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

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Its about time they just called Germanys bluff

"We are giving the leopards, if you ever want to sell us any more military equipment you better get with the program"
Countries can be funny about controlling where their exported military equipment goes, but don't forget they absolutely want to sell it.

IMO we clearly need to see more collaborative european military arms manufacturing with european wide agreements in regards supply.
 
Rroff said:
Sadly parts and training is a huge bottleneck to a lot of stuff. As some ex-military person was pointing out to utilise Challengers in the field you not only need trained crews but a whole trained maintenance support group acting like a military AA/RAC to keep them running (amongst other things).
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Poland has exactly that.
 
Maybe countries will opt to buy our Challenger 2 tanks instead in the future if this request gets rejected on friday. Assuming we're still in the business of making and selling them that is.

And they're proven on the battlefied.
 
RossGReds said:
Maybe countries will opt to buy our Challenger 2 tanks instead in the future if this request gets rejected on friday. Assuming we're still in the business of making and selling them that is.

And they're proven on the battlefied.
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There is no production line in place to produce new hulls etc and I doubt it would be an easy thing to restart, none of the original factories that produced it exist in the same capacity as they did when they were originally built. Thats not to say they couldnt spin up some sort of factory to produce them but I'd imagine that would end up being prohibitively expensive. The CR3 that we are getting is just upgrading the existing tanks we have from stock. and any increase in CR3 numbers we get in the future will still be within the original number of CR2 we have within our own inventory.
 
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Scougar said:
Our complacency is quite wild.
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30-40 years of relative peace and stability will do that unfortunately :( there are many people who were in complete denial anything like Russia has done could ever happen again right up until it did and even then many go straight back to the same position as to potential future threats.

In some ways it isn't unique to these times - a lot of the same stuff was trotted out in the mid to late 1930s as to why large/global scale wars wouldn't happen again.

EDIT: The old adage as to if you want peace is as true today - if Russia thought Ukraine would give them a bloody nose they'd have been far less likely to invade.
 
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There's a couple of things that I read in articles on the war today which were pretty bogus so I figured I'd comment on it here as the info may be of interest to some.

(1) Russia are using their anti-ship and anti-air missiles against ground targets because they're getting desperate: Completely untrue (I mean, Putin's been desperate for a while but it has nothing to do with this), the USSR routinely gave alt fire modes to many of their missiles. The key rationale for this was and still is that a weapon you cannot use is a useless weapon, what good is a stockpile of SAMs if your enemy has no planes and their ground forces are advancing? What use are anti ship missiles if you're invading a country with no coast? etc.

Right now they're fighting an enemy who has no navy and whose air force is mostly contained so they have plenty of anti-ship/anti-air missiles to spare and dwindling stock of air/surface to surface missiles, so they're using them appropriately.


(2) This war shows that tanks are obsolete and that there's little point building/buying them for a modern battlefield: Again completely untrue, a Javelin/NLAW can obliterate a tank but they cannot replace a tank, if you wand an armoured vehicle with a big cannon to accompany your infantry there's still nothing better.

On the flipside this war may actually have shown that attack helicopters are now obsolete, as drones can do their recon/loitering/strike role just as well and aren't easy prey for portable SAM launchers. There's been some call to give Ukraine Apaches but this is pointless IMO as they would end up just as worthless as their Russian counterparts/equivalents have.
 
Grim5 said:
Strap C4 to pigeons and train the pigeons to fly into drones
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The then Soviet Union tried something similar during WWII, training dogs to find food hidden under tanks. The idea being that during a battle they’d strap explosives to the dogs backs, and the dogs would then scamper off under German tanks, blowing them up. Unfortunately though, the Russians only had Russian tanks to train the dogs with, so when they unleashed the bomb dogs on the battlefield for real, they went and blew their own tanks up.
 
ubersonic said:
On the flipside this war may actually have shown that attack helicopters are now obsolete, as drones can do their recon/loitering/strike role just as well and aren't easy prey for portable SAM launchers. There's been some call to give Ukraine Apaches but this is pointless IMO as they would end up just as worthless as their Russian counterparts/equivalents have.
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Can see from the way Ukraine is utilising attack helicopters - they are mostly having to fly extremely risky, high skill demanding, terrain hugging and utilised more in the indirect fire artillery role, popping up to fire dumb rockets without visibility of the target or self-targetting missiles and then GTFOing. If they have more self-propelled artillery they probably wouldn't even bother.
 
