Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

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Terminal_Boy said:
The Ukrainians already received some Spartan AFVs and are very happy with them. Fast and quiet compared to anything Russian, so ideal for the recognisance work they were designed for.

youtu.be

Cheeky British Armored Vehicle is Better Than You Think

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youtu.be youtu.be
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Stick a couple of anti-tank missiles on it, decent 40mm cannon or something and some, light as possible, add-on armour panels, maybe ablative, which gave it protection from at least 30mm cannon and it would be extremely capable in the current situation in Ukraine.
 
I like the challenger 2 move. Should pave the way for other countries to start supplying more advanced tanks like the Leopard 2 too, and although it's only 10 I'd kind of hope that they get used mainly for training and we follow them up with more so they can actually get significant numbers out on operations.

I hope we give them a lot more than 10. Maybe even 50%+ of the whole fleet. At the end of the day do we really need the tanks for anything else? Russia must be the main opponent we'd use the tanks against ourselves, so we might as well let the Ukrainians put then to good use. Let them do what they were designed to do!

We're highly unlikely to need to use the tanks in some expeditionary invasion or even defensive war not involving Russia, and even if we did the American Army would be providing the vast majority of the armour anyway.

Maybe we should just forget the Challenger 3 upgrades. If it really does meet our requirements the best then let's build some brand new Challengers from scratch to replace ones lost in / to Ukraine if we don't get them back. Otherwise we could consider buying some other model of tank (which Tbf is probably much more likely to be a good use of money than starting up a production line to build like 50 new tank bodies at the very most? Unless we rethink the number of tanks the army needs).

Logistics may well be a bit trickier, but Ukraine is used to supplying a very diverse range of equipment now, support systems can be put in place via Poland etc, and at the end of the day if actually using and supplying the tanks is more bother than it's worth then the Ukrainians don't actually have to use them (beyond a diplomatic tool to convince Germany to give them Leopard 2s etc), or they can just park them up in some defensive location near a border where they'll need minimal supplies.

I think we're past worrying about a few tanks causing 'escalation' too. Putin has escalated plenty himself, new tanks would simply be matching that. Any further atrocities / sabotage he has planned may or may not happen anyway, that's in his court - but he needs to know it won't make a difference to support for Ukraine.
 
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I think the idea is we give Ukraine a 'token' ten tanks, then that encourages other countries (looking at you Germany) to pile in with a load of Leopards.
 
GreatAuk said:
I like the challenger 2 move. Should pave the way for other countries to start supplying more advanced tanks like the Leopard 2 too, and although it's only 10 I'd kind of hope that they get used mainly for training and we follow them up with more so they can actually get significant numbers out on operations.

I hope we give them a lot more than 10. Maybe even 50%+ of the whole fleet. At the end of the day do we really need the tanks for anything else? Russia must be the main opponent we'd use the tanks against ourselves, so we might as well let the Ukrainians put then to good use. Let them do what they were designed to do!

We're highly unlikely to need to use the tanks in some expeditionary invasion or even defensive war not involving Russia, and even if we did the American Army would be providing the vast majority of the armour anyway.

Maybe we should just forget the Challenger 3 upgrades. If it really does meet our requirements the best then let's build some brand new Challengers from scratch to replace ones lost in / to Ukraine if we don't get them back. Otherwise we could consider buying some other model of tank (which Tbf is probably much more likely to be a good use of money than starting up a production line to build like 50 new tank bodies at the very most? Unless we rethink the number of tanks the army needs).

Logistics may well be a bit trickier, but Ukraine is used to supplying a very diverse range of equipment now, support systems can be put in place via Poland etc, and at the end of the day if actually using and supplying the tanks is more bother than it's worth then the Ukrainians don't actually have to use them (beyond a diplomatic tool to convince Germany to give them Leopard 2s etc), or they can just park them up in some defensive location near a border where they'll need minimal supplies.

