They are already using way less tanks & armored vehicles today. They will never really “run out” but just have a smaller stockpile to draw from, which seems to be the case.
Also, who knows what kind of information putin gets, look at donald and the information he gets and he’s not even killing everyone not doing their job correctly.
Change comes gradually and then suddenly. Lots of signs point to a collapse (stockpiles, economy, the blocked frontlines, …, and donkeys), some people have put it to around mid 2025-end 2025 for quite some time now.
Interesting times.
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Mar 20:28
nextcollapse
It’s seriously astonishing that they managed to wear though the entire massive Soviet stockpile.
Covert Cobal has great tank and apv counting vids, documenting the ever worsening condition of the vehicles remaining.
youtube.com/@covertcabal
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
on 30 Mar 21:21
nextcollapse
I seem to remember they were using actual WW2 tanks?
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Mar 21:34
collapse
Yup. Not because they were out of more modern tanks yet at that point, but because the more modern tanks took longer to refurbish. But now they really are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
on 31 Mar 06:38
collapse
Yeah, I was wondering. One would suppose 80 yo ordnance is the bottom of the barrel. Thanks for clarifying.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
on 30 Mar 22:00
nextcollapse
Yes. Back when analysts used to talk about a war with Russia pre-2022, something you heard pretty often was “they’re not as advanced, but they have so much stockpiled armour”.
This is like America running out of guns or Canada running out of syrup.
I think not even the CIA predicted the effectiveness of drones and javelins against old armor. Without modern defenses, they are just sitting (or slowly moving) ducks. Add to this the corruption in the military, causing lack of maintenance and missing parts, plus the gaps in skills and training of their soldiers.
We are maybe 1-2 years away from the Russian military collapsing, if it weren’t for the orange clown.
I said 15 months or less to hyperinflation somewhere yesterday. In that case, they could theoretically start conscription and grind Ukraine down that way, or start selling big ticket things like territory in exchange for help, but political capacity to enforce that is a serious question.
The stockpile was built in the 50s, 60s and 70a though. The vast bulk of it is 50-70 years old. Post soviet Russia didn’t have the money, and prior to that the stockpile was good.
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Mar 23:55
collapse
Prior to Ukraine the stockpile was good. Then it started disappearing.
Even in modern war, a significant amount of armor is lost not from literally being blown up, but from breaking, getting stuck, being abandoned after a flank cuts off retreat in a vehicle etc…
I’m going to go with what European military leaders are saying, out loud and in public. God knows what those leaders really know and talk about.
I’m guessing you’re European? Well, you’ve had 80 years of mostly peace and prosperity. Timed to get armed, personally. (Yes my fellow Americans, Europeans can acquire guns without too much hassle. Yes, real guns. Gun ownership just isn’t a major part of their culture like it is over here, and their culture isn’t as diseased as ours regarding weapons.)
If you’re allergic to guns, consider these two scenarios:
Hostile foreign power invades America.
Hostile foreign power invades Europe.
In which case do you expect the invader to suffer the most? Which case do you consider more likely?
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
on 30 Mar 22:00
nextcollapse
You are ignoring the elephant in the room, which is that a rising sense of militarism quickly feeds into a decay of your society, if you make an incredible amount of guns somebody is going to use them, that is how these things work.
I am not saying Europe shouldn’t absolutely take being able to militarily counter Russia seriously, as they should any regional threat, but what is needed isn’t necessarily to reshape Europe into a hypermilitarized environment, especially in the area of police and the militarization of police, what Europe needs is to make sure it has effective counters to a mass, mechanized land war. What conservative war hawks in Europe will advocate for is a militarization of police and of society, that is not what is needed. You need the right military assets to make a ground war incredibly costly for the Russians.
One of the most effective counters, and a decisive element of the war in Ukranian has been HIMARs, long range missiles launched from trucks and armor capable of striking mobile Russian SAM assets and other high value targets from extremely far away. These make maneuvering a large concentrated armored force much much much more costly and dangerous for an invader.
…but ultimately this all devolves into a sense of militarism that undermines the original reason for making all the guns in the first place, it is just a matter of how far you can push it in your society before that cancer becomes terminal… see the U.S. as a prime example…
index@sh.itjust.works
on 31 Mar 11:21
nextcollapse
Even your comment advocating for reasonable spending gets downvoted. People are mad on war propaganda.
This is how quickly the cancer of militarism spreads and why war is the favorite tool of the ruling class rich, time immemorial, to put off making concessions to society so that the average person can live a somewhat decent life.
Modern professional militaries don’t need hundreds of thousands of troops, you don’t need to mainline jingoism and nationalism straight into your fucking veins to defend your country from Russia, just make sure your military has the right capabilities to make a Russian land invasion as absolutely costly as possible.
What conservative warhawks will hear though is “tear our society apart and pre-emptively destroy everything we hold dear because of the threat of an enemy invader, and then in that militarism invite in corruption from Russian aligned assets anyways that exploit the opening created by the deafening roar of righteousness of the military industrial complex”.
It’s funny how easily people are deceived, imagine if your house neighbor were to buy some howitzers and hire 100 guys for “security reasons”. Armies are made to wage war and most weapons are designed to kill other humans.
US has thousand military facilities all over europe, you could simply lower the gap by kicking them out. Making such claim a year ago would have get you labeled as a russian troll.
Everyone upvoting your comment should take half of the money in his wallet and donate them to the government because that’s how you match US trillion dollar budget.
Yes because Russia will build more tanks and other equipment in the next decade. Not a problem if Europe builds up too. But that will be a problem if Europe does nothing.
If Russia were an immediate threat, Europe would have no choice but to give Trump whatever he wants so the US will protect Europe. But with Russian forces being decimated by this war, Europe has the opportunity to build it’s own arms industry to be able to produce it’s own weapons to be able to counter Russia in a decade’s time.
European countries combined are already spending more money on war than russia. European countries have a big arms industry already and they export weapons all over the world, including to countries ruled by dictatorships like saudi arabia. They even sold weapons to russia in the past years that are being used in the ukraine war.
European countries combined do indeed spend more money on war than russia. What the article you posted claim is that adjusted to their buying power russia spend the equivalent of more billions. Even if we compare these adjusted spending europe and russia are pretty much there.
That’s my point. You can’t just compare raw GDP when one country is essentially isolationist. PPP statistics give a more realistic comparison and according to those, Russia spends more then the EU.
TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
on 30 Mar 21:07
nextcollapse
Amazing.
SLAVA UKRAINI!
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
on 30 Mar 21:22
nextcollapse
Here’s to hoping 🍻
atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Mar 21:42
nextcollapse
According to the researchers, even though there are still about 4,700 tanks in storage, most of them will be difficult to restore due to their poor technical condition.
This is Russia though - “poor technical condition” is “ready for service.”
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Mar 21:46
nextcollapse
Covert Cobal has been classifying in mainly 4 categories. Abysmal is the lowest one, and are often missing such minor accessories as the turet, tracks, engines, and wheels. Not to mention having sat outdoors for upwards of 50 years. Those conditions are mostly what they’re down to. It might allow for slightly higher throughout on production to start on these rusted husks rather than from raw steel, but it’d definitely be harder and more expensive to make these usable than to build a new tank from scratch.
Devils advocate, but given the way they’ve been building metal sheds around the prior tanks and almost completely negating the main gun, a missing turret might just be a weatherproofing issue for the Orks Russians.
It’s not like a main gun helps you survive a mobility kill from the umpteenth TM-62 in the dirt that got replanted after the last assault failed.
This is essentially where they are, improvised vehicles. They don’t have the right vehicles for the job anymore, or at least not enough of them. So other vehicles are being improvised to kinda fit the desired role. There will not be a single event where you can say they are out of X vehicle class now. But what they have will be increasingly shit.
