While equipment is a slight upgrade on the Russians, I think the key factor here is command leadership as the Russian side has had some AWFUL commanders, just downright stupid and bullheaded leadership that what could have easily turned an initial entrapment and pincer movement into a long drawn out stalemate.
It's why the wagner group is humiliating them more with their successes since their leader at least knows how to apply misinformation to bait Ukrainian leadership to attack strengthened positions to turn it into a meat grinder and giving time to fortify weaker positions.
Granted, it's got a very good gun, probably the best main armament of any of the NATO tanks, but the armour's ok rather than the best available within NATO and I've no idea what the electronics are on 2A4 and 2A6 Leos - but those aren't the most recent versions, so it seems doubtful they're carrying a full modern EW suite.
Modern tanks are close enough in battlefield performance that it's their use, not their individual strengths, that determine the outcome of the battle.
I remember in the first few months of the war seeing a video in which a bunch of infantry got blasted at point blank range by a tank. As in, literally standing next to the barrel, dead to muzzle blast range.
I wouldn't use this war as a metric for judging equipment. It all might as well multi-million dollar sharpened sticks for how it's used.
Probably also their ease of use (which goes along with training like Unknownsailor mentioned).
An odd example is how the instruments in Star Trek Bridge Crew (VR) work between different ships. The Enterprise D may be a beast but trying to work with the classic LCARS interface for helm and weapons can be absolutely confusing. The TOS Constitution class is... comically impossible to work with. Yet the spinoff, alternate timeline ship happens to be fairly workable.
Granted, this is a game, where the devs may or may not have taken some strange creative liberties with the design, but it's still a fairly decent example of how things can play out.
Equipment is only as good as its operator. Remember how effective the Afghan army was against the Taliban with state-of-the-art American equipment just a year ago? It's kind of like that; if they aren't trained and don't know how to fucking use it... it doesn't matter how good it is.
If at any point NATO, US or anyone else had the military means to roll in tanks in Moscow like they do in your typical Xbox FPS then it would've been done ages ago.
NATO tanks are far superior to Russian trash. Ukraine's Leopard 1s & 2s aren't the best NATO tanks, not that it matters.
Russian tanks have been getting destroyed constantly to the point where Russia had to totally stop using them since Ukraine was knocking them out so fast.
Tanks are functionally obsolete.
The sole point of tank armor is to survive hits. It doesn't work anymore since enemy tank guns & anti-tank guns are irrelevant & the threat instead is from ATGMs which can blow right through the armor of any tank either with top attack or simply slamming a big HEAT warhead into it.
So wrong lol. The winning side in every major battle in this war has used tanks.
Tanks are NOT meant to tank hits like an WoW class. They are meant to be mobile direct fire with a really big gun. Anything else attempting to do this will eventually look like a tank.
Tanks are not obsolete, unsupported tank columns are obsolete and have been so since forever.
The sole point of tank armor is to survive hits. It doesn't work anymore since enemy tank guns & anti-tank guns are irrelevant & the threat instead is from ATGMs which can blow right through the armor of any tank either with top attack or simply slamming a big HEAT warhead into it.
I love how you project such confidence regurgitating a pop military cliche that has been around for decades. The most advanced ATGM in Ukraine is the Javelin and that entered service in 1996.
The winning side in every major battle in this war has used tanks.
There haven't been any "major battles".
The fighting in this war has been totally dominated by artillery. Tanks haven't accomplished much except to get blown up & to stay way back & act as shitty field artillery.
Tanks are NOT meant to tank hits like an WoW class.
Yes, they are. That is why the term is used that way. The thing that makes a tank a tank is the heavy armor.
They are meant to be mobile direct fire with a really big gun. Anything else attempting to do this will eventually look like a tank.
wrong. Stryker mobile gun system says hi. You can put a big gun on a lighter chassis without the heavy armor & have it not be a tank. Since armor doesn't work any more, THIS is the superior alternative to tanks in the current meta.
Tanks are not obsolete, unsupported tank columns are obsolete and have been so since forever.
You can have all the support in the world & a Javelin missile is still going to kill you from over 2 miles away before you even know he's there.
I love how you project such confidence regurgitating a pop military cliche that has been around for decades. The most advanced ATGM in Ukraine is the Javelin and that entered service in 1996.
You're a dumbass who knows jack shit yet you talk down to me, someone who has been studying the blade for 30+ years. You're the one here with false confidence, not me.
And the tank has been obsolescent since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, where sweaty Egyptians defeated the vaunted, heretofore invincible Jew Armored Thrust with petty RPGs during the failed Israeli counter-attack during Operation Badr.
But after 1973, instead of using cheap RPGs, the US developed increasingly sophisticated man-portable ATGMs, to the point where a tank now against a Javelin-equipped force is just a metal coffin. No APS works for shit.
