Russia has depleted its tank stocks: the industry is not covering combat losses
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I hope this hits Russia hard, but I wonder how much Russia needs tanks at this stage of the war vs a breadth and depth of infantry and artillery reserves.
Main battle tanks are for punching through enemy defenses and making a run on enclosing enemy forces/enemy territory.
Once you capture that territory tanks are still very much useful, especially because of their mobility and ability to reposition quickly, but they aren't necessary in the same way that you need some kind of tank or something behaving like a tank in the maneuver portion of the war. Even if Ukraine counterattacks with main battle tanks, the most effective counters in that case are artillery, entrenched infantry, and mechanized infantry with effective AT that can respond and reposition to slow down armored columns attempting to break through their front lines. Don't get me wrong, tanks would absolutely decisively help too, but if I had to choose between depriving Russia of artillery and depriving Russia of tanks, I would choose artillery. I mean... obviously but especially at this stage of the war.
Who knows though, I hope Ukraine can get a steady supply of main battle tanks from someone (do they currently?), if Russia can't field main battle tanks even if it doesn't immediately affect the strategic balance of the war, the immediate psychological impact and tactical efficiency of tanks chewing through emplaced machine gun nests and enemy positions will be huge. No matter where you are on the battlefield you know that if Ukranians show up with an actual main battle tank, you are fucked as a Russian unless you have a whole lot of artillery/air support at the ready.
155mm, and the U.S. has about 1500 of its M109 self propelled guns in service.
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Elsewhere on Lemmy today;
Germany warns Russia may be preparing attack on NATO
Both of these cannot be true.
Not with tanks. Probably with hypersonic nukes instead.
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Elsewhere on Lemmy today;
Germany warns Russia may be preparing attack on NATO
Both of these cannot be true.
Everything written about this conflict (by anyone) is propaganda. The enemy is a powerful and maximally oppressive force we all need to fear, but is also so weak it's losing equipment fast and its final defeat is only a matter of time.
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Elsewhere on Lemmy today;
Germany warns Russia may be preparing attack on NATO
Both of these cannot be true.
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It very much did. From the looks of it, it would've been "ok", except a notoriously unreliable srivetrain, and electronics that are almost on par with the rest of the world. However, it couldn't be built without western components, it was ridiculously expensive, couldn't be built at a high enough rate, and not combat proven.
As easy as it is to make fun of russian tanks these days, it does make a lot more sense to focus on T-90 or the likes instead. Hell, t-72m is also a reasonable choice given the circumstances.
I don't think there was a good option that was also realistic.
The T-90M is itself a long in the tooth design that hasn't gotten the kinds of modernizations that tanks like the Abrams have to keep it relevant (and even then the Abrams is already being retired by the U.S.) Russian tanks needed an overhaul from the T-90M.The T-14 on paper had a lot of good upgrades. The problem of course being that it's much easier to draw something than make it work.
What Russian tanks needed was an overhaul to their fire control and ideally their protection to keep up and shift into active protection. The ancient curtain system is not cutting it.
Part of my wonders if maybe they should have invested in something scaled back and novel. Make a lightweight vehicle like the totally-not-a-tank-we-swear M10 Booker. Something lightweight, with a smaller caliber main gun to focus on taking out structures and infantry targets. Stick some active protection on it, and some missiles and you've got a vehicle that bridges that gap between IFV and MBT.
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i don't mean this in a dickish way, but I do love that concept of "just say something incorrect or incomplete" about war and someone will be happy to bring clarification
Can you clarify.
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Everything written about this conflict (by anyone) is propaganda. The enemy is a powerful and maximally oppressive force we all need to fear, but is also so weak it's losing equipment fast and its final defeat is only a matter of time.
I was told that russia was bankrupt and the war would be over in 3 months. And then when that wagner guy revolted, it was the final nail in the coffin
Yet here we are and the war is still on.
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I was told that russia was bankrupt and the war would be over in 3 months. And then when that wagner guy revolted, it was the final nail in the coffin
Yet here we are and the war is still on.
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Can you clarify.
so basically the histories whole WW2 genocide forget to mention all the advancements the Nazis made, the bicycle? nazis. nuclear power, the microwave mounted about your stove, power steering and automatic transmissions, and just love between two people. fucking nazis
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The idea is that after some kind of cease fire, russia will churn out stuff for 3-4-5 years (so mebbe 1.000 tanks?) and then not go full frontal against NATO but say take a bite out of Lithuania, just to see what the response will be.
