards or whoever could could call on if needed would be a good thing. Yeah, it likely won't be used. But that isn't the point. It is to have a credible presence nearby to stop anyone from getting any wild ideas. Raiding forces. Saboteurs. "Border incidents". Crap like that.
"Tank bites" i was driving a lav 2 (i know its nit a tank) and the wheels grabbed some soft ground while i was coming out of a turn. My hand got caught in the wheel and it threw my arm into the instrument panel, fractured my elbow in 3 places.