Do the pros of sending tanks to Ukraine outweigh the cons?

GrannyGravy13

Katie59 you appear to have insider knowledge

No, it’s not difficult to google who is doing what, see through the propaganda we are getting. Russia has large stocks of old weapons, very limited modern weapons and is having great difficulty increasing production of more, Putin is furious that he cannot even defeat Ukraine. He knows NATO has far more weapons they could send to Ukraine, they are so desperate they are removing nuclear warheads from missiles and using those.

Katie59 you appear to have insider knowledge

varian

It must be about six months ago that the suggestion was mooted that Poland should donate a number of Soviet era fighter jets, which Ukranian pilots are trained to use, to Ukraine, whilst the allies replaced them be giving Poland American jets .

I thought at the time this might be a good idea, but I know nothing about the complexities of defence decisions and if an Air Vice Marshall thinks it would be a bad idea, then I agree.

Probably the Polish jets did go to Ukraine we don’t know, the manned combat aircraft activity seems to be quite limited although plenty of missile and drone attacks are happening. Air defenses on both sides are becoming more effective and losses have been high.
As for reinforcing ground forces we are not going the hear how and when, we can only hope they will be in place for any spring offensive. NATO has been training Ukrainian units for many months, Putin may get a surprise if he starts an offensive.

It must be about six months ago that the suggestion was mooted that Poland should donate a number of Soviet era fighter jets, which Ukranian pilots are trained to use, to Ukraine, whilst the allies replaced them be giving Poland American jets .

I thought at the time this might be a good idea, but I know nothing about the complexities of defence decisions and if an Air Vice Marshall thinks it would be a bad idea, then I agree.

hear, hear

Whitewavemark2

We have an aggressor on our doorstep, and we should have learned our lesson last time - appeasement doesn’t work, especially when dealing with an ideologically driven aggressor.

There is little doubt that Ukraine is fighting a war by-proxy for Europe and NATO, and unfortunately that makes us responsible to ensure Zelensky has the tools to achieve pushing back the Russian aggressor to his borders and keep him there.

I would much prefer this settled by dialogue, which of course will eventually come to that, but Putin will not be in that place, until he understands that he cannot win.

The danger of course is that Putin May well decide to take on NATO, but at the moment I see little evidence that this will be the case as he has yet to achieve anything terribly significant in Ukraine, after his initial onslaught.

Ukraine now needs to prepare for what will undoubtedly be a spring advance by Russia. The tanks will help.

Good post Whitewave, very good.

Whitewavemark2, Ukraine now needs to prepare for what will undoubtedly be a spring advance by Russia. The tanks will help.

Agreed, it doesn't appear they are getting many, and not many soon, but I suppose any tanks are helpful.

Ukraine has also requested military jets. An Air Vice Marshall on the radio this morning said he doubted that would happen - you are talking about serious money, infrastructure and human resources to equip the Ukranians to operate them effectively. Their own airforce consists of ageing soviet era jet aircraft. Modern fighter plane technology is light years away from that. Even the Germans have indicated aircraft are a bridge too far.

We have an aggressor on our doorstep, and we should have learned our lesson last time - appeasement doesn’t work, especially when dealing with an ideologically driven aggressor.

There is little doubt that Ukraine is fighting a war by-proxy for Europe and NATO, and unfortunately that makes us responsible to ensure Zelensky has the tools to achieve pushing back the Russian aggressor to his borders and keep him there.

I would much prefer this settled by dialogue, which of course will eventually come to that, but Putin will not be in that place, until he understands that he cannot win.

The danger of course is that Putin May well decide to take on NATO, but at the moment I see little evidence that this will be the case as he has yet to achieve anything terribly significant in Ukraine, after his initial onslaught.

Ukraine now needs to prepare for what will undoubtedly be a spring advance by Russia. The tanks will help.

Russia is deemed to have the most technologically advanced and deadly MBT in the world - the Armata - but they don’t have many of them. They seem to have been concentrating on exporting them rather than buying them for their own forces. They scaled back the number they ordered for their own forces to 132 and concentrated on upgrading existing tanks. How many Armata they will be able - or more importantly, prepared - to put in the field with attendant fuel and back up supplies is questionable. In order to step up production now, they would have to import key components they can’t produce themselves and sanctions are biting.

Tank v Tank is very similar NATO has mostly advanced tanks Russia has mostly older models but a lot of them.

The war is completely different, it’s an infantry war with hand to hand fighting, the numbers of tanks announced can only defend the line. There is of course a lot of infantry support weapons, artillery and missile protection arms promised as well.

The current aim is probably to increase the pressure so that Russia gives up, withdraws and Putin is replaced with a reasonable leader. Now that NATO is united we can only hope that will happen.

