laststandonzombieisland

M1A2 Abrams Tank 1st Marine Division TIGERCOMP Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton Aug 2019. 1st Marine Division photo by Sgt. Tayler P. Schwamb

So, the Western allies are ramping up planned tank main battle tank deliveries to Ukraine. The sums are pretty paltry and diverse to an almost Kafkaesque extreme.

From the U.S. will come 31 M1 Abrams supported by eight M88 recovery vehicles (but no additional HET transporters, essential to move both to the front.) These will join a planned 109 M1 Bradley IFVs, 90 Stryker 8x8s (which may include some gun systems), 300 Vietnam-era M113 APCs, 250 M1117 4×4 armored cars, and 580 largely new MRAPs that never made it to Iraq.

From Germany will come 14 Leopard 2s (with as many as 100 additional third and fourth-hand Leos on the menu from places like Poland and Finland).

From the UK will come 14 exceedingly rare (and exceedingly cranky) Challenger 2 tanks.

The figures are arbitrary, based on the size of a Ukrainian tank company (14 tracks) and battalion (31 tracks). In the end, the Ukrainians want 250 to 300 Western tanks over and above the surplus T-62s and T-72s that have already been transferred. 

While some commo gear between the three incoming tank platforms is compatible, be sure that the tanks themselves are bewilderingly complicated with dozens of subcomponent systems, unique drivetrains, and main gun systems. For instance, Challenger uses a special two-piece shell (known to cause death in its crews if handled without respect) for its Royal Ordnance L30 120mm rifled gun that no one else in the world uses, the Leopard series runs several different models of the Rheinmetall Rh-120 120mm smoothbore that are fairly omnivorous in that caliber, while the Abrams, at least in A1 and A2 models, run a Watervliet-made variant of the German gun with some tweaks to barrel thickness and chamber pressure that is modeled specifically to mate with the M829 family of sabot rounds that have proven deadly effective against T-72s going back to 1991. Are M829s themselves going to be risked in a theatre where tech transfer can occur easily and often?

The logistics (not to mention training) nightmares to support these tanks– which surely (especially in the case of the thrifty Germans) will be older models that have long been in arsenal storage– will be daunting. Like tossing the proverbial keys to a well-used and abused F1 car to a guy that has only ever driven a Lada and expecting him to get in the ongoing race and finish with a win. Meanwhile, the pit crew is still watching PowerPoint slides written in another language on how to keep it running, and, while they have a pallet of spare parts, they go to a different car.

The Leopard 2A7 tank gunner’s position. Not something you could figure out on the fly…

There’s — there’s training that’s needed. There’s sophisticated maintenance requirements. There’s a supply chain. I mean, it uses a gas turbine engine to — basically, a jet engine — 1,500 horsepower. So, there’s a lot that goes into operating these tanks on the field.

This is fine, because apparently the Abrams transferred would have to be built as export models such as those operated by Egypt and the Saudis without any of the current armor that the Army has used for the past couple of decades, which is restricted to U.S. military use only. 

But Ukraine seems to think this cobbled-together force of 3-4 battalions of NATO-supplied MBTs will become a hard armored fist for future planned offensive operations. The tip of the spear in piercing the Russian occupiers’ lines this upcoming Summer. A Cinderella story akin to the Lake Placid Miracle on Ice with armor taking the place of hockey skates.

I’m just not sure trying to beat the Russians at tank-v-tank offensive warfare with the Russians shortening their supply lines while Ky’iv’s stretches back to the Sierra Army Depot outside of Reno is the best play here. Especially when you look at the past Russian relish for the immovable die-in-place scenario (see Port Arthur 1904, Petropavlovsk/Sevastopol 1855, Osowiec 1915, Leningrad 1941-44, Brest Fortress 1941, Smolensk 1502/1514/1609-11/1613-17/1654, et. al.) that has so often popped up in that country’s military history.

To me, it would probably have been a better idea to keep up the artillery game, which can be easily trained at the crew level, while keeping the little groups of anti-tank killer teams in heavy operations and hundreds of cheap Turkish drones and purpose-built American loitering munitions overhead supported by realtime NATO targeting data (which, let’s face it, makes the war a legit NATO conflict). After all, it has worked thus far.

Anyway, the updated U.S. military aid to Ukraine list, just in case you haven’t seen it in recent weeks.