I think we're past worrying about a few tanks causing 'escalation' too. Putin has escalated plenty himself, new tanks would simply be matching that. Any further atrocities / sabotage he has planned may or may not happen anyway, that's in his court - but he needs to know it won't make a difference to support for Ukraine.
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Personally I'd say the future is too uncertain in this respect not to maintain a minimum of around 150 active tanks with at least as many in maintained storage. Personally I think we should be building a new fleet and moving the Challenger 2s to a most cost effective way of maintaining them in active reserve, even if that is a bit of a downgrade on their spec. For the more foreseeable possible futures advanced armoured fighting vehicles like the Ajax (if it actually worked as intended) are likely going to be more useful, though they need to be more cost effective as some AFVs aren't that much cheaper than a MBT :(

Hopefully though this move does open the flood gates for other countries to support Ukraine with the hardware they need for a more decisive path forward rather than just keeping this war simmering indefinitely.
 
Uther said:
I think the idea is we give Ukraine a 'token' ten tanks, then that encourages other countries (looking at you Germany) to pile in with a load of Leopards.
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Britain just doesn't haven't have many tanks. Even 10 tanks is about 5% of the total we can field. Germany also doesn't have many tanks either but Leopards are used all over Europe - particularly Eastern Europe - so the hope is that countries like Poland will pile in once Germany agrees and a decent force of quality tanks can be assembled.
 
Mr Jack said:
Britain just doesn't haven't have many tanks. Even 10 tanks is about 5% of the total we can field. Germany also doesn't have many tanks either but Leopards are used all over Europe - particularly Eastern Europe - so the hope is that countries like Poland will pile in once Germany agrees and a decent force of quality tanks can be assembled.
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I thought we had loads of them in Germany in long term storage? I'm gussing it's those we are considering giving them.
 
SpellowHouse said:
I thought we had loads of them in Germany in long term storage? I'm gussing it's those we are considering giving them.
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As I understand it, the idea is more that other countries will be giving them once Germany agrees. A collection of relatively small transfers combined to make a big difference. I don't know whether Germany has piles in storage, but they're probably not much use without considerable effort if there are.
 
SpellowHouse said:
I thought we had loads of them in Germany in long term storage? I'm gussing it's those we are considering giving them.
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According to another poster on here many of our tanks are currently in Canada, some in storage in Germany and others moved to Poland. Seems a bit short-sighted to me.
 
Mr Jack said:
Britain just doesn't haven't have many tanks. Even 10 tanks is about 5% of the total we can field. Germany also doesn't have many tanks either but Leopards are used all over Europe - particularly Eastern Europe - so the hope is that countries like Poland will pile in once Germany agrees and a decent force of quality tanks can be assembled.
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I did read that Germany has to give permission for the Leopards to be sent to Ukraine from other countries, due to their export conditions. Not sure if that is true or not.
 
Mr Jack said:
Britain just doesn't haven't have many tanks. Even 10 tanks is about 5% of the total we can field. Germany also doesn't have many tanks either but Leopards are used all over Europe - particularly Eastern Europe - so the hope is that countries like Poland will pile in once Germany agrees and a decent force of quality tanks can be assembled.
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If every country that has Leopards gave Ukraine 20 then Ukraine would have 200-300 new leopard tanks to use
 
Russian oil continues to sell at $37 a barrel. At these prices, Russia makes no profit and may actually be selling at a loss depending on the field it comes from and volumes sold

As previously mentioned though, Russia can't afford to stop selling oil even if it's at a loss - this because most of its oil wells are located in areas where if they stop pumping, the oil will freeze and the well will freeze over essentially making the making the well dead and they'll then have to dig a new well and install new equipment

 
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Rroff said:
Personally I'd say the future is too uncertain in this respect not to maintain a minimum of around 150 active tanks with at least as many in maintained storage. Personally I think we should be building a new fleet and moving the Challenger 2s to a most cost effective way of maintaining them in active reserve, even if that is a bit of a downgrade on their spec. For the more foreseeable possible futures advanced armoured fighting vehicles like the Ajax (if it actually worked as intended) are likely going to be more useful, though they need to be more cost effective as some AFVs aren't that much cheaper than a MBT :(

Hopefully though this move does open the flood gates for other countries to support Ukraine with the hardware they need for a more decisive path forward rather than just keeping this war simmering indefinitely.
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I can see the argument for wanting to keep more tanks in both active service with more lower spec tanks in storage, and makes sense as a longer term plan. However I'd argue being too conservative right now is counterproductive. The more reserved we are, and the more we worry about giving ourselves a comfortable stockpile of equipment for an unknown future contingency as a priority over helping Ukraine right now the longer the Ukraine war will be and the more likely it is that Russia might be a greater conventional threat in the near future. Ukraine is where Russia can be beaten right now, and Ukraine defeating them there sooner rather than later is not only better for Ukraine, but also makes it less likely we'll have to fight them elsewhere. I would hope that most Challenger 2's sent to Ukraine will end up being sent home again in one piece after the war ends so we can refit / upgrade them etc, but even if that doesn't happen they'll have done their job.

