The German government is facing renewed criticism after it reportedly rejected an offer by an arms firm to repair 100 tanks to send to the Ukrainian front line.
Rheinmetall, an arms manufacturer, said 100 Marder tanks standing around in its factory could be made battle-ready, enabling the German armed forces to send an equivalent number of operative vehicles to Ukraine.
You’ve got to train the crews to use different equipment. T-70whatevers, sure, fine. Something entirely different? Nope….
Obviously, in an ideal world 2008 and most of all 2014 should have showed us what was coming: plenty of time to train Ukrainians in surplus F16’s etc. But it’s still useful now, because a) this war is obviously going to last a while b) the chances of the Russians taking Kyiv and the west of the country are effectively zero so there is a Ukrainian army that needs equipment. FOr small numbers of advanced equipment, we could go “Flying Tiger” with ex-servicemen who wanted to sign up
You also have to set up a support infrastructure of repair shops and inventories of spares. Plus ammunition, if you want to shoot at anything.
also propaganda wise- german tanks in ukraine?
On the training. I was told the British Army trainers of the Ukrainian Army are normally on a 3 month deployment. One lot are still there* 9 months later as are their replacements, implying there are 3 times as many trainers as planned and that the Ukrainians are confident enough of success to pull them from the front line to be trained.
* Not sure if thats Ukraine or now third country
Rheinmetall, an arms manufacturer, said 100 Marder tanks standing around in its factory could be made battle-ready
Arms company says somebody could give it a nice fat contract, hint hint.
“If it is true that the defence ministry has not yet even inspected the Marder tanks, then this is a scandal,” Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin Andrij Melnyk told the tabloid.
That’s what I love most about these people, their gratitude. Germany has already sent them €2Bn aid and free weapons btw. In return, Ukies claim the Germans are complicit in “genocide”.
Mr Melnyk added that “Berlin is showing no urgency although this war of extermination by Russia against the Ukrainian population has been raging for 45 days.”
The second thing I love about them is their honesty. 😀
Kyiv is desperate for Germany to start delivering heavy weaponry as its outnumbered army prepares to face an intensified Russian offensive in the east.
It isn’t outnumbered tho. Russia has committed about 200,000 troops to the war. Ukraine has about 200,000 regulars plus 900,000 reservists, who they started calling up in February. It’s Ivan who is heavily outnumbered in this fight, tho he isn’t outgunned. It’s not the Winter War 2.0, it’s more like Russian ops in Syria.
“If the German national defence could really fail because of a few missing Marder tanks, then we might as well shut up shop altogether,” Frank Sauer, an expert from the Bundeswehr Academy in Munich, told Spiegel magazine
You already have shut up shop on defence of your nation, it’s just a question of which combination of foreigners inherits the country formerly known as Germany, insha’Allah.
Kyiv has become increasingly frustrated at delays in decision making in Berlin, where requests for the delivery of specific military hardware often take weeks to receive an answer.
Nota Benny Ukraine has zero plans to pay for any of this stuff.
Mr Zelensky has called for an embargo on imported gas and oil from Russia, but Germany so far resisted pressure to do so.
“Hello Olaf, I know your economy is punch drunk from all the lockdowns and energy crises, but I’d like you to now completely shut down all major industries and force your people to endure WW2 style rationing to help me fight your energy supplier… Olaf? Hello? Are you on mute???”
Germany is home to 1.2 million people of Russian origin and 325,000 from Ukraine. Authorities fear the conflict could be imported into Germany and the protests used to promote Moscow’s war narrative.
Diversity: the eternal enrichment.
Stop it Steve.
You appear to be saying that Russians is unfairly outnumbered by the Ukrainians. That just makes you look stupid.
Russia has five times as many soldiers, tanks, planes, artillery, economy population … everything.
Oh. Except friends. They have no friends. Good.
Aren’t NLAWs rather changing the value of tanks? Cost a fraction of the price, easy to train reservists to use? The tank is out in broad daylight, while the NLAW can be fired from behind a hill.
And they’re sitting ducks against Bayraktars without air support.
Chester – I apologise for my opinions being my own instead of yours.
You appear to be saying that Russians is unfairly
Fair? Fair?!? This is war, laddie.
Russia has five times as many soldiers, tanks, planes, artillery, economy population … everything.
They do in Russia, not in Ukraine, where for reasons known only to Meerkat High Command (tho it’s fun to guess) they’ve gone in with a relatively small expeditionary force of up to 200,000 men. Nowhere near enough to conquer and occupy a geographically sprawling country of (pre-February) 40 million people who hate them.
Which is why they’re fighting the kind of war they have been fighting. Zhukov would have wept at their parsimony.
Just to be picky, a Marder is not a tank, it’s an infantry fighting vehicle (a type of armoured personel carrier).
I live in hope that one day a journalist will appear who understands that not every armoured vehicle with tracks and a turret is a tank. I expect to remain disappointed.
EDS – so you’re saying they should order our Ajax tanks (the Shakin’ Stevens variant) or buy more of our Saxon tanks (an up-armoured Bedford truck the media was complaining isn’t very good as a tank)
The second thing I love about them is their honesty.