That is not really out of line with the title, especially if you line it up with the rest of the article. 1200 tanks that need major repairs does not mean a potential 1200 combat-ready vehicles. It means that you can, if you are really good, salvage 60% of that by cannibalizing the rest.
They drew down 350 tanks last year. Oryx confirmed 3800+ tank losses over the past 3 years, Ukraine claims 10000+. This means that they have enough tanks to last them another 6-8 months if we’re being incredibly generous, if they could do 2 years of work in an instant. This is practically an empty stock.
And that doesn’t count that these are the last vehicles for a reason. They are not 1200 T-72s that can be restored to full working order, it’s mostly going to be very badly damaged and worn T-55s or even T-34s, compared to which an RPG-7 is space-age technology.
I don’t think “depleted stocks” is good way for saying there are tanks available but not usable but I also don’t know what a better wording would be so maybe it’s accurate. Thanks for elaborating regardless.
I guess the point is that big government systems, be they healthcare or military stockpiles don’t really ever dramatically reach zero. It’s always a slow rot until they are incapable of serving their purpose.
The article makes the point that the Russian military stockpiles are past that point and according to what they say they seem to be.
PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 05:47
collapse
Russia doesn’t even have anymore T34s lol. It’s mostly rusted out T72s and T62s. They made a shit ton of those.
Nah. In those photos, where there’s one or two tanks left but all the others have gone… those are immovable tanks. Couldn’t even get them to the service bay. Why else would that one tank have been left behind?
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
on 30 Mar 21:53
nextcollapse
Edit It looks like Ukraine has began serious production of truck mounted mobile 155mm artillery systems, something the US doesn’t take seriously here because it can lean on an assumed air superiority to deliver overwhelming force, something Ukraine can’t do . This coupled with a depletion of Russian tanks might actually be decisive here since the more Ukraine can field mobile, extreme lethality cannon artillery the more necessary it becomes for Russia to have main battle tanks with significant armor and extreme survivability under the hellish conditions of metal shards hurtling at terrible speeds in all directions from exploding ordnance…
The problem with artillery smaller than this is that it doesn’t actually pose an existential threat to very highly armored/entrenched targets and the range is that much more limited. Again, if the U.S. had taken arming Ukraine seriously, they would have made sure that the Ukranian military had a very deep and resilient supply of mobile artillery pieces that could serve in place of the role U.S. airpower plays (or U.S. forces assume air power will play at least). As long as Ukranian infantry has access to effective, shoulder launched anti-tank weapons this could tip the balance of the war significantly.
longer answer
I hope this hits Russia hard, but I wonder how much Russia needs tanks at this stage of the war vs a breadth and depth of infantry and artillery reserves.
Main battle tanks are for punching through enemy defenses and making a run on enclosing enemy forces/enemy territory.
Once you capture that territory tanks are still very much useful, especially because of their mobility and ability to reposition quickly, but they aren’t necessary in the same way that you need some kind of tank or something behaving like a tank in the maneuver portion of the war. Even if Ukraine counterattacks with main battle tanks, the most effective counters in that case are artillery, entrenched infantry, and mechanized infantry with effective AT that can respond and reposition to slow down armored columns attempting to break through their front lines. Don’t get me wrong, tanks would absolutely decisively help too, but if I had to choose between depriving Russia of artillery and depriving Russia of tanks, I would choose artillery. I mean… obviously but especially at this stage of the war.
Who knows though, I hope Ukraine can get a steady supply of main battle tanks from someone (do they currently?), if Russia can’t field main battle tanks even if it doesn’t immediately affect the strategic balance of the war, the immediate psychological impact and tactical efficiency of tanks chewing through emplaced machine gun nests and enemy positions will be huge. No matter where you are on the battlefield you know that if Ukranians show up with an actual main battle tank, you are fucked as a Russian unless you have a whole lot of artillery/air support at the ready (which they do sometimes).
A single tank if used with an effective screen of infantry can delete entire columns of armored personnel carriers and armored fighting vehicles, I hope Russia suffers severely from a lack of tanks to directly counter this.
The problem though is that the Ukranians need much more artillery or extensive & resilient close air support for their tanks to be anything other than juicey targets for Russians unless they are always kept in the rear and deployed as very limited motorized artillery pieces. To the Ukranians an abrams mbt is effectively just a shittier paladin in the current status quo.
…Add the persistent presence of self propelled 155mm artillery backing Ukranian infantry and armor though and the current status quo of fiddly uav flying bombs and horrific close quarters fighting will simplify for the Russians to “get in a trench or heavily armored vehicle or die”. This will hopefully create a situation where tanks are much more necessary for Russia.
Modern war is like rock paper scissors, tanks are the rock, infantry are the paper and artillery is the anvil dropped on the rock paper scissors game…
setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 12:14
collapse
155mm, and the U.S. has about 1500 of its M109 self propelled guns in service.
for some reason I originally had it in my head the Paladin wasn’t as large as an artillery piece, idk why, I guess because it is tracked and it was developed so many decades before this current wave of self propelled guns were developed.
Still, my point stands though, if the U.S. was serious about arming Ukraine from the beginning, they would have focused on supplying Ukraine with self propelled guns and lots of artillery. It feels like the effort to help Ukraine defend itself was more an effort to help stall the war and keep Russia from decisively winning for as long as possible…
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
on 30 Mar 21:56
nextcollapse
the industry is not covering combat losses
Since it’s not clear from the headline, that’s the restoration industry. We’re not even talking about the production of new tanks (which was never that impressive at any point in the full-scale war).
Mourn the loss of historical vehicles, but blame the people who threw them to be destroyed.
pepperprepper@lemmy.world
on 30 Mar 23:50
nextcollapse
Unfortunately I think this also has to do with the changing tech around war. Drones are the new hotness and it is a very good counter to tanks warfare.
Have you seen a photo of what tanks in combat look like these days? They have cages welded on top of them. Also the hatches can be closed. A lot of tankers like to have the hatch open so the commander can have have more visibility, but it’s not a necessity.
There have been ways to take out a tank with missiles for a long time now. The reason why they’re still used is that air defenses exist and nothing beats the cost efficiency of moving a big gun close to the enemy and firing a lot of cheap ammunition at them.
Also are you going to tell civilians they can move back into their towns based solely on drones? If the civilians are behind a bunch of tanks, they’re safe because the drones will go after the tanks before going after the civilians. You need soldiers to hold ground. A soldier in a tank is going to be harder for a drone to kill than a soldier that’s not in a tank.
Yes drones are effective, but drones can’t hold ground and keep civilians safe.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 02:29
collapse
For the price of one tank with cope cages you could buy thousands of drones instead. Tanks are not cost effective anymore. They’re the land equivalent of battleships in an era of aircraft carriers.
The land equivalent of an aircraft carrier is a soldier with a couple of drones in a backpack.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
on 31 Mar 02:41
nextcollapse
The problem is still getting people from one place to the other
Even with drones taking out tanks, people would rather be in a vehicle than walk
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 02:53
collapse
That’s what APCs and lighter infantry vehicles are for. They’re not going away. It’s main battle tanks (the ones that cost millions of dollars) that are going away.
Moving troops around in safety is going to be extremely challenging but that’s because of enemy drones, not enemy tanks. Drones can fly recon around a moving personnel carrier just as easily as planes fly recon around an aircraft carrier.
I haven’t seen a single high ranking general or military strategist that suggests MBTs are going away. It’s just badly informed people on the internet that watched a couple of YT drone clips and think they’ve mastered the art of warfare.
I think what people like you are starting to learn is that both are necessary.
A lot about fighting a war is variety. Tanks have their uses, and so do drones.
Trying to argue one can replace the other is stupid and rational adults should not take you seriously as a result.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
on 01 Apr 13:56
collapse
They don’t replace each other. Aircraft carriers didn’t replace battleships. It simply made battleships non-viable without a replacement.