Freddie1980 said:
The Ukrainian airforce have worked miracles with their older Soviet equipment but there's not getting around the fact the MIG-35 outclasses everything the Ukrainians have, it would good to see them getting aircraft that allows them to even the playing field.
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While Russia may be singing the praises of the MiG-35 and the SU-35, their contribution has been fairly muted thus far, mostly due to the fact that they are just upgraded MiG-29 and Su-27 jets and aren't much better than Ukraine's upgraded MiG-29 and Su-27.

Interestingly the standout performing fighter of the war this far has been the MiG-31 whose BVR fighting advantages over the previously mentioned Ukrainian (and Russian) jets has allowed it to do very well for itself. There is a certain comedy to the fact that Russia is trying use this war to big up the 35's to export customers, and they're getting outscored by a plane that ceased production in 1994 :p


HungryHippos said:
It's worse than climate change because it's not even debatable, it's happening in front of us and no amount of denying it can stop the facts being present and indisputable.
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In fairness, that also applies to climate change xD


Minusorange said:
150miles still isn't a lot, be better if were giving them the 300mile range ammo
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Yeah, IMO Biden should be very embarrassed/ashamed he hasn't handed them 300+mi missiles yet, you would think knowing that Putin is laughing so hard at him he would want to fix his mistake ASAP.


Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Its about time they just called Germanys bluff

"We are giving the leopards, if you ever want to sell us any more military equipment you better get with the program"
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In all honestly unless they're going to send them 500 leopards I would rather they held off, otherwise the propaganda victory for Putin and the resulting rise in popularity of the war/volunteers/etc would far outweigh the benefit of the tanks to Ukraine.
 
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ubersonic said:
While Russia may be singing the praises of the MiG-35 and the SU-35, their contribution has been fairly muted thus far, mostly due to the fact that they are just upgraded MiG-29 and Su-27 jets and aren't much better than Ukraine's upgraded MiG-29 and Su-27.

Interestingly the standout performing fighter of the war this far has been the MiG-31 whose BVR fighting advantages over the previously mentioned Ukrainian (and Russian) jets has allowed it to do very well for itself. There is a certain comedy to the fact that Russia is trying use this war to big up the 35's to export customers, and they're getting outscored by a plane that ceased production in 1994 :p
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I think it doesn't help there that in reality Russia has very small numbers of combat serviceable latest model planes so is having to be cautious with their use as well on top of the general state of their air force.

I wonder if it is something they will look to address along with the general experience levels/mentality around complex multi layer/combined arms air operations in more nuanced theatres - which could cause Ukraine significant problems in the future if they don't get better anti-air systems if Russia ever does get their act together in that respect.
 
ubersonic said:
On the flipside this war may actually have shown that attack helicopters are now obsolete, as drones can do their recon/loitering/strike role just as well and aren't easy prey for portable SAM launchers. There's been some call to give Ukraine Apaches but this is pointless IMO as they would end up just as worthless as their Russian counterparts/equivalents have.
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Only down to this particular conflict and the limitations on technology/tactics/equipment.

Attack helicopters may not be as close to the front line anymore, but drones will become the spotters for helicopters and supply targetting information to them instead. Helicopters will become ordinance platforms and will still have a use as another form of support. We already know that most western doctrine relies heavily on air dominance to control the battlespace and make it easier to conduct ground operations.

Basically in combined arms operations the helicopter will probably always have some form of use.
 
Jester* said:
Only down to this particular conflict and the limitations on technology/tactics/equipment.

Attack helicopters may not be as close to the front line anymore, but drones will become the spotters for helicopters and supply targetting information to them instead. Helicopters will become ordinance platforms and will still have a use as another form of support. We already know that most western doctrine relies heavily on air dominance to control the battlespace and make it easier to conduct ground operations.

Basically in combined arms operations the helicopter will probably always have some form of use.
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One of the problems here is Western doctrines tend to have a disciplined regular armed forces in mind with a decent level of communications - that goes out the window in an escalated war or like in Ukraine with such a mix of forces fighting, meaning anything in the air is heavily exposed to potential friendly fire and unsuppressed enemy fire.
 
StriderX said:
I suppose it's a fair criticism for Germany to make even if incredibly cynical, but does make one wonder what is actually been going on between NATO leaders wrt to what level of aid to provide as I imagine the US holding back the Abrams is more than a little irritating.
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Tricky one as well as Abrams aren't really the best suited to the situation in many respects - maintenance, fuel requirements, weight (EDIT: depends a bit on variant). Will be interesting, if we ever see details, how the Challengers get on in that respect.

Leopard 2s are a much better prospect for Ukraine in that regard.
 
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