The most likely scenario where we'd want to deploy large numbers of tanks would be Russia invading / threatening Eastern European NATO members, and helping Ukraine beat them makes that less likely to happen.

Yeah I hope the floodgates will open this year...
 
GreatAuk said:
I can see the argument for wanting to keep more tanks in both active service with more lower spec tanks in storage, and makes sense as a longer term plan. However I'd argue being too conservative right now is counterproductive. The more reserved we are, and the more we worry about giving ourselves a comfortable stockpile of equipment for an unknown future contingency as a priority over helping Ukraine right now the longer the Ukraine war will be and the more likely it is that Russia might be a greater conventional threat in the near future. Ukraine is where Russia can be beaten right now, and Ukraine defeating them there sooner rather than later is not only better for Ukraine, but also makes it less likely we'll have to fight them elsewhere. I would hope that most Challenger 2's sent to Ukraine will end up being sent home again in one piece after the war ends so we can refit / upgrade them etc, but even if that doesn't happen they'll have done their job.

The most likely scenario where we'd want to deploy large numbers of tanks would be Russia invading / threatening Eastern European NATO members, and helping Ukraine beat them makes that less likely to happen.

Yeah I hope the floodgates will open this year...
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Thought we wanted aircraft carriers?
Can’t have everything. Just had 20 years of Afganistan. Not MBTs. The magic all of everything doesn’t exist.
Can’t pay nurses. Can’t have a thousand Challenger 3 plus drones etc either.
 
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Custor said:
Thought we wanted aircraft carriers?
Can’t have everything. Just had 20 years of Afganistan. Not MBTs. The magic all of everything doesn’t exist.
Can’t pay nurses. Can’t have a thousand Challenger 3 plus drones etc either.
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Sorry, don't get your point? We already have aircraft carriers, who wants to buy more? :confused:

If your argument is that you think we should buy a drone fleet rather than new tanks then giving lots of tanks to Ukraine is the perfect excuse to get rid of a large proportion of the fleet...
 
GreatAuk said:
Sorry, don't get your point? We already have aircraft carriers, who wants to buy more? :confused:

If your argument is that you think we should buy a drone fleet rather than new tanks then giving lots of tanks to Ukraine is the perfect excuse to get rid of a large proportion of the fleet...
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Aircraft carriers once bought aren’t run for free. They are expensive. We’ve spent the last 40 years bemoaning a lack of aircraft carriers. Then a lack of anti insurgency mine proof vehicles. Now it’s MBTs.
Fighting the last war. Can’t have maximum number of everything. Literally impossible. Got to choose.
We’re not paying for aircraft carriers and MBTs.

Me explaining that we can’t have a plethora of kit for every contingency is impossible.. too difficult to grasp.
 
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Custor said:
Aircraft carriers once bought aren’t run for free. They are expensive. We’ve spent the last 40 years bemoaning a lack of aircraft carriers. Then a lack of anti insurgency mine proof vehicles. Now it’s MBTs.
Fighting the last war. Can’t have maximum number of everything. Literally impossible. Got to choose.
We’re not paying for aircraft carriers and MBTs.
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I still don't really see your point. We already have aircraft carriers and MBTs right now, the question is whether / how much equipment we send to Ukraine right now, to fight their current war not the last war.

What we do now will affect future procurement decisions, but whatever we do - buy new tanks, upgrade current ones, shrink the fleet, grow the fleet etc, it will all cost money at some point and future strategic defence reviews and chancellors will have input into future priorities and total defence budget size.
 
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Custor said:
Aircraft carriers once bought aren’t run for free. They are expensive. We’ve spent the last 40 years bemoaning a lack of aircraft carriers. Then a lack of anti insurgency mine proof vehicles. Now it’s MBTs.
Fighting the last war. Can’t have maximum number of everything. Literally impossible. Got to choose.
We’re not paying for aircraft carriers and MBTs.
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If you want to get really picky then why not singles out the boomers ?
 
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