& the fact that nobody knew this because it wasn't proven on the field of battle in the last 20 years since nobody with Javelins was ever threatened by tanks, is immaterial.
The fighting in this war has been totally dominated by artillery. Tanks haven't accomplished much except to get blown up & to stay way back & act as shitty field artillery.
Tanks can't function as any version of artillery.
Yes, they are. That is why the term is used that way. The thing that makes a tank a tank is the heavy armor.
Completely wrong.
wrong. Stryker mobile gun system says hi. You can put a big gun on a lighter chassis without the heavy armor & have it not be a tank. Since armor doesn't work any more, THIS is the superior alternative to tanks in the current meta.
edit: just see below video
You can have all the support in the world & a Javelin missile is still going to kill you from over 2 miles away before you even know he's there.
You're a dumbass who knows jack shit yet you talk down to me, someone who has been studying the blade for 30+ years. You're the one here with false confidence, not me.
Lol ok it looks like I'm being trolled. Good job I guess.
It is such a strange take to me. It is also completely against the actually available data, as the Israelis (to keep with his example) have extensive hard-kill systems on their tanks that have pushed the odds back in the favor of the tank because they could defend against all but the most advanced ATGM's.
It is the eternal dance. Someone makes a gun so powerful it defeats all armor, so people drop armor for guns. Then someone makes armor so tough no gun can get through it, so people drop guns for armor. And on and on until galactic peace is achieved.
Too true lol. I guess I could've just asked why the Israelis still field tanks after they realized they were useless trash 50 years ago. Just as a hobby? I believe the trophy system as you said is undefeated against ATGMs, at least from all video so far.
Even for you and your predilection for armchair bullshit, this is an especially stupid take. Direct fire is not artillery. Artillery is not direct fire. "Shoots big shell" does not mean artillery.
Not sure I'd go so far as to say tanks are obsolete.
Certainly, if you're using them badly, as the Russians have been, pushing forward with no support, yes, they're little more than targets for AT gunners, but any weapon used badly could be argued to be obsolete on that basis.
As for the Ukrainian losses, I don't know the details, but if they're going on the offensive, well, they're going to have to take some risks, aren't they?
As for the Ukrainian losses, I don't know the details, but if they're going on the offensive, well, they're going to have to take some risks, aren't they?
They are. And so far, the hardest part has been pushing in through the south where the Russians are heavily dug in and have mines out the ass at every strongpoint. The infamous picture of the disabled Bradley's and Leopard that was getting shared around came from an attack where they got boxed in by mines and then Russian gunships came in and attacked them when they had limited movement options.
However, it is also worth pointing out that unlike Russian vehicles (on both sides of the war), the crews in the Western vehicles have been suffering significantly less losses than their counterparts. Which in the long run will allow crews to learn from their mistakes and avoid making them again. Similar to how in WW2, the US Navy initially suffered against Zero's because the Wildcat was slower and less maneuverable. But since it was tougher and had higher crew survivability, eventually American pilots developed tactics that let them get around their weaknesses that Zero pilots typically fell for because they were usually newer pilots (the old guys got shot down).
Also true. One of the interesting ones to find out when you look at the stats was that the American-crewed Shermans were one of the most survivable tanks in the war, but British-crewed Shermans were running in line with most others (making them significantly less survivable than the American ones).
This is largely because the British classed them as "Cruisers" for the purpose of their army, which were tanks that took on an effective role on par with cavalry. And like the cavalry of old, British Cruiser tanks were crewed by the insane and the unhinged, who would do things like "Shove extra shells into every last nook and cranny" and "carry extra fuel tanks outside of the armored ones", which ends rather explosively as I am sure you can guess. But since the British were the first to get the Shermans into combat, and those issues existed then in Africa, it was the reputation they got even if they didnt deserve it.
Another interesting thing is that when Shermans and T-34's fought in Korea, the Shermans usually won. Because it turns out the T-34 also has an overly inflated reputation (being much more dangerous to crew and easier to destroy than the reputation says), and while both had similar guns and armor, the Shermans had significantly superior "intangibles" (things like crew ergonomics, optics, magazine placement, etc) that allowed it to usually be the one to get the first shot off and win the fight.
Add "death before dismount" and "Drive me closer, I want to hit him with my sword" to the cavalry description.
Having seen Nick Moran do his "oh bugger, the tank is on fire" drill quite a few times, i wonder if some of the survivability difference can come down to the Brits having early Shermans with small hatches and no loaders hatch at first.
While I too laughed pretty damn hard at the Ukrainian tactic of just driving straight into a minefield, what training do you think the West has that could change the outcome here?