What it led to was smaller ships such as corvettes, destroyers, and cruisers taking over the role of battleships but still never replacing them in raw firepower.
Yeah dead soldiers inside of tank that got 1 shot by a micro drone with a grenade the moment they opened their hatch don’t hold ground either.
Also, if you’ve seen them in Gaza they are next to useless in rubble that heavy with dudes popping out of tunnels that disable them without ever being seen.
Historically even, tanks are awful against gorilla fighters. Which is what a lot Ukraine combat has become. Them not using tanks is not surprising.
chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 16:10
collapse
It’s guerilla. Not gorilla. Please spell correctly if you’re trying to make a logical argument.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Even without drones, they are awful I’m so much of modern warfare. If you’ve watched any footage out of Gaza you’ll see a dude pop up out of tunnel and just completely disable a tank without them ever seeing him. Tanks are quickly going the way of the cannon. In much the same way.
Very true. I think the tank, much like the cannon, will still have its own niche use case but isn’t the silver bullet so many armies saw it as. Happens a lot I think
That’s always been true of city warfare though. Tanks are not designed for that.
LeninOnAPrayer@lemm.ee
on 31 Mar 03:44
nextcollapse
I don’t know what to think anymore. I feel like every week for the last 4 years it’s been “China’s economy is going collapse any day now” and “Russia is losing so many people and resources in this war. They might as well give all of Russia to Ukraine”
I don’t take any news written in English with any seriousness for these two countries.
Also, pretty sure modern warfare has learned heavily that tanks are completely obsolete against drones. Or even less modern warfare tells us how useless they are in cities against gorilla fighters.
SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 05:01
nextcollapse
Russia has been coasting on old Soviet stock for a while. Most of their modern t-90s and t-14s have been exploded. They’ve been sending mothballs tanks and apcs to the front for years now. Last year a good deal of frontline troops were using unarmored Chinese golf carts to move around. They never had the manufacturing capability to keep modernized armor at the front, and it is costing russian lives
Ehhhh, more like they only had like 15 of the things and none where really out of a prototype phase. Not worth sending due to the bad propaganda when they do get blown up (since there has been no tank platform in that conflict that does not get got).
InverseParallax@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 07:18
nextcollapse
Do they really though? That’s what writers want to write because it ‘gets them views’ - a malaise of modern media. I’m one of the ‘people’, I’d rather have a sober analysis.
setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 12:00
nextcollapse
Russia has spent up enough of of their mainline modern vehicles like T-90Ms to a point where the refurbishments have long ago stopped keeping up. Similarly IFVs are lost, especially many of their airborne models which were misused early in the war.
The war has become much more static, with Russian vehicle losses slowing them down. The final assault on Avdiivka for example was completely brutal, lasting a month and consisting of a lot of unsupported infantry charges over an open field. The Russians did eventually win, taking the fortified position they were assaulting, but the tactics used and amount of losses to do them are not something that would have happened if they’d had the vehicles to spare.
The shear scale of the war has had Russia brute force it from being a maneuver fight to an attrition fight, and Russia appears to be banking on having the higher population to win. How that will resolve is up in the air, Ukraine wants to turn it back into a maneuver war I think and I don’t know if they can. The propaganda from the war by both sides can make it difficult to get a clear up to date picture.
Also, pretty sure modern warfare has learned heavily that tanks are completely obsolete against drones. Or even less modern warfare tells us how useless they are in cities against [guerrilla] fighters.
Tanks are one tool in the box, and like any other tool they are adapting to drones. Drones are not a silver bullet, and they especially are not as useful in supporting or spearheading fast moving offensives, which is still an important role tanks will fill. Active protection systems, electronic warfare (both jamming and signal detection to track down enemy drone operators), and tank based drones are all in play to figure out how to best do things now.
As for cities, tanks have always had trouble in cities. This isn’t a revelation of this war. Militaries tend to be skiddish of putting tanks in city fights unless they really have to. Russia particularly still has memories of Chechnya in this regard.
I don’t take any news written in English with any seriousness for these two countries.
Thank you. I’m glad other people are starting to realize that all of our information is fed through an English-speaking filter first.
If we want to see more than what English-speakers have deemed palatable for us, we need to learn different languages.
it’s sad how we can’t overcome propaganda and at least make an attempt to understand the truth, but it really puts into perspective why I should not respect the vast majority of my peers in the modern day.
Too many people are overtaken by hysteria.
raod_guitar@feddit.org
on 31 Mar 05:07
nextcollapse
And yet somehow they will attack nato until 2030, according to the news…
lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com
on 31 Mar 06:15
nextcollapse
Is it that hard to understand? They are barely producing enough to keep up the war in Ukraine, but much compared to some European countries. When the war “ends” end they continue with their war economy for a few years, they are still producing a lot more than the European countries. Russia can continue with their strategy, but some Nato states need to change theirs.
InverseParallax@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 07:17
collapse
You don’t understand the Russian psyche.
They believe they won’t be attacking alone, they think the US will at least help, this is their last chance to finally repay Europe for the centuries of humiliation caused by checks notes leaving them to wallow in their own filth.
That’s because you’re not thinking like Putin. Starting this war in the first place was the worst possible idea that never made any sense, except it allowed Putin to reform the slipping grip on the country and cemented his regime and his vision for at least some time. But just like the empires of old, now his regime requires constant slow boiling war to operate.
He will happily sacrifice every Russian to this, he can easily afford losing a thousand men per day to the grinder. It costs very little to him. European countries on the other hand will be very very hurt by the war on their territory, and everyone understands it.
Interesting to note that since 2022, he lost under 1% of his population to the war… Meat attacks could go on for years on end and it would barely move him.
You got to get him out of the picture to have this war end. Yes I know : there’s probably worse than him coming next but I doubt there is anybody more frightening to an opposition than him coming.
This is not entirely accurate figure. The 1% is only the number of people confirmed dead by the independent sources like Mediazona. The number of people who are “missing in action” but just can’t be confirmed dead is staggeringly more than that. Also don’t forget that that’s mostly people of productive age and demographic, which skews the metrics a little. Also add to it all the people who left the country, which are also of the most productive demographics.
That being said, Russia is big, and meat attacks could indeed go on for years. It will be devastating for Russia, but not for Putin.
there’s probably worse than him coming next
That’s the scary scenario, but there is also a bunch of boring technocrats that might be put in place by the oligarchy, which sounds great in comparison.
ICastFist@programming.dev
on 31 Mar 12:06
nextcollapse
Interesting to note that since 2022, he lost under 1% of his population to the war… Meat attacks could go on for years on end and it would barely move him.
If that “1% of his population” refers to the general population, I would note that the total includes many people who could never fight, such as:
all those involved, whether directly or indirectly, in the development and production of military hardware,
all those involved, whether directly or indirectly, in the extraction and trade of natural resources, without which the Russian economy would collapse, and
all those physically unable to fight, such as children, the elderly and disabled people, and all those who care for them in one way or another.
As much as Putin’s tyranny may yet squeeze out of the general population, 1% in three years is already devastating, in my view.
German security officials believe the Kremlin is laying the groundwork for a potential large-scale conventional war with NATO by the end of the decade, according to multiple reports cited by European Pravda and Bild.
Russia can’t even take over Ukraine, let alone half of NATO to even make it into Germany. I personally think this is just fearmongering on the side of our elected officials so the military industrial complex can make a few more bucks with money from the state.
Russia doesn’t need to make it into Germany to make it a disaster for all of Europe.
