[Explore time]US and European military aid 300 tanks to help Ukraine fight against Russia | Ukraine War | Ukraine Tanks | Russia-Ukraine War

[New Tang Dynasty, Beijing time, February 01, 2023]On January 25, German Chancellor Schulz officially announced that the German government will provide Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, and also approves other countries to provide Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. At the same time, US President Biden announced that he would provide Ukraine with 31 of the most advanced M1A2 main battle tanks. One more thing here, the tanks provided by the United States are not the old-fashioned M1, but the latest version of the M1A2 sep. The configuration is the same as that ordered by Taiwan and Poland. It is very likely that they are taken from the production line of tanks ordered by Poland and given to Ukraine first. .

Germany’s supply of Leopard 2 tanks is of great significance. The main reason is that the Leopard 2 tank is the most used tank in the entire Western countries, such as European countries, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Poland, and Norway all have Leopard 2 tanks. Germany’s provision this time is equivalent to giving other countries a green light, and everyone can provide it.

Calculated at present, the number of tanks that various countries will provide to Ukraine in the near future will reach 300. The United Kingdom will provide 14 Challenger 2 tanks, Germany will provide 14 Leopard 2 tanks, Canada will provide 4 Leopard 2 tanks, Spain may provide between 20 and 50 Leopard 2 tanks, Finland will provide 14 Leopard 2 tanks, and Norway will provide 14 Leopard 2 tanks. 8 Leopard 2 tanks were provided, and Poland provided 14 Leopard 2 tanks. Including the 31 M1 Abrams main battle tanks in the United States, there are almost 120 to 150 tanks.

In addition, the Ukrainian ambassador to France also stated on the program that the Czech Republic will provide 90 T72s, Poland will provide 60, and Morocco will provide 30 T72s.

In this way, Ukraine will get 180 Soviet-era T72 series tanks in the spring, and about 120 advanced tanks from Western countries, for a total of about 300 tanks. When you hear it, you may not think that 300 tanks are too many. However, the French Army is only equipped with a total of more than 220 Leclerc main battle tanks, and the British Army is equipped with a total of 146 Challenger II main battle tanks. In other words, for these NATO countries, you pay a little and I give a little, and the number of tanks assembled has exceeded the number of tanks of the major European countries.

The provision of tanks by NATO countries has two meanings and two major challenges for Ukraine.

NATO’s 300 tanks aid Ukraine to face two major challenges

The first challenge is logistics

Ukraine currently has T72 and T80 from the Soviet era. The maintenance of these two tanks is completely different. The engine of the T80 is a gas turbine engine. To put it bluntly, its working principle is similar to that of a jet engine on an airplane. In addition, an ordinary diesel engine for the tank T72.

Among the tanks provided by the West this time, the American M1 Abrams also uses gas turbine engines. But American engines are not the same as Soviet-era gas turbine engines. The German Leopard 2 tank uses a diesel engine. Different engines lead to different parts, different logistics and maintenance, and different fuels burned.

In addition to the engine, there is also a very troublesome tank, which is the British Challenger 2. Unlike all other tanks, the Challenger 2 is one of the few tanks in modern warfare that uses a rifled gun. All the remaining tanks, from the Soviet T72 and T80, the American Abrams M1, to the German Leopard 2 tanks all use smoothbore guns.

What is the difference between a smoothbore gun and a rifled gun? As the name implies, the casing of the smoothbore gun is smooth, and there is a line inside the barrel of the rifled gun, commonly known as the rifle line. This is because when the bullet of the rifled gun is fired, there is a rotational movement along this line, making It is more accurate, but it brings two major problems at the same time. One is that the barrel wears heavily because you are rotating, and the second is that your speed is slower and the kinetic energy is less.

Modern tanks generally use smoothbore guns, which mainly fire tail-stabilized shell-piercing shells. The shells of smoothbore guns and rifled guns are different. For example, the British can use their own unique armor-piercing shells, but they cannot use shell-piercing shells with strong armor-piercing capabilities. The British also have a headache because of their own shells. Smoothbore guns will be used.

Therefore, the UK provided 14 Challenger 2 tanks this time, and the motivation is good, but I don’t know how the Ukrainians will use them. 14 tanks cannot be organized into an armored battalion, but can only be turned into an armored company. But we know that in modern warfare, the armored battalion is the most basic combat unit, because the armored company has no logistics and no maintenance troops. So how to use these 14 Challenger 2s is also a problem.

The second challenge is training

The most difficult thing to train is maintenance personnel. How do you repair tanks? If there is a problem with the engine, the track, or the suspension, how do you locate these problems, repair them on the battlefield, and train qualified logistics and Maintainers are a months-long process. The US trains M1 tankers to go through 22 weeks of OSUT or 16 weeks of ait advanced individual training. However, before Poland sent the tanks this time, it had already trained Ukrainian soldiers in Poland to use Leopard 2 tanks.

I just analyzed so much, just from a military point of view, Ukraine faced some objective difficulties in receiving so many kinds of tanks. Difficulties always exist, and we must overcome them if there are difficulties. After all, having tanks is better than having none, and the ones that come are the most advanced in the world.

