Prediction Thread: When Will Ukraine Conquer Russia

[Broken_Erika]

The T-60's have been in storage since 1991, National Guard ones since 1997. And they probably don't have anyone left who can train them on it.

[Geronimo]

Send mothballed M-60s without training. Wartime introduction of untested untrained tank designs has a history as long and successful as the tank itself.

[BeBMan]

So it appears no Leopards for Ukraine...for now at least. From what I have been reading, the Germans wanted the Americans to commit to providing Abrams before they would commit to allowing Leopards to be released. The US is claiming that Ukraine could not logistically support the Abrams due to its use of Jet fuel instead of Diesel and the stringent maintenance requirements. I can't understand why the M60 hasn't entered the discussion from the American side. They performed extremely well against Iraqi T72s in the first Gulf war. We have hundreds if not thousands in storage. Something is odd about this whole tank thing.....

Pretty annoying, slow-moving Scholz is back. What is even more absurd is that in the end, like in other cases, he may come around to supply them. So why waste time and political capital (and not for the first time)

[Geronimo]

Is there obvious political pressure in Germany against letting other countries give leopards to Ukraine?

[BeBMan]

There are differences in the gov regarding the question of German tank deliveries. As far as I'm aware the issue of permitting others to send stuff pops up sometimes, but does not play nearly the same big role though.

[Geronimo]

The German government is saying nobody has requested consent per contractual agreement to send leopards to Ukraine and yet everybody else claims they are awaiting required permission to do so and Poland even claims that if permission is not granted soon it will export the leopards to Ukraine prior to obtaining the contractually required consent. Who is telling the truth? Is everybody bending the truth? Is the whole thing misdirection for the 'benefit' of the Russians? Something is fishy...

[dannubis]

European politicians who are so afraid of loosing elections that they don't do politics anymore and then loose elections...

[PLATO]

Poland: "Germany is standing in the way of sending Leopards! We may send them anyway!"
Germany: "We will not stand in the way of other countries sending Leopards, but we haven't been asked!"
Poland: "Fine! Can we send them?"
Germany: "Give us a couple days to think about it."

WTF?

[BeBMan]

Tanks for Ukraine: Germany to send Leopard 2s and allow others to export - reports

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64391272

[PLATO]

'bout time

[Dauphin]

Poland: "Germany is standing in the way of sending Leopards! We may send them anyway!"
Germany: "We will not stand in the way of other countries sending Leopards, but we haven't been asked!"
Poland: "Fine! Can we send them?"
Germany: "Give us a couple days to think about it."

WTF?

Known as German Sitzkrieg.

[BeBMan]

Lol They could have made this a lot easier.

From what's reported now other nations signalled they may chime in, not only Poland, which was always demanding this I also read about Spain, Norway, and Finland may send some of their Leos. US now saying they send Abrams, UK had already moved to send Challengers, France may also add their own Leclerc tanks.

It's not ideal to have so many different systems, and the numbers may not be huge, esp. initially, but let's hope they help Ukraine causing more regrouping.

[Geronimo]

The US especially could send hundreds at low to nonexistent cost. Those thousands of surplus never to be used Abrams don't just sit in a dessert. They have annual inspection, scheduled elastomer change outs and other maintenance activities to keep them from decaying to unusable junk. That costs money. If the US sends 1000 Abrams it would just mean less maintenance expenses. The US would still have thousands of surplus Abrams to deal with.

[Geronimo]

The tanks the US doesn't ship to Ukraine will just end up in the gulf of Mexico as artificial reefs some day anyway.

[PLATO]

The US especially could send hundreds at low to nonexistent cost. Those thousands of surplus never to be used Abrams don't just sit in a dessert. They have annual inspection, scheduled elastomer change outs and other maintenance activities to keep them from decaying to unusable junk. That costs money. If the US sends 1000 Abrams it would just mean less maintenance expenses. The US would still have thousands of surplus Abrams to deal with.

The cost of keeping a production base operable for sure. It's not costless though...training, spare parts, and jet fuel to run them will cost a fair amount. Still...quite the bargain for one of the world's top tanks. It wouldn't surprise me to see the Abrams deployed around Kyiv and the Leos actually go to war. Would make logistics a lot easier.