Sure, NATO as a whole is bigger than Russia, but the troops and equipment are mostly not at the eastern border where the fighting would take place. We certainly don’t have anything near the size of the Ukrainian army stationed in the Baltics. Take the US out of the equation, because let’s be honest: under Trump they’re not going to stand up for Europe, and the military balance suddenly looks a lot less favorable. I’m not so sure the European NATO states could mount an effective and timely response to an incursion into the Baltic states, or into Poland around the Suwalki gap.
Then move troops there. The European NATO members already outspend Russia in terms of military investments. Russia can’t even take over Ukraine, a country that’s not even in NATO and hasn’t even had any modern military equipment for a very long time. Hell, they’re getting hand me downs from countries like Germany, equipment that’s decades old, isn’t state of the art, and needs repairs, and they’re still keeping Russia at bay. Now there’s articles about Russia depleting its own tank stocks and shit, not being able to sustain even a war with Ukraine, and we’re supposed to believe that Russia will somehow attack Germany or Poland (which is to be fair probably better armed than Germany).
So there’s only two options here: either the western press is lying about Russia depleting its stocks and they’re actually holding back instead of fully invading Ukraine (God knows why they fought in Ukraine for three years now then instead of just releasing their full “military might” from the get go). Or, the western press is fear mongering about Russia actually being able to invade NATO so the military industrial complex can make a quick buck off of our tax money.
My two cents: there’s no chance in hell Russia can invade any NATO country, they can barely function in Ukraine lmao. Just send troops to the baltic and you’re gonna be fine. No need for trillions of euros in new guns.
one thing that i keep needing to bring up as well, with what troops? Russia has been losing a lot of people in Ukraine. Even if we ignore all the numbers being thrown about how many they really lost, they have lost troops. Invading Europe? Even if they would make start churning out vehicles at a breakneck speed now, where do they get the people to operate them? How will they hold the regions they would get?
NATO-Europe without the U.S. still outmatches Russia militarily and economically by a wide margin, but the real issue isn’t brute strength—it’s readiness and political will. Russia can’t beat Ukraine, let alone all of NATO, but a surprise move in the Baltics or Suwałki Gap could be disastrous if Europe doesn’t act fast. It’s not that Russia is strong—it’s that Europe can’t afford to be slow or divided.
We can’t put all our troops in the Baltics, nevermind the fact that we don’t have all that much troops and ammunition. Most of our money is spent on high tech weapons in limited numbers.
The European NATO members already outspend Russia in terms of military investments
Not really.
In terms of Euros spent, yes, we outspend them, but when adjusted for purchasing power we’re scarily close to parity: 100 rubles in Russia buys you a lot more than 1 euro in Europe. And our militaries are hopelessly fragmented, and behind in the rearming race.
The ruble’s exchange rate is on the level of 2020-2021: 0,011 euro to the ruble. Shows how much you know.
Also, most of the military production is internal… so the exchange rate of the ruble is meaningless to determine relative military strength, which is precisely why a PPP conversion is needed.
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz
on 31 Mar 08:18
nextcollapse
Russia wouldn’t exactly not try, but they have a very 19th century realpolitik take everything and exploit the fuck out of it approach. I would have said that’s silly. now, not so sure it isn’t working
Angry_Autist@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 08:31
nextcollapse
This your first round in front of the firehose of lies?
Best guess: Russia is a paper bear that need to keep growling before the bookworms eat it
The idea is that after some kind of cease fire, russia will churn out stuff for 3-4-5 years (so mebbe 1.000 tanks?) and then not go full frontal against NATO but say take a bite out of Lithuania, just to see what the response will be.
Like they have been doing since forever (Chechnya, Moldavia, Georgia, Ukraine and so on).
Correct. The issue with Ukraine though is they fought back and didn’t give any land to Russia. Now Putin needs to save face and how many people put through the meat grinder to do that is irrelevant.
If you know anything about current Russian government, you’d know that one necessarily follows the other. The more desperate Russia gets, the less reserves they have, the more bold and aggressive they’re getting. There is a combination of factors leading into it, both psychological and material.
They can flood the Baltics with drones and cause plenty of chaos and destruction.
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 12:19
nextcollapse
Not with tanks. Probably with hypersonic nukes instead.
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
on 31 Mar 12:19
nextcollapse
Everything written about this conflict (by anyone) is propaganda. The enemy is a powerful and maximally oppressive force we all need to fear, but is also so weak it’s losing equipment fast and its final defeat is only a matter of time.
9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works
on 31 Mar 12:33
collapse
I was told that russia was bankrupt and the war would be over in 3 months. And then when that wagner guy revolted, it was the final nail in the coffin
Yea I remember the videos of all the civilian cars being delivered via trains because “russia was out of military vehicles” like 5 months after it started
Everyone knows the russian economy is on the ropes for example, but when will it crack? No one knows.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 16:09
collapse
when that wagner guy revolted, it was the final nail in the coffin
What was crazy during the Wagner Revolt was the intransigence of the Ukraine line.
You’d think that would be the moment for a full press by Ukraine troops over a lightly defended border. But no… they just stayed put and watched Prigovian flounder.
I mean it is so ridiculous on so many levels but also the gifts themselves are so absurd. If some of their high up elites just skipped a single dinner, they could probably buy something that is worth 10x more. The ruling class became so addicted to their money that they can’t even sacrifice a minute fraction of it for proper propaganda lol.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 16:06
collapse
Russia has thousands of men willing to fight in horrendous conditions.
They’ve got hundreds of thousands of conscripts who are largely dug in along an enormous front, along the four eastern most seized Oblasts in Ukraine.
Any attack they would make into a NATO state would be an artillery bombardment intended to deny Ukrainians resupply, not a ground invasion to secure territory. Particularly not when they have poor control over their own borders and a nasty instance of counter-insurgence popping up in and around their major cities.
Russia is still ramping up military production on a wartime economy, to be used after the Ukrainians stop fighting back.
Also their production focuses on their modern options for land and air. I don’t know what their naval production is doing.
PumpkinSkink@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 15:42
nextcollapse
We have to keep in mind that Europe needs to justify austerity for the citizens and rearmament for their militaries. I have no evidence of this, but I think it’s an entierly sensible read that the warning from Germany is an overstatement with that intent in mind.
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub
on 31 Mar 21:18
nextcollapse
Yes, because it will impact social programs. That hardship needs to be justified.
“obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power”. Which is far above what being in NATO requires states to do. Which just btw also covers Greenland. Only ones off the hook are Ireland and Austria due to being neutral, the treaty still covers them though.
If a state decides that what’s in their power is sending 5000 helmets, then nobody will be able to force them to do more. Misinformed internet people think Article 42 is an automatic collective war switch, it is most certainly not and doubly so in the case of Greenland, lmao.
They can be true. They might be low on current stockpile, but what is building up is production capacity. Preparing to attack doesn’t mean immediately attacking, what most have concern is that once Russia’s war against Ukraine cools down, Russia will spend the next 4-10 years building up towards potentially attacking NATO nations.
Yes, years down the line doesn’t sound as alarming to the layman, but it is critical for that eventuality to be recognized and prepared for, nations and industry move slowly, and they need to prepare to fight another long drawn out war.
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz
on 31 Mar 08:10
nextcollapse
where’s that super next-next-gen Russian Armata thing? is that a ghost tank?
neidu3@sh.itjust.works
on 31 Mar 08:16
nextcollapse
T14 was officially canceled last year citing cost efficiency.
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz
on 31 Mar 08:19
collapse
lol it failed
neidu3@sh.itjust.works
on 31 Mar 08:24
nextcollapse
It very much did. From the looks of it, it would’ve been “ok”, except a notoriously unreliable drivetrain, and electronics that are almost on par with the rest of the world. However, it couldn’t be built without western components, it was ridiculously expensive, couldn’t be built at a high enough rate, and not combat proven.
As easy as it is to make fun of russian tanks these days, it does make a lot more sense to focus on T-90 or the likes instead. Hell, t-72m is also a reasonable choice given the circumstances.