We've focused for more than two decades on counter insurgency, under the very foolish assumption of permanent air superiority. We do not have the tactical, strategic or operative experience to actually fight conventional warfare any longer.
Who has ever claimed the leopard was natos best tank when you have the service history of both the abrams and challengers?
While equipment is a slight upgrade on the Russians, I think the key factor here is command leadership as the Russian side has had some AWFUL commanders, just downright stupid and bullheaded leadership that what could have easily turned an initial entrapment and pincer movement into a long drawn out stalemate.
It's why the wagner group is humiliating them more with their successes since their leader at least knows how to apply misinformation to bait Ukrainian leadership to attack strengthened positions to turn it into a meat grinder and giving time to fortify weaker positions.
Define "best".
Granted, it's got a very good gun, probably the best main armament of any of the NATO tanks, but the armour's ok rather than the best available within NATO and I've no idea what the electronics are on 2A4 and 2A6 Leos - but those aren't the most recent versions, so it seems doubtful they're carrying a full modern EW suite.
Maybe that's just a reflexive response from any tankers in that part of the world "Look, there's a bare spot! Slap a Kontakt tile on it!"
Modern tanks are close enough in battlefield performance that it's their use, not their individual strengths, that determine the outcome of the battle.
I remember in the first few months of the war seeing a video in which a bunch of infantry got blasted at point blank range by a tank. As in, literally standing next to the barrel, dead to muzzle blast range.
I wouldn't use this war as a metric for judging equipment. It all might as well multi-million dollar sharpened sticks for how it's used.
Probably also their ease of use (which goes along with training like Unknownsailor mentioned).
An odd example is how the instruments in Star Trek Bridge Crew (VR) work between different ships. The Enterprise D may be a beast but trying to work with the classic LCARS interface for helm and weapons can be absolutely confusing. The TOS Constitution class is... comically impossible to work with. Yet the spinoff, alternate timeline ship happens to be fairly workable.
Granted, this is a game, where the devs may or may not have taken some strange creative liberties with the design, but it's still a fairly decent example of how things can play out.
“The Leopard tank is NATO’s best tank they can throw away.” FTFY.
Equipment is only as good as its operator. Remember how effective the Afghan army was against the Taliban with state-of-the-art American equipment just a year ago? It's kind of like that; if they aren't trained and don't know how to fucking use it... it doesn't matter how good it is.
https://iili.io/Hs3LHdb.gif
This title sounds like a lot of word salad meant to imply things that aren't accurate.
What are these tanks getting destroyed by? If it's drones/aircraft...that's not a comparison of "who's tank is better".
Tanks may have simply become obsolete.
Artillery and aircraft have taken over their role at engaging at a distance.
Soldiers engage close up.
Tanks may have simply become fairly obsolete.
No shit.
If at any point NATO, US or anyone else had the military means to roll in tanks in Moscow like they do in your typical Xbox FPS then it would've been done ages ago.
NATO tanks are far superior to Russian trash. Ukraine's Leopard 1s & 2s aren't the best NATO tanks, not that it matters.
Russian tanks have been getting destroyed constantly to the point where Russia had to totally stop using them since Ukraine was knocking them out so fast.
Tanks are functionally obsolete.
The sole point of tank armor is to survive hits. It doesn't work anymore since enemy tank guns & anti-tank guns are irrelevant & the threat instead is from ATGMs which can blow right through the armor of any tank either with top attack or simply slamming a big HEAT warhead into it.
So wrong lol. The winning side in every major battle in this war has used tanks.
Tanks are NOT meant to tank hits like an WoW class. They are meant to be mobile direct fire with a really big gun. Anything else attempting to do this will eventually look like a tank.
Tanks are not obsolete, unsupported tank columns are obsolete and have been so since forever.
I love how you project such confidence regurgitating a pop military cliche that has been around for decades. The most advanced ATGM in Ukraine is the Javelin and that entered service in 1996.
There haven't been any "major battles".
The fighting in this war has been totally dominated by artillery. Tanks haven't accomplished much except to get blown up & to stay way back & act as shitty field artillery.
Yes, they are. That is why the term is used that way. The thing that makes a tank a tank is the heavy armor.
wrong. Stryker mobile gun system says hi. You can put a big gun on a lighter chassis without the heavy armor & have it not be a tank. Since armor doesn't work any more, THIS is the superior alternative to tanks in the current meta.
You can have all the support in the world & a Javelin missile is still going to kill you from over 2 miles away before you even know he's there.
You're a dumbass who knows jack shit yet you talk down to me, someone who has been studying the blade for 30+ years. You're the one here with false confidence, not me.
And the tank has been obsolescent since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, where sweaty Egyptians defeated the vaunted, heretofore invincible Jew Armored Thrust with petty RPGs during the failed Israeli counter-attack during Operation Badr.