Like they have been doing since forever (Chechnya, Moldavia, Georgia, Ukraine and so on).
Correct. The issue with Ukraine though is they fought back and didn't give any land to Russia. Now Putin needs to save face and how many people put through the meat grinder to do that is irrelevant.
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Then move troops there. The European NATO members already outspend Russia in terms of military investments. Russia can't even take over Ukraine, a country that's not even in NATO and hasn't even had any modern military equipment for a very long time. Hell, they're getting hand me downs from countries like Germany, equipment that's decades old, isn't state of the art, and needs repairs, and they're still keeping Russia at bay. Now there's articles about Russia depleting its own tank stocks and shit, not being able to sustain even a war with Ukraine, and we're supposed to believe that Russia will somehow attack Germany or Poland (which is to be fair probably better armed than Germany).
So there's only two options here: either the western press is lying about Russia depleting its stocks and they're actually holding back instead of fully invading Ukraine (God knows why they fought in Ukraine for three years now then instead of just releasing their full "military might" from the get go). Or, the western press is fear mongering about Russia actually being able to invade NATO so the military industrial complex can make a quick buck off of our tax money.
My two cents: there's no chance in hell Russia can invade any NATO country, they can barely function in Ukraine lmao. Just send troops to the baltic and you're gonna be fine. No need for trillions of euros in new guns.
one thing that i keep needing to bring up as well, with what troops? Russia has been losing a lot of people in Ukraine. Even if we ignore all the numbers being thrown about how many they really lost, they have lost troops. Invading Europe? Even if they would make start churning out vehicles at a breakneck speed now, where do they get the people to operate them? How will they hold the regions they would get?
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Elsewhere on Lemmy today;
Germany warns Russia may be preparing attack on NATO
Both of these cannot be true.
They absolutely can.
Russia has thousands of men willing to fight in horrendous conditions.
A few thousand soldiers that are very well equipped might lose to 10x as many badly equipped enemies.
I think they would lose, but they might not think so.
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Correct. The issue with Ukraine though is they fought back and didn't give any land to Russia. Now Putin needs to save face and how many people put through the meat grinder to do that is irrelevant.
Irrelevant to Putin. It matters a lot to Europe and Ukraine.
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one thing that i keep needing to bring up as well, with what troops? Russia has been losing a lot of people in Ukraine. Even if we ignore all the numbers being thrown about how many they really lost, they have lost troops. Invading Europe? Even if they would make start churning out vehicles at a breakneck speed now, where do they get the people to operate them? How will they hold the regions they would get?
Russia has a larger army than any European country. Only Ukraine comes close, and they have veterancy only rivaled by the US and Ukraine.
(Ukraine probably wins on veterancy)
Sure, if Europe acts with Unity, they can roflstomp Russia, but Moscow would be looking for a moment of crisis to exploit.
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Elsewhere on Lemmy today;
Germany warns Russia may be preparing attack on NATO
Both of these cannot be true.
One of the traits of fascism by Umberto Eco, enemy is in the same time weak and strong.
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It's ok, they'll just buy them from the US. That's what allies do.
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One of the traits of fascism by Umberto Eco, enemy is in the same time weak and strong.
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I think not even the CIA predicted the effectiveness of drones and javelins against old armor. Without modern defenses, they are just sitting (or slowly moving) ducks. Add to this the corruption in the military, causing lack of maintenance and missing parts, plus the gaps in skills and training of their soldiers.
We are maybe 1-2 years away from the Russian military collapsing, if it weren’t for the orange clown.
I said 15 months or less to hyperinflation somewhere yesterday. In that case, they could theoretically start conscription and grind Ukraine down that way, or start selling big ticket things like territory in exchange for help, but political capacity to enforce that is a serious question.
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Elsewhere on Lemmy today;
Germany warns Russia may be preparing attack on NATO
Both of these cannot be true.
Russia is still ramping up military production on a wartime economy, to be used after the Ukrainians stop fighting back.
Also their production focuses on their modern options for land and air. I don't know what their naval production is doing. -
I was told that russia was bankrupt and the war would be over in 3 months. And then when that wagner guy revolted, it was the final nail in the coffin
Yet here we are and the war is still on.
It's not our fault you have been badly informed.
Everyone knows the russian economy is on the ropes for example, but when will it crack? No one knows.