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz
on 31 Mar 08:29
nextcollapse
they should have tried putting all those electronics on a cybertruck. i love to see rich people bullshit AND war profiteering bullshit catch fire
setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 12:30
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I don’t think there was a good option that was also realistic.
The T-90M is itself a long in the tooth design that hasn’t gotten the kinds of modernizations that tanks like the Abrams have to keep it relevant (and even then the Abrams is already being retired by the U.S.) Russian tanks needed an overhaul from the T-90M.
The T-14 on paper had a lot of good upgrades. The problem of course being that it’s much easier to draw something than make it work.
So the two options were keep building obsolete “modern” tanks or build a next gen tank that doesn’t work.
What Russian tanks needed was an overhaul to their fire control and ideally their protection to keep up and shift into active protection. The ancient curtain system is not cutting it.
Part of my wonders if maybe they should have invested in something scaled back and novel. Make a lightweight vehicle like the totally-not-a-tank-we-swear M10 Booker. Something lightweight, with a smaller caliber main gun to focus on taking out structures and infantry targets. Stick some active protection on it, and some missiles and you’ve got a vehicle that bridges that gap between IFV and MBT.
ERPAdvocate@sh.itjust.works
on 01 Apr 03:56
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From my very limited understanding that’s kinda what they tried with the BMD lineup. Problem is because they’re for airborne use they end up too light to protect anything, and loaded with ATGMs, a 100mm cannon, and a 30mm for squirting lighter targets. Basically on first hit it goes up like a Christmas tree lol
setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world
on 02 Apr 13:29
collapse
Kind of sort of, but I was thinking more along the lines of the U.S. Army’s “MFP” M10. Essentially reviving the light tank but adding some Science on top.
BMDs were still made along the trajectory of IFVs where they can hold troops, and like you mentioned the lighter armor from the airborne desire for use makes them vulnerable even to smaller diameter HEAT rounds.
My vague vision would be something more like a light tank (by the modern definition of “light” which is more like 50ish tons bare and 60 with all the fixins), with enough armor to survive side hits from low 80ish-mm rounds, and very importantly investment in active protection. Thermal signature reduction like a lot of new showcase vehicles are adding. Maybe even something like the new KF Panther where they have a dedicated drone operator to control a drone that shadows the tank. This all is kind of “if I were king of the world” thought experimenting since of course Russia clearly doesn’t have the resources to even make proper upgrades to T90Ms to bring them up to a 2020s standard.
It’s so stealthy it has never been seen in combat /s
setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 11:42
nextcollapse
It never really existed in production, of course. It is like the early builds of the AK-12 where one offs were made and shown off as if they were going into full scale production soon.
The more real BMPT was at least fielded in double digit numbers, although conceptually it seems more suited to being a terror weapon supporting a shock & awe type advance rather than something used in a prolonged war.
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz
on 31 Mar 11:51
nextcollapse
i don’t mean this in a dickish way, but I do love that concept of “just say something incorrect or incomplete” about war and someone will be happy to bring clarification
setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world
on 31 Mar 12:32
collapse
Can you clarify.
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz
on 31 Mar 12:42
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so basically the histories whole WW2 genocide forget to mention all the advancements the Nazis made, the bicycle? nazis. nuclear power, the microwave mounted about your stove, power steering and automatic transmissions, and just love between two people. fucking nazis
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz
on 31 Mar 12:07
collapse
definitely sounds ridiculous – but – maybe i listen to a lot of knowledge fight – could be a psy-op? can you prove to me that beans growing with corn is not a psy-op?
And yet, moving the front is almost impossible without them. All vehicles struggle with drones but at least tanks won’t go down from machine gun fire, and without vehicles were pretty much back to WW1 tactics, fighting over inches.
threaded - newest
So let’s have a ceasefire eh? /s
Finally the reality is catching up with russia.
Slava Ukraine!
Yeah, the fact that Putin is not really pushing for a ceasefire means that they are not as out-of-stock as the headline suggests…
They are already using way less tanks & armored vehicles today. They will never really “run out” but just have a smaller stockpile to draw from, which seems to be the case.
Also, who knows what kind of information putin gets, look at donald and the information he gets and he’s not even killing everyone not doing their job correctly.
Change comes gradually and then suddenly. Lots of signs point to a collapse (stockpiles, economy, the blocked frontlines, …, and donkeys), some people have put it to around mid 2025-end 2025 for quite some time now.
Interesting times.
It’s seriously astonishing that they managed to wear though the entire massive Soviet stockpile.
Covert Cobal has great tank and apv counting vids, documenting the ever worsening condition of the vehicles remaining. youtube.com/@covertcabal
I seem to remember they were using actual WW2 tanks?
Yup. Not because they were out of more modern tanks yet at that point, but because the more modern tanks took longer to refurbish. But now they really are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Yeah, I was wondering. One would suppose 80 yo ordnance is the bottom of the barrel. Thanks for clarifying.
Yes. Back when analysts used to talk about a war with Russia pre-2022, something you heard pretty often was “they’re not as advanced, but they have so much stockpiled armour”.
This is like America running out of guns or Canada running out of syrup.
I think not even the CIA predicted the effectiveness of drones and javelins against old armor. Without modern defenses, they are just sitting (or slowly moving) ducks. Add to this the corruption in the military, causing lack of maintenance and missing parts, plus the gaps in skills and training of their soldiers.
We are maybe 1-2 years away from the Russian military collapsing, if it weren’t for the orange clown.
Even modern armor without active countermeasures like Trophy seem like they could be just as vulnerable to drones. Especially to top attacks.
I said 15 months or less to hyperinflation somewhere yesterday. In that case, they could theoretically start conscription and grind Ukraine down that way, or start selling big ticket things like territory in exchange for help, but political capacity to enforce that is a serious question.
The stockpile was built in the 50s, 60s and 70a though. The vast bulk of it is 50-70 years old. Post soviet Russia didn’t have the money, and prior to that the stockpile was good.
Prior to Ukraine the stockpile was good. Then it started disappearing.
decommissioned = destroyed? Funny way of describing it.
No but non-functional can be considered destroyed in this context…
Even in modern war, a significant amount of armor is lost not from literally being blown up, but from breaking, getting stuck, being abandoned after a flank cuts off retreat in a vehicle etc…
I really hope Russia is collapsing soon so Ukraians can have actual peace.
Agreed. I want the killing to stop and Russia to stop it’s conquest.
And the world. Fuckers have infected everything
Don’t worry, the US will probably bail Russia out to keep that from happening
lets bankrupt them next. they obviously have too much power and dont know how to be responsible with it.
Trump is already hard at work on his magnum opus bankruptcy.
Not if Trump has anything to do about it.
He will restart lend lease to Russia.
Yet we must triple up military budget in case they decide to invade whole europe on empty tanks…
I’m going to go with what European military leaders are saying, out loud and in public. God knows what those leaders really know and talk about.
I’m guessing you’re European? Well, you’ve had 80 years of mostly peace and prosperity. Timed to get armed, personally. (Yes my fellow Americans, Europeans can acquire guns without too much hassle. Yes, real guns. Gun ownership just isn’t a major part of their culture like it is over here, and their culture isn’t as diseased as ours regarding weapons.)
If you’re allergic to guns, consider these two scenarios:
Hostile foreign power invades America.
Hostile foreign power invades Europe.
In which case do you expect the invader to suffer the most? Which case do you consider more likely?
You are ignoring the elephant in the room, which is that a rising sense of militarism quickly feeds into a decay of your society, if you make an incredible amount of guns somebody is going to use them, that is how these things work.
