They are talking specifically about tanks in the article. The armor on the tanks provided to Ukraine is allegedly not thought enough for mines, etc.
this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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There isn't enough armour in the world to stop a few proper anti-tank mines or anti-tank missiles or anti-tank drones.
Yeah, that's what I wasn't following. MBTs are going to need repairs, no matter how heavily armored, when you run them over a minefield, hit them with anti tank missles or drones. APVs aren't designed to survive that, just to keep the occupants alive from something that would have turned them into a thick red mist.
Uh have they tried using anti mine systems to clear a path? I'm pretty sure western military doesn't just go charging forward crossing their fingers...
For known minefields yes. For a regular road that might have one or two mines, no. Mine clearing is extremely slow. Even if you do it, someone might come in the night and plant more mines. The best you can do is keep an eye out for signs that mines have been planted.
The Russians made the defensive mine fields more than double the width of any mine clearing explosive device. This means they can't quickly clear a section and move through without being sitting ducks.
It is a strange article. It argues that western armor isn’t designed for sustained conflict but offers up the solution of more cheaply made vehicles. I would assume that would greatly increase the number of human casualties. Can Ukraine sustain an increase of human loses? Training troops takes time also. The simple vehicles could make it easier to get troops training but I don’t know if trading troops is a good strategy when fighting a country with a higher population.
The thing is, an increase in armour casualties reduces infantry casualties by more than 1:1. There's a reason the Tiger and Panther in WW2 are largely seen as strategic blunders today: a few complex and technologically superior tanks aren't very useful, particularly if they require complex supply lines to support.
Yes true if they lack appropriate air support and logistics support. Which is the case for Ukraine.
Modern western strategy is very different from that of WW2. The key is integration of air support, artillery, armor, infantry, etc. If Ukraine had superior fighter jets, to gain air superiority and anti tank and anti personnel platforms like A10 and Apache, all platforms working in sync and all backed by logistics support to keep everything operating, it would be a different story I guess.
Related, I wonder if they're suggesting the old Russian tanks would somehow perform better than the western ones? Because as far as I know, western tanks have the best armor systems, the highest accuracy, and the ability to fire while moving. Maybe they need to adapt their tactics to make better use of their platforms?
I suspect the doctrine for western tanks requires air dominance.
The context here is very specific : Ukraine is attacking a heavily fortified position.
In the beginning of the offensive, the losses were heavy because each time they would break a position with armor, Russians would unleash a barrage of artillery and air bombardments.
Then they changed their tactics, using the tanks as long range heavy direct fire support. And occasionally as spearhead or to counter a Russian offensive.
The biggest problem imo is the lack of air superiority : it makes them vulnerable to air bombardment when on a the front line, and it prevent them from doing deep strikes against artillery.
As they can't prevent artillery or air bombardment, a heavy assault would inevitably suffer extreme losses, but with enough supplies, might be able to break through the line. But the few hundreds of western tanks are not enough for that. Or maybe Ukraine is "simply" afraid of losing too many of them in the offensive.
That's the problem with few, expensive, good weapons: you need to be careful in using them because you can't easily replace them. More numerous, inexpensive weapons would allow to take more risks, which might be necessary to win the war.
I don't know about the US, but France and Germany do had this problem in mind IMO with their light tanks, the amx-30 and the leopard 1.
IMO the heavy tanks are good for an expeditionary force that will be limited in supplies, so it needs to make the most out of each vehicle it gets on the place. But for a large scale war of entrenched position, mass might be more important than raw quality.
More simply, even if you only lose 1 tank for 5 of the enemy, you still need more than a fifth of what they have.
I don’t know about the US, but France and Germany do had this problem in mind IMO with their light tanks, the amx-30 and the leopard 1.
The Leo1 isn't lighter it's simply the previous model of Leo and not significantly smaller, very much an MBT. You might be thinking of the Wiesel and generally tankettes.
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This isn't WW2, there's plenty of anti tank weaponry available. It's a lot cheaper than tanks and it's going to do what it's designed to do. Look how well tanks worked out for the Russians. Tanks are just not nearly as effective in modern warfare.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Western-made armor is failing in Ukraine because it wasn't designed to sustain a conflict of this intensity, a military analyst told The Wall Street Journal.
Taras Chmut, a military analyst who's the head of the Come Back Alive Foundation, which has raised money to purchase and provide arms and equipment to Ukraine, said that "a lot of Western armor doesn't work here because it had been created not for an all-out war but for conflicts of low or medium intensity."
Despite Chmut's comments, some advanced Western systems Ukraine has received were conceived with the highest-intensity combat in mind — NATO going head-to-head with Soviet forces.
The US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and Abrams main battle tanks were built specifically to counter Soviet ground forces.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly criticized Western allies for delays in the deliveries of weapons, saying earlier this month that slower arms shipments were hurting Ukraine's chances of success in its ongoing counteroffensive.
Sergej Sumlenny, founder of the German think tank European Resilience Initiative Center, previously told Insider that Ukraine was stepping up its domestic production in part because of concern that Western deliveries would not keep up with its military needs.
The original article contains 468 words, the summary contains 197 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
What about the 500 helmets we send from germany? I was told this is exactly what the Ukraine needed.
I'm not sure if you are joking, but in this case armor does not mean body armor, but tanks.
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