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Comment by zip1234 | Hacker News Reader

I saw some tanker on twitter explaining just how bad the Russian tactics with their tanks are. Poor training, poor logistics, and undermanned. Tanks get such poor gas mileage that they need tons of support. Extremely effective weapons when used properly but clearly Russia is not doing that.

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Thr Turkish army lost a couple of top of the line Leopard 2s in Syria some years ago for the exact same reason: lack of infantry support.

Seems that the "West", spearheaded by the US, has the most experienced military in the world at the moment. 20 years of counter insurgency warfare and some more conventional wars before that seriously helped a lot. Just how much is at display in Ukraine, first by the, so far, Russian failures and second by the preparation and performance of the Ukrainians, which where supported, cinsulted and equiped by NATO for years by now.

There is an issue with that, being efficient in conter insurgency warfare doesn't necessarily translate into High Intensity warfare. Infantry support for armor is one, but things like maneuvers, operating under contested skies, EW, etc. When were NATO troops under heavy sustained artillery barrages?

I m quite impressed by the attrition in both troops, ammo, and material. More than Wunderwaffen, i think the lesson is more in trained personel reserves, as well as stockpiles.

They were the export version without active armor…

You mean reactive armor? The Leopard doesn't have active armor (or reactive like Kontakt-5 etc). It's been tested with Trophy APS, but the Turks didn't have that.

On the note of logistics, the turrrets on these lose their rifling after a few hundred rounds, they need to be replaced in field after this or they just become much less precise. Same with artillery.

I do not know for tanks, but for artillery, it tends to be much higher (few thousands) It is quite variable depending on if you re firing full charges, firing when the tube is hot, etc.

Yeah, the exact number is probably classified and precision does fall off with use.

The M1 Abrams, along with many other modern tanks, has a smoothbore cannon.

The only NATO tank with a rifled cannon is the Challenger 2. The Brits preferred HEASH ammo, a rifled cannon improved accuracy. It took some development to get HEAT and SABOTs that can be fired from a rifled cannon. No idea what the Russian tanks are using.

EDIT: Just looked, the T-72 has a 125 mm smoothbore cannon.

Current models do, but the original M1 and M1IP were armed with the M68 105mm rifled gun (basically a licensed British L7).

All Russian tanks are smoothbore...

I think it takes seven gallons of diesel just to turn a tank on.

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