I am not saying Europe shouldn’t absolutely take being able to militarily counter Russia seriously, as they should any regional threat, but what is needed isn’t necessarily to reshape Europe into a hypermilitarized environment, especially in the area of police and the militarization of police, what Europe needs is to make sure it has effective counters to a mass, mechanized land war. What conservative war hawks in Europe will advocate for is a militarization of police and of society, that is not what is needed. You need the right military assets to make a ground war incredibly costly for the Russians.
One of the most effective counters, and a decisive element of the war in Ukranian has been HIMARs, long range missiles launched from trucks and armor capable of striking mobile Russian SAM assets and other high value targets from extremely far away. These make maneuvering a large concentrated armored force much much much more costly and dangerous for an invader.
…but ultimately this all devolves into a sense of militarism that undermines the original reason for making all the guns in the first place, it is just a matter of how far you can push it in your society before that cancer becomes terminal… see the U.S. as a prime example…
Even your comment advocating for reasonable spending gets downvoted. People are mad on war propaganda.
This is how quickly the cancer of militarism spreads and why war is the favorite tool of the ruling class rich, time immemorial, to put off making concessions to society so that the average person can live a somewhat decent life.
Modern professional militaries don’t need hundreds of thousands of troops, you don’t need to mainline jingoism and nationalism straight into your fucking veins to defend your country from Russia, just make sure your military has the right capabilities to make a Russian land invasion as absolutely costly as possible.
What conservative warhawks will hear though is “tear our society apart and pre-emptively destroy everything we hold dear because of the threat of an enemy invader, and then in that militarism invite in corruption from Russian aligned assets anyways that exploit the opening created by the deafening roar of righteousness of the military industrial complex”.
Resist them with everything you have.
European leaders are already talking about using the new army to invade the Middle East.
Source?
Could you back that up with a citation?
It’s funny how easily people are deceived, imagine if your house neighbor were to buy some howitzers and hire 100 guys for “security reasons”. Armies are made to wage war and most weapons are designed to kill other humans.
I’m guessing you’re European? Well, you’ve had 80 years of mostly peace and prosperity.
I’m guessing you are american because you sound like you don’t know much history
I think at this point the unspoken truth is that we must have a military that needs to be a deterrent to the US as well.
US has thousand military facilities all over europe, you could simply lower the gap by kicking them out. Making such claim a year ago would have get you labeled as a russian troll.
Everyone upvoting your comment should take half of the money in his wallet and donate them to the government because that’s how you match US trillion dollar budget.
Yes because Russia will build more tanks and other equipment in the next decade. Not a problem if Europe builds up too. But that will be a problem if Europe does nothing.
If Russia were an immediate threat, Europe would have no choice but to give Trump whatever he wants so the US will protect Europe. But with Russian forces being decimated by this war, Europe has the opportunity to build it’s own arms industry to be able to produce it’s own weapons to be able to counter Russia in a decade’s time.
European countries combined are already spending more money on war than russia. European countries have a big arms industry already and they export weapons all over the world, including to countries ruled by dictatorships like saudi arabia. They even sold weapons to russia in the past years that are being used in the ukraine war.
You are misinformed.
breakingdefense.com/…/russia-overtakes-all-of-eur…
European countries combined do indeed spend more money on war than russia. What the article you posted claim is that adjusted to their buying power russia spend the equivalent of more billions. Even if we compare these adjusted spending europe and russia are pretty much there.
That’s my point. You can’t just compare raw GDP when one country is essentially isolationist. PPP statistics give a more realistic comparison and according to those, Russia spends more then the EU.
Just leave Lemmy already, you are cancer
Your comment is the most stupid here
Amazing.
SLAVA UKRAINI!
Here’s to hoping 🍻
This is Russia though - “poor technical condition” is “ready for service.”
Covert Cobal has been classifying in mainly 4 categories. Abysmal is the lowest one, and are often missing such minor accessories as the turet, tracks, engines, and wheels. Not to mention having sat outdoors for upwards of 50 years. Those conditions are mostly what they’re down to. It might allow for slightly higher throughout on production to start on these rusted husks rather than from raw steel, but it’d definitely be harder and more expensive to make these usable than to build a new tank from scratch.
youtube.com/@covertcabal
Devils advocate, but given the way they’ve been building metal sheds around the prior tanks and almost completely negating the main gun, a missing turret might just be a weatherproofing issue for the
OrksRussians.It’s not like a main gun helps you survive a mobility kill from the umpteenth TM-62 in the dirt that got replanted after the last assault failed.
This is essentially where they are, improvised vehicles. They don’t have the right vehicles for the job anymore, or at least not enough of them. So other vehicles are being improvised to kinda fit the desired role. There will not be a single event where you can say they are out of X vehicle class now. But what they have will be increasingly shit.
It’s not better on the Ukrainian side though.
Man, imagine if we had tanks when we were still hunter-gatherers and wild animals were a legitimate danger.
Nah, adjust for Russian standards in what “poor technical condition” even means. It’s not going to Ukraine if it can’t drive off the base.
Even without assuming they’ll use low quality examples, the article also says
It sure sounds like the title is BS.
That is not really out of line with the title, especially if you line it up with the rest of the article. 1200 tanks that need major repairs does not mean a potential 1200 combat-ready vehicles. It means that you can, if you are really good, salvage 60% of that by cannibalizing the rest.
They drew down 350 tanks last year. Oryx confirmed 3800+ tank losses over the past 3 years, Ukraine claims 10000+. This means that they have enough tanks to last them another 6-8 months if we’re being incredibly generous, if they could do 2 years of work in an instant. This is practically an empty stock.
And that doesn’t count that these are the last vehicles for a reason. They are not 1200 T-72s that can be restored to full working order, it’s mostly going to be very badly damaged and worn T-55s or even T-34s, compared to which an RPG-7 is space-age technology.
I don’t think “depleted stocks” is good way for saying there are tanks available but not usable but I also don’t know what a better wording would be so maybe it’s accurate. Thanks for elaborating regardless.
I guess the point is that big government systems, be they healthcare or military stockpiles don’t really ever dramatically reach zero. It’s always a slow rot until they are incapable of serving their purpose.
The article makes the point that the Russian military stockpiles are past that point and according to what they say they seem to be.
Russia doesn’t even have anymore T34s lol. It’s mostly rusted out T72s and T62s. They made a shit ton of those.
I think the T55 was their most produced tank.
If it was T72s, those are still good enough to be called MBTs today.
Nah. In those photos, where there’s one or two tanks left but all the others have gone… those are immovable tanks. Couldn’t even get them to the service bay. Why else would that one tank have been left behind?
Edit It looks like Ukraine has began serious production of truck mounted mobile 155mm artillery systems, something the US doesn’t take seriously here because it can lean on an assumed air superiority to deliver overwhelming force, something Ukraine can’t do . This coupled with a depletion of Russian tanks might actually be decisive here since the more Ukraine can field mobile, extreme lethality cannon artillery the more necessary it becomes for Russia to have main battle tanks with significant armor and extreme survivability under the hellish conditions of metal shards hurtling at terrible speeds in all directions from exploding ordnance…
The problem with artillery smaller than this is that it doesn’t actually pose an existential threat to very highly armored/entrenched targets and the range is that much more limited. Again, if the U.S. had taken arming Ukraine seriously, they would have made sure that the Ukranian military had a very deep and resilient supply of mobile artillery pieces that could serve in place of the role U.S. airpower plays (or U.S. forces assume air power will play at least). As long as Ukranian infantry has access to effective, shoulder launched anti-tank weapons this could tip the balance of the war significantly.