Honesty is akin to fairness. This is war, laddie.
I live in hope that one day a journalist will appear who understands that not every armoured vehicle with tracks and a turret is a tank. I expect to remain disappointed.
Remember these are journalists who think that every rifle out there is an AK-47.
Sort of, but no, but kinda yes. Basic principles are the same, tactic (barring specialized bits of optional equipment) are the same.
Tank’s a bit faster, handles differently, but you could take a trained UKi tank crew and have the functional in a Marder in a couple of weeks.
The real problem would logistics though. Spare parts and ammo would be the deal breaker, IMO, not training.
And it’s a light tank – frankly, the UKis would be better served being handed latgms, drones, and loitering munitions.
Grandpa can fire a Javelin – put one behind every tree and there go the tanks and IFVs unless Russia want to carpet bomb their advance path or slow to a walking pace.
Or, rather an IFV.
And that logistics? That contract is where Rheonmetal hope to make bank, getting someone to pay for that support.
PJF – Gawd, I know. And I’m actually a huge fan of bullshit. Sadly it’s too much to hope for the supple fabulist finesse of a Sefton Delmer in these degenerate, slav-spittled, exceedingly gay times.
Aga – Lancelot de Mole missed a trick by not coming up with a catchier name.
Any driver who drives tracked vehicles will have about as much trouble as you do when you pick up a rental car. The radio fit and whatever electronics are fitted probably won’t work or need training. You could use it to run your missile crews around through contested ground, not right at the front against russian tanks. If it breaks, ditch it, because the logistics are the big problem. Marders are pretty old. They are from the time we had Chieftains, Scorpions and 432s.
And I’m actually a huge fan of bullshit.
Yes, you did imply that Boris didn’t actually go to Kyiv.
Just to be picky, a Marder is not a tank, it’s an infantry fighting vehicle (a type of armoured personel carrier).
But if we used our anorak powered time machine and took modern IFVs back to the mid 1930s they’d be regarded as wonder tanks. And the Israeli Merkava carries infantry. There’s a lot of crossover.
Is it mobile, is it protected, can it engage all major battlefield targets with direct fire? An IFV fails the third test. A Merkava doesn’t, on account of the big fucking gun.
rhoda, does/did the Scorpion count as a tank? Did “light tanks” count as tanks? What counts as “tank” may not be set in stone, but is your argument that if you’re not an MBT, you’re not really a tank?
Is it mobile, is it protected, can it engage all major battlefield targets with direct fire?
The standard M4 Sherman wasn’t meant to engage all major battlefield targets (i.e. other tanks – like Tigers); US doctrine was to use tank destroyers, such as the M36, for that job.
An M8 armoured car was said to have taken out a King Tiger by using its 37mm gun from point blank to destroy the engine compartment and set it on fire. Similarly, there is video of a Ukrainian BMP wrecking T72s from the rear with its auto-canon.
The success of the NLAW has to redefine “protected” from now on.
Three-quarters of M4 ammo used was HE. US (but not UK) tank doctrine didn’t entail taking on other tanks one-to-one, but the vehicle had to be able to do it. They didn’t expect Tigers. Somebody can always build the biggest meanest tank on the field, but other tanks have an ability to engage them. If you’re on the wrong side of the gun/armour race it doesn’t mean you’re not a tank. Scorpion is a light tank, for sure. Its role is recce. However, you don’t need a gun, nowadays, if your missile system is more than just anti-armour. If you have HE and a range of specialised warheads, that counts.
And that M8? It counts as lucky. But not as a protected vehicle, in my cynical opinion.
Scorpion is a light tank, for sure. Its role is recce.
What about the Scimitar? Same as the Scorpion but with the 30mm auto-canon instead of the 76mm gun, also classed as a light tank (took out Iraqi T62s).
Same armament as the Warrior IFV, similar thin aluminium armour. Both are tracked, high mobility vehicles with a turret fitted auto-canon. The smaller, slightly faster 3-crewed is a tank; the larger, slightly slower 3-crewed plus 7 infantry is not a tank.
It’s arbitrary.
I wouldn’t say arbitrary but the boundaries can be a bit blurred. I think I got the definition from R.Ogorkiewicz, but I can’t find the text. Or maybe it was the estimable Frank Kitson. Anyway, note that it doesn’t require tracks, although they are a feature of pretty much every tank. Wheels or gawd ‘elp us rotors will do. Also that it’s a fairly modern definition, a MARK 1 tank would not have met it, unless mobility is solely trench-crossing. At which it could beat anything out there today.
OR, possibly a tank is defined in the same way as a woman nowadays. I know one if I see one.
Not Kitson, Richard Simpkin. Mea culpa
Q – What is a tank?
A – I’m not a biologist.
Solved.
Love a good nerd out.
The M8 vs King Tiger was covered by Mark Felton:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx8InfzkHYI
Some luck, for sure, but brains and balls aplenty.
When I was reading up on the Scimitar this morning, one of the stories was of one being hit by a round from an Iraqi T55 – the aluminium armour was so insubstantial the shell went straight through the vehicle, luckily without hitting the crew or anything to make it explode inside.