But after 1973, instead of using cheap RPGs, the US developed increasingly sophisticated man-portable ATGMs, to the point where a tank now against a Javelin-equipped force is just a metal coffin. No APS works for shit.
& the fact that nobody knew this because it wasn't proven on the field of battle in the last 20 years since nobody with Javelins was ever threatened by tanks, is immaterial.
Huh? Why do you think this is worth debating?
Tanks can't function as any version of artillery.
Completely wrong.
edit: just see below video
Lol ok it looks like I'm being trolled. Good job I guess.
For anyone confused about what a tank is and what it's supposed to do, watch this video from a tanker about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI7T650RTT8
It is such a strange take to me. It is also completely against the actually available data, as the Israelis (to keep with his example) have extensive hard-kill systems on their tanks that have pushed the odds back in the favor of the tank because they could defend against all but the most advanced ATGM's.
It is the eternal dance. Someone makes a gun so powerful it defeats all armor, so people drop armor for guns. Then someone makes armor so tough no gun can get through it, so people drop guns for armor. And on and on until galactic peace is achieved.
Too true lol. I guess I could've just asked why the Israelis still field tanks after they realized they were useless trash 50 years ago. Just as a hobby? I believe the trophy system as you said is undefeated against ATGMs, at least from all video so far.
Wow so you're just fucking stupid.
Even for you and your predilection for armchair bullshit, this is an especially stupid take. Direct fire is not artillery. Artillery is not direct fire. "Shoots big shell" does not mean artillery.
Not sure I'd go so far as to say tanks are obsolete.
Certainly, if you're using them badly, as the Russians have been, pushing forward with no support, yes, they're little more than targets for AT gunners, but any weapon used badly could be argued to be obsolete on that basis.
As for the Ukrainian losses, I don't know the details, but if they're going on the offensive, well, they're going to have to take some risks, aren't they?
They are. And so far, the hardest part has been pushing in through the south where the Russians are heavily dug in and have mines out the ass at every strongpoint. The infamous picture of the disabled Bradley's and Leopard that was getting shared around came from an attack where they got boxed in by mines and then Russian gunships came in and attacked them when they had limited movement options.
However, it is also worth pointing out that unlike Russian vehicles (on both sides of the war), the crews in the Western vehicles have been suffering significantly less losses than their counterparts. Which in the long run will allow crews to learn from their mistakes and avoid making them again. Similar to how in WW2, the US Navy initially suffered against Zero's because the Wildcat was slower and less maneuverable. But since it was tougher and had higher crew survivability, eventually American pilots developed tactics that let them get around their weaknesses that Zero pilots typically fell for because they were usually newer pilots (the old guys got shot down).
Also Sherman crews in the same war. Contrary to popular culture, Shermans weren't death traps and had better crew survivability than most other armor.
Also true. One of the interesting ones to find out when you look at the stats was that the American-crewed Shermans were one of the most survivable tanks in the war, but British-crewed Shermans were running in line with most others (making them significantly less survivable than the American ones).
This is largely because the British classed them as "Cruisers" for the purpose of their army, which were tanks that took on an effective role on par with cavalry. And like the cavalry of old, British Cruiser tanks were crewed by the insane and the unhinged, who would do things like "Shove extra shells into every last nook and cranny" and "carry extra fuel tanks outside of the armored ones", which ends rather explosively as I am sure you can guess. But since the British were the first to get the Shermans into combat, and those issues existed then in Africa, it was the reputation they got even if they didnt deserve it.
Another interesting thing is that when Shermans and T-34's fought in Korea, the Shermans usually won. Because it turns out the T-34 also has an overly inflated reputation (being much more dangerous to crew and easier to destroy than the reputation says), and while both had similar guns and armor, the Shermans had significantly superior "intangibles" (things like crew ergonomics, optics, magazine placement, etc) that allowed it to usually be the one to get the first shot off and win the fight.
Add "death before dismount" and "Drive me closer, I want to hit him with my sword" to the cavalry description.
Having seen Nick Moran do his "oh bugger, the tank is on fire" drill quite a few times, i wonder if some of the survivability difference can come down to the Brits having early Shermans with small hatches and no loaders hatch at first.
While I too laughed pretty damn hard at the Ukrainian tactic of just driving straight into a minefield, what training do you think the West has that could change the outcome here?
We've focused for more than two decades on counter insurgency, under the very foolish assumption of permanent air superiority. We do not have the tactical, strategic or operative experience to actually fight conventional warfare any longer.
The people who still know how to do it, cast the uniform aside long ago.
Part of the reason we have endless wars is to keep our military trained.
Part of the reason we have endless wars is to keep our military trained.