longer answer
I hope this hits Russia hard, but I wonder how much Russia needs tanks at this stage of the war vs a breadth and depth of infantry and artillery reserves. Main battle tanks are for punching through enemy defenses and making a run on enclosing enemy forces/enemy territory. Once you capture that territory tanks are still very much useful, especially because of their mobility and ability to reposition quickly, but they aren’t necessary in the same way that you need some kind of tank or something behaving like a tank in the maneuver portion of the war. Even if Ukraine counterattacks with main battle tanks, the most effective counters in that case are artillery, entrenched infantry, and mechanized infantry with effective AT that can respond and reposition to slow down armored columns attempting to break through their front lines. Don’t get me wrong, tanks would absolutely decisively help too, but if I had to choose between depriving Russia of artillery and depriving Russia of tanks, I would choose artillery. I mean… obviously but especially at this stage of the war. Who knows though, I hope Ukraine can get a steady supply of main battle tanks from someone (do they currently?), if Russia can’t field main battle tanks even if it doesn’t immediately affect the strategic balance of the war, the immediate psychological impact and tactical efficiency of tanks chewing through emplaced machine gun nests and enemy positions will be huge. No matter where you are on the battlefield you know that if Ukranians show up with an actual main battle tank, you are fucked as a Russian unless you have a whole lot of artillery/air support at the ready (which they do sometimes). A single tank if used with an effective screen of infantry can delete entire columns of armored personnel carriers and armored fighting vehicles, I hope Russia suffers severely from a lack of tanks to directly counter this. The problem though is that the Ukranians need much more artillery or extensive & resilient close air support for their tanks to be anything other than juicey targets for Russians unless they are always kept in the rear and deployed as very limited motorized artillery pieces. To the Ukranians an abrams mbt is effectively just a shittier paladin in the current status quo. …Add the persistent presence of self propelled 155mm artillery backing Ukranian infantry and armor though and the current status quo of fiddly uav flying bombs and horrific close quarters fighting will simplify for the Russians to “get in a trench or heavily armored vehicle or die”. This will hopefully create a situation where tanks are much more necessary for Russia. Modern war is like rock paper scissors, tanks are the rock, infantry are the paper and artillery is the anvil dropped on the rock paper scissors game…
155mm, and the U.S. has about 1500 of its M109 self propelled guns in service.
for some reason I originally had it in my head the Paladin wasn’t as large as an artillery piece, idk why, I guess because it is tracked and it was developed so many decades before this current wave of self propelled guns were developed.
Still, my point stands though, if the U.S. was serious about arming Ukraine from the beginning, they would have focused on supplying Ukraine with self propelled guns and lots of artillery. It feels like the effort to help Ukraine defend itself was more an effort to help stall the war and keep Russia from decisively winning for as long as possible…
Since it’s not clear from the headline, that’s the restoration industry. We’re not even talking about the production of new tanks (which was never that impressive at any point in the full-scale war).
Mourn the loss of historical vehicles, but blame the people who threw them to be destroyed.
Unfortunately I think this also has to do with the changing tech around war. Drones are the new hotness and it is a very good counter to tanks warfare.
Drones don’t hold ground, soldiers do. Soldiers that have tanks are going to be more effective than those without them.
I’m sorry but have you seen what a drone with a grenade does to a tank with an open hatch?
Have you seen a photo of what tanks in combat look like these days? They have cages welded on top of them. Also the hatches can be closed. A lot of tankers like to have the hatch open so the commander can have have more visibility, but it’s not a necessity.
There have been ways to take out a tank with missiles for a long time now. The reason why they’re still used is that air defenses exist and nothing beats the cost efficiency of moving a big gun close to the enemy and firing a lot of cheap ammunition at them.
Also are you going to tell civilians they can move back into their towns based solely on drones? If the civilians are behind a bunch of tanks, they’re safe because the drones will go after the tanks before going after the civilians. You need soldiers to hold ground. A soldier in a tank is going to be harder for a drone to kill than a soldier that’s not in a tank.
Yes drones are effective, but drones can’t hold ground and keep civilians safe.
For the price of one tank with cope cages you could buy thousands of drones instead. Tanks are not cost effective anymore. They’re the land equivalent of battleships in an era of aircraft carriers.
The land equivalent of an aircraft carrier is a soldier with a couple of drones in a backpack.
The problem is still getting people from one place to the other
Even with drones taking out tanks, people would rather be in a vehicle than walk
That’s what APCs and lighter infantry vehicles are for. They’re not going away. It’s main battle tanks (the ones that cost millions of dollars) that are going away.
Moving troops around in safety is going to be extremely challenging but that’s because of enemy drones, not enemy tanks. Drones can fly recon around a moving personnel carrier just as easily as planes fly recon around an aircraft carrier.
I haven’t seen a single high ranking general or military strategist that suggests MBTs are going away. It’s just badly informed people on the internet that watched a couple of YT drone clips and think they’ve mastered the art of warfare.
Describes these forums perfectly.
I think what people like you are starting to learn is that both are necessary.
A lot about fighting a war is variety. Tanks have their uses, and so do drones.
Trying to argue one can replace the other is stupid and rational adults should not take you seriously as a result.
They don’t replace each other. Aircraft carriers didn’t replace battleships. It simply made battleships non-viable without a replacement.
What it led to was smaller ships such as corvettes, destroyers, and cruisers taking over the role of battleships but still never replacing them in raw firepower.
Yeah dead soldiers inside of tank that got 1 shot by a micro drone with a grenade the moment they opened their hatch don’t hold ground either.
Also, if you’ve seen them in Gaza they are next to useless in rubble that heavy with dudes popping out of tunnels that disable them without ever being seen.
Historically even, tanks are awful against gorilla fighters. Which is what a lot Ukraine combat has become. Them not using tanks is not surprising.
It’s guerilla. Not gorilla. Please spell correctly if you’re trying to make a logical argument.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Even without drones, they are awful I’m so much of modern warfare. If you’ve watched any footage out of Gaza you’ll see a dude pop up out of tunnel and just completely disable a tank without them ever seeing him. Tanks are quickly going the way of the cannon. In much the same way.
Very true. I think the tank, much like the cannon, will still have its own niche use case but isn’t the silver bullet so many armies saw it as. Happens a lot I think
It never was a silver bullet. They have always been best in open terrain and worst in terrain that allows infantry to hide everywhere.
That’s always been true of city warfare though. Tanks are not designed for that.
I don’t know what to think anymore. I feel like every week for the last 4 years it’s been “China’s economy is going collapse any day now” and “Russia is losing so many people and resources in this war. They might as well give all of Russia to Ukraine”
I don’t take any news written in English with any seriousness for these two countries.
Also, pretty sure modern warfare has learned heavily that tanks are completely obsolete against drones. Or even less modern warfare tells us how useless they are in cities against gorilla fighters.
Russia has been coasting on old Soviet stock for a while. Most of their modern t-90s and t-14s have been exploded. They’ve been sending mothballs tanks and apcs to the front for years now. Last year a good deal of frontline troops were using unarmored Chinese golf carts to move around. They never had the manufacturing capability to keep modernized armor at the front, and it is costing russian lives
Ehhhh, more like they only had like 15 of the things and none where really out of a prototype phase. Not worth sending due to the bad propaganda when they do get blown up (since there has been no tank platform in that conflict that does not get got).
Ditto for the su-57 felon.
Why is it impossible for a squadron of F-22s to defeat a squadron of SU-57s?
Russia would have to actually build a squadron first
I think Ukraine scored kills on one or two t-14s in the first year before Russia realized their mistake. I’ll have to double check though.
Where do you get trusted news then for these two countries?
Russian? Lol
Unless the Ukrainians have resorted to conscripting great apes, it’s “guerilla” rather than “gorilla”.
I’m just here hoping it’s both. A guerilla fighting gorilla sounds awesome
leave animals out of this
you said GOR rilla not GUR rilla!
This right here.
People prefer to read “Russian army COLLAPSE, Putin so angry 😡😡😡!!”
Than:
“Further logistical problems might slow down the russian advances in the coming months.”
Then complain that they are ill informed.