The two major meanings of tanks provided by NATO countries

I personally think that the arrival of Leopard 2 tanks and M1 tanks has two major meanings.

The biggest significance is that Ukraine has a counterattack spearhead

U.S. President Joe Biden said at a press conference that the reason why the United States has produced 31 MI Brahms main battle tanks is because there are 31 armored battalions in Ukraine. The number of tanks equipped by each country’s armored battalion is different. There are about 40 tanks in Germany and 31 tanks in Ukraine. In other words, this time the allies have produced a total of 300 tanks, which can probably equip 9 to 10 armored battalions in Ukraine.

What kind of concept is this? The Ukrainian army is organized like this. An armored brigade has three armored battalions under its jurisdiction, plus a mechanized infantry battalion. And a mechanized infantry brigade is just the opposite, equipped with an armored battalion and three mechanized infantry battalions.

In other words, Western countries provide these tanks, enough for Ukraine to equip 10 mechanized brigades, or equip three tank brigades.

With so many troops, it is enough for Ukraine to counterattack after the spring. In this Ukrainian war, although Russia was beaten by Ukrainian anti-tank missiles during the offensive, it ran away. However, if Ukraine wants to counterattack, it still relies on armored forces. When you defend, the militiamen carry javelins and can blow up Russian tanks. But when you attack, relying on infantry to carry anti-tank weapons cannot take down the opponent’s strong fortifications. During the counterattacks in Kherson and Kharkov, Ukraine, they used their own armored forces to carry out large-scale deep penetration. . If Ukraine wants to counterattack, it must rely on armored forces.

10 mechanized brigades are not a small number. Before the war started, Ukraine had 13 mechanized brigades, two tank brigades, two mountain brigades, four air assault brigades and airborne brigades, and one hunting brigade. It can be said that once these aided tanks are in place, they can almost increase Ukraine’s armored forces by 50%. Moreover, the quality of tanks from Western countries, whether it is Leopard 2 or Abrams, is much higher than that of Soviet tanks. We can finally see the duel between Western main battle tanks and Russia’s strongest tanks on the battlefield.

The second meaning is that Ukraine’s acquisition of fighter jets opens up the possibility

We know that at the beginning of the war, NATO countries, especially Germany and France, have been very hesitant to aid Ukraine, not to mention tanks, and Germany is not even willing to give anti-tank weapons. At that time it was mainly the UK and the US that provided their own Javelin and NLAW missiles.

But now that the war has progressed, the differences between NATO countries on the Ukraine war have become smaller and smaller, including German Chancellor Schulz, who have realized that there is only one possibility to end the Ukraine war, and that is to let Ukraine win the victory of defending the country. , and if Ukraine wants to win against Russia, it needs military assistance from NATO countries.

Today NATO countries provide tanks to Ukraine, tomorrow it may be fighter jets. Dutch Foreign Minister Hoekstra said in a meeting on January 19 that if Kyiv requests, the Dutch cabinet will study the possibility of providing F16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

Yuri, an adviser to the Ukrainian defense minister, said the next big hurdle was fighter jets. If we get these fighters, the advantage on the battlefield will be enormous.

He also said they didn’t want to give us heavy artillery, and they did; they didn’t want to give us seahorses, and they gave; they didn’t want to give us tanks, and now they gave us tanks. We can get everything but nukes.

It is reported that, in fact, from the beginning of the war, Poland secretly supported Ukraine with its MiG-29 fighter jets in the form of so-called spare parts. This led to the war in Ukraine until now, and the Ukrainian Air Force has been active on the battlefield, which is inseparable from Poland’s assistance.

The F16 is a fourth-generation fighter designed by the United States in the 1970s. It is also the world‘s first fly-by-wire fighter jet, which can be said to have ushered in an era of aircraft design. The F16 is currently the fourth-generation fighter with the largest output in the world. The production has reached more than 5,000, and it is used in a wide range of countries. From the United States to Taiwan, from Morocco to Greece, this fighter is equipped. If the United States decides to provide fighter jets to Ukraine, then other NATO countries can piece together a large-scale F16 fighter team for Ukraine.

M16 fighter jets equipped with Sidewinder short-range combat missiles, AIM120 medium-range air-to-air missiles, Hamm anti-radiation missiles, and joint attack bombs will bring devastating blows to the Russian Army and Air Force.

On January 28, Ukrainian officials stated that Ukrainian pilots need half a year to train and use F16 fighter jets. Flying an F16 is not a problem for Ukrainian pilots, they can learn it in a few weeks. But fighting with these fighters is a whole different thing, and you have to learn to use the different types of weapons it carries.

In the United States, the White House national security adviser told MSNBC that the United States will carefully discuss the possibility of providing fighter jets with Ukraine and its allies.

We can see that the door to supply F16 fighter jets to Ukraine has been slowly opened. When will F16 fighter jets arrive in Ukraine? We will wait and see.

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(Editor in charge: Li Hong)

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