Apart from Leopard tanks, Ukraine is getting lots of weapons | Hacker News Reader

Apart from Leopard tanks, Ukraine is getting lots of weapons

economist.com

12 pointsMoSattler13 comments

Why this fixation on Leopards? Were they not proven most unreliable in the Syrian war?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5332247/The-4millio...

from the article it seems the Turks ignored/forgot the combined arms doctrine:

While during the Cold War they were deployed in numbers, they appear to be being picked off as they are sent in to battle alone.

Fixation on whatever it is the German government is currently being asked to do but won't agree to seem to be a common theme of the Ukraine conflict.

What do you suggest as an alternative, when Ukraine needs main battle tanks?

There are a lot of potentially available Leopards in Europe.

While the American Abrams requires jet fuel and constant maintenance, so not very practical in this war.

Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. (And that's assuming the article is even accurate/relevant/applicable, which the Daily Mail isn't always.)

The Abrams uses the Honeywell AGT1500, which runs on jet fuel, gasoline, diesel and marine diesel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_AGT1500

Poland already has Abrams tanks and is buying more, so there is infrastructure. I also assume that Poland buys Abrams because they work in that kind of environment, which is similar to Ukraine's.

Fact is, both the U.S. and Germany are reluctant to ship, so excuses are being used. Germany is the easy target of scorn, so the press talks about Leopards.

Thanks for that. I was just going off of what I've been reading lately, but now that I research it more, indeed it looks like the US talking points have been heavily exaggerating what the Abrams requires. Very disappointing, and thanks for correcting that.

Perun on YouTube has some really great, in-depth content on military and economics, largely around the Ukraine-Russian war. He dispels a lot of the shallow talking points and shows you the complexity of the situations.

Poland also bought a bunch of tanks from South Korea. They plan to use different tanks in different areas of the country. Possibly also a production license so they can build them (SK tanks) in country. The Abrams is known for requiring more maintenance and they are best suited to the south of Ukraine. Not an easy transfer to Poland for repairs. There are also open questions about the weight capacity for Ukraine bridges for various tanks (including the leopard).

The problem is way, way more complex than you think it is.

Ukraine needs tanks before Russia's Spring reinforcements, any tank will do.

As I remember my military history book, all modern weapon systems are unreliable and need adequate supplies and protection by other systems. Modern meaning "since Alexander".

The systems which need protection also protect their protectors, in complex ways, against different threats. As a simple example, some weapons like howitzers are kept well behind the front line and shoot across it. They protect the front-line troops, but if the troops weren't there the enemy could reach the howitzers.

Maybe you don't know this but, the daily mail is a notoriously unreliable source. I wouldn't think about anything they write.

Leopard 2s are maybe the best tanks in existence, but I suspect the real reason is logistics. There are many Leopard 2 tanks near Ukraine, so getting them there is easy. They're also easier to maintain that the Abrams tanks.

> Why this fixation on Leopards?

They run on diesel, are easy to operate and close to Ukraine.

https://archive.is/skohM

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