Russia has gone full retard and hit Poland with missiles. It may or may not have been an accident. We're in uncharted territory here. I have no idea what happens now. Will NATO retaliate? Declare a No Fly Zone over Ukraine? Just continue on like nothing happened?
Ukraine is going to be getting Bradley fighting vehicles from the US. The TOW missiles on the Bradley are highly effective against Soviet armor. More Iraqi T-72s were destroyed by Bradleys during the Gulf War than by M1 Abrams tanks. We have plenty of Bradleys and TOWs sitting in storage. They were built for the Cold War and we don't have much use for so many of them since it ended. I would think that eventually Ukraine will also get Abrams tanks. The Abrams has a gas guzzling, high-maintenance turbine engine, and it's a complicated tank that requires a lot of training. The Bradley has a diesel engine. The Bradley is also more versatile. It makes an effective tank destroyer, but it can also function as an APC. Its autocannon is good against BMPs and trucks. I would think the Ukrainians could train on the Bradley and get it into service much faster than the Abrams. https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...what-ukraine-needs-says-zelenskiy-2023-01-06/
Ukraine will be getting M1 Abrams tanks, Leopard 2 tanks, and Challenger 2 tanks from Britain, Germany, the US, and Poland. They will also be getting some AMX light tanks from France. All of these tanks are effective against Soviet armor. Even the French light tanks were pretty good during the Gulf War.
I was thinking it's going to be difficult to train people to support 4 different types of tanks made in different countries. A crew trained to operate and support an Abram tank probably can't switch to a Leopard tank without being completely retrained. Regardless, I'm sure training will be superior to what Russia has right now, but still not ideal.
On the plus side the Abrams, Leopard, and Challenger all use the same 120mm ammunition. Abrams uses a high-maintenance, gas guzzling turbine engine. Ideally it should run on jet fuel, but it can take other fuel if need be with some performance loss. Leopard and Challenger use diesel engines and should be easier to support. The armor and sighting capabilities are quite a bit better on these than Russian tanks. And they don't have the exploding autoloader issue as they have manually loaded guns. Even if the crews aren't that well trained they will still be at a big advantage over the Russians.
Something that hadn't occurred to me is that Ukraine has experience operating the T-80, which is the only other mass produced gas turbine engine based tank besides the Abrams. They may not have as much trouble transitioning to the Abrams as some of the news articles are suggesting.
I might be wrong, but I feel like these these tanks are more of a long term deterrent than an actual battle strategy. The real issue now is Putin will just continue a war of attrition. He could lob a few missiles into Ukraine every month for the next 5 years and that would be enough to prevent them from ever recovering.
Yeah we really need to beef up their anti-air and anti missile-capabilities. It's a shame Israel is sitting on the sidelines. They live under constant threat from their neighbors like Ukraine and have really good tech for shooting down missiles, rockets, drones, even incoming artillery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Dome
So I’ve always been kind of lukewarm on the Ukraine thing. But that interview… you can’t reduce support now it’ll look like we’re dick tucking and running away from Putin. No choice but to quadruple down. Thanks Tucker Carlson you dumb motherfucker.