But this situation is more complicated Katie59. NATO members are having to walk on eggshells in supplying Ukraine without giving Putin a reason, to say that the war is between Russia dn Nato or Russia and the US. Iraqis a vast counntry and, like Russia in Ukraine, the US went in to wipe out the existing government and replace it. Except of course the USA did what they said they would do.

Ukraine may be a large country, but the proportion of it occupied by Russia is relatively small, so huge numbers of tanks are not required. modern tanks are more sophisticated than those used in Iraq.

300 is a very modest number, even that is unlikely to drive Russia out.
To put it in perspective the US sent 1800 Abrams Tanks to kick Sadam Hussein out of Kuwait, probably overkill but they did win that war

Ukraine will have been asking for more than they needed on the basis that they would never get the full number they asked for, no matter how high or low, so they asked for the most they could provide a justification for and look like getting about 100,

I am sure the Ukrainians are are sharing knowing little smiles and congratulating themselves on their success.

I dont think there is any chance of Ukraine getting the 300 modern tanks they say they need. However now that Germany have given the ok for Leopards to be supplied and various countries chip in a few each they may well end up with about 100.

We have 227 Challenger 2 tanks, a large number being mothballed, as yes we did expect future conflict to be more cyber.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_2
At least they’re getting used.

By coincidence there were 14 Challengers taking part in NATO exercises in Poland last year so they might not be far away. Some tanks can probably be deployed quickly to bolster defense, assembling a large force to drive Russia out will take longer.

But in the meanwhile, the leopard tanks can be there within days and the British Challenger tanks within weeks.

The Ukrainians, unfortunately, now have a years experience of adapting to servicing and maintaining a huge variety of military equipment and their maintenance crews must by now be highly skilled and adaptable. I would think given a months training, or even several weeks, with online help from the donors of the equipment, they will soon be able to handle any tank from anywhere.

To use these modern tanks effectively the crews need to be trained and enough fuel and other supplies organised. The Abrams tank uses 3 gallons of fuel per mile!.

It’s likely to be a couple of months before they reach the front line.

Katie59

At last the whole of NATO including the US has agreed to send Tanks and other heavy weapons to drive Russia out. There is no way that Russia can match the combined firepower, Ukraine has plenty of manpower so Putin is going to have to back down.
We can only hope there are enough level headed people in Russia to convince him that he has had his day and back down.

Indeed.

I read of a US tank shipment. Well done them.

"The U.S. is now poised to send its top-of-the-line battle tank, the M-1 Abrams, to Ukraine after insisting for months that the tanks were too complex to operate and maintain, U.S. officials said Tuesday. However, officials said it would likely take months before Abrams tanks arrive in Ukraine."

At last the whole of NATO including the US has agreed to send Tanks and other heavy weapons to drive Russia out. There is no way that Russia can match the combined firepower, Ukraine has plenty of manpower so Putin is going to have to back down.
We can only hope there are enough level headed people in Russia to convince him that he has had his day and back down.

Eloethan The Ukraine has already said that it will agree to not become part of NATO.

Russia is an aggressor determined to rebuild the old Russian empire. It will not stop at Ukraine. If it gets UKraine, or even some of Ukraine, it will move on. It is already supporting, training and supplying dissident groups in Moldavia and Georgia, and has turned Belorus into effectively a client state. Poland knows that it is on the lsit, which is why it is offering Ukraine so much support.

There are a lot of parallels between the Putin regime and Hitler regim. Hitler invaded and occupied, Normay, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, parts then all of France under the Vichy regime (Belorus equivalent), Poland, Austria etc etc. yes it had a terrible and vile regime behind it, which is a lot worse than anything Putin can think of, but do not let that hide the fact that Hitler's first and main aim was to invade and occupy a huge area of Europe to form a German Empire. That is exactly what Putin is doing.

We tried appeasement in the late 1930s. Look where that got us.

Thanks MOnica for your sensible input. I was really asking what the Russians in Ukraine were wanting and you took the trouble to answer. At no time did I say I supported Putin. Who would? Some posters don’t read very well, though.

At least now Germany aren’t going to stand in the way of Poland sending tanks.

M0nica

I have just found the link below. It puts what I have said above more clearly and specifically and with better corrobarative detail than I have given.

news.sky.com/story/how-faster-deadlier-tanks-could-turn-the-tide-in-the-ukraine-war-12791057

We see from this report that 1500 Russian tanks have been destroyed by Ukraine, that’s highly unlikely it probably includes armored cars and other vehicles. Modern tanks are better protected but not invulnerable to modern missiles, if Ukraine has destroyed even 500 heavy tanks it shows the scale of arms supply that is going to be needed.