Do they really though? That’s what writers want to write because it ‘gets them views’ - a malaise of modern media. I’m one of the ‘people’, I’d rather have a sober analysis.
Me too for sure.
Because fog of war and propaganda is very strong from all sides.
Not to mention that all of these things can be true as they don’t negate each other.
Sorry, Captain Ron. Gorillas are native to equatorial Africa.
Russia has spent up enough of of their mainline modern vehicles like T-90Ms to a point where the refurbishments have long ago stopped keeping up. Similarly IFVs are lost, especially many of their airborne models which were misused early in the war.
The war has become much more static, with Russian vehicle losses slowing them down. The final assault on Avdiivka for example was completely brutal, lasting a month and consisting of a lot of unsupported infantry charges over an open field. The Russians did eventually win, taking the fortified position they were assaulting, but the tactics used and amount of losses to do them are not something that would have happened if they’d had the vehicles to spare.
The shear scale of the war has had Russia brute force it from being a maneuver fight to an attrition fight, and Russia appears to be banking on having the higher population to win. How that will resolve is up in the air, Ukraine wants to turn it back into a maneuver war I think and I don’t know if they can. The propaganda from the war by both sides can make it difficult to get a clear up to date picture.
Tanks are one tool in the box, and like any other tool they are adapting to drones. Drones are not a silver bullet, and they especially are not as useful in supporting or spearheading fast moving offensives, which is still an important role tanks will fill. Active protection systems, electronic warfare (both jamming and signal detection to track down enemy drone operators), and tank based drones are all in play to figure out how to best do things now.
As for cities, tanks have always had trouble in cities. This isn’t a revelation of this war. Militaries tend to be skiddish of putting tanks in city fights unless they really have to. Russia particularly still has memories of Chechnya in this regard.
Thank you. I’m glad other people are starting to realize that all of our information is fed through an English-speaking filter first.
If we want to see more than what English-speakers have deemed palatable for us, we need to learn different languages.
it’s sad how we can’t overcome propaganda and at least make an attempt to understand the truth, but it really puts into perspective why I should not respect the vast majority of my peers in the modern day.
Too many people are overtaken by hysteria.
And yet somehow they will attack nato until 2030, according to the news…
Just like they would never attack Ukraine…
Is it that hard to understand? They are barely producing enough to keep up the war in Ukraine, but much compared to some European countries. When the war “ends” end they continue with their war economy for a few years, they are still producing a lot more than the European countries. Russia can continue with their strategy, but some Nato states need to change theirs.
You don’t understand the Russian psyche.
They believe they won’t be attacking alone, they think the US will at least help, this is their last chance to finally repay Europe for the centuries of humiliation caused by checks notes leaving them to wallow in their own filth.
Elsewhere on Lemmy today;
Both of these cannot be true.
Russia was ridiculed by a very small army. It does not stand against NATO
They will not win, doesn’t mean they can’t deal untold damage trying
Right, but that would not make sense
That’s because you’re not thinking like Putin. Starting this war in the first place was the worst possible idea that never made any sense, except it allowed Putin to reform the slipping grip on the country and cemented his regime and his vision for at least some time. But just like the empires of old, now his regime requires constant slow boiling war to operate.
He will happily sacrifice every Russian to this, he can easily afford losing a thousand men per day to the grinder. It costs very little to him. European countries on the other hand will be very very hurt by the war on their territory, and everyone understands it.
Interesting stance
Interesting to note that since 2022, he lost under 1% of his population to the war… Meat attacks could go on for years on end and it would barely move him.
You got to get him out of the picture to have this war end. Yes I know : there’s probably worse than him coming next but I doubt there is anybody more frightening to an opposition than him coming.
This is not entirely accurate figure. The 1% is only the number of people confirmed dead by the independent sources like Mediazona. The number of people who are “missing in action” but just can’t be confirmed dead is staggeringly more than that. Also don’t forget that that’s mostly people of productive age and demographic, which skews the metrics a little. Also add to it all the people who left the country, which are also of the most productive demographics.
That being said, Russia is big, and meat attacks could indeed go on for years. It will be devastating for Russia, but not for Putin.
That’s the scary scenario, but there is also a bunch of boring technocrats that might be put in place by the oligarchy, which sounds great in comparison.
Not long ago, a Russian politician was asking women to dress “less modestly” in order to have more kids, so they know they can’t keep it going that long
If that “1% of his population” refers to the general population, I would note that the total includes many people who could never fight, such as:
As much as Putin’s tyranny may yet squeeze out of the general population, 1% in three years is already devastating, in my view.
It made sense to the NATO strategists who recommended to not expand NATO further, because of that war.
There’s been very little damage to Russia so far though.
That’s true, if you listen to Russian media exclusively.
Ukraine isn’t a very small army. They’re the second largest army in Europe.
You know I didn’t mean now
Have you never worked in an organization?
You can have as many preparation meetings as you want and still be on your ass when the day of judgement comes.
“No plan survives first contact” - Helmuth
There are ways Russia can attack that doesn’t include massive tank charges
Who said the attack would be with conventional armed forces?
…org.uk/germany-warns-russia-may-be-preparing-att…
Russia can’t even take over Ukraine, let alone half of NATO to even make it into Germany. I personally think this is just fearmongering on the side of our elected officials so the military industrial complex can make a few more bucks with money from the state.
Russia doesn’t need to make it into Germany to make it a disaster for all of Europe.
Sure, NATO as a whole is bigger than Russia, but the troops and equipment are mostly not at the eastern border where the fighting would take place. We certainly don’t have anything near the size of the Ukrainian army stationed in the Baltics. Take the US out of the equation, because let’s be honest: under Trump they’re not going to stand up for Europe, and the military balance suddenly looks a lot less favorable. I’m not so sure the European NATO states could mount an effective and timely response to an incursion into the Baltic states, or into Poland around the Suwalki gap.
Then move troops there. The European NATO members already outspend Russia in terms of military investments. Russia can’t even take over Ukraine, a country that’s not even in NATO and hasn’t even had any modern military equipment for a very long time. Hell, they’re getting hand me downs from countries like Germany, equipment that’s decades old, isn’t state of the art, and needs repairs, and they’re still keeping Russia at bay. Now there’s articles about Russia depleting its own tank stocks and shit, not being able to sustain even a war with Ukraine, and we’re supposed to believe that Russia will somehow attack Germany or Poland (which is to be fair probably better armed than Germany).
So there’s only two options here: either the western press is lying about Russia depleting its stocks and they’re actually holding back instead of fully invading Ukraine (God knows why they fought in Ukraine for three years now then instead of just releasing their full “military might” from the get go). Or, the western press is fear mongering about Russia actually being able to invade NATO so the military industrial complex can make a quick buck off of our tax money.
My two cents: there’s no chance in hell Russia can invade any NATO country, they can barely function in Ukraine lmao. Just send troops to the baltic and you’re gonna be fine. No need for trillions of euros in new guns.
one thing that i keep needing to bring up as well, with what troops? Russia has been losing a lot of people in Ukraine. Even if we ignore all the numbers being thrown about how many they really lost, they have lost troops. Invading Europe? Even if they would make start churning out vehicles at a breakneck speed now, where do they get the people to operate them? How will they hold the regions they would get?
Russia has a larger army than any European country. Only Ukraine comes close, and they have veterancy only rivaled by the US and Ukraine.
(Ukraine probably wins on veterancy)
Sure, if Europe acts with Unity, they can roflstomp Russia, but Moscow would be looking for a moment of crisis to exploit.
NATO-Europe without the U.S. still outmatches Russia militarily and economically by a wide margin, but the real issue isn’t brute strength—it’s readiness and political will. Russia can’t beat Ukraine, let alone all of NATO, but a surprise move in the Baltics or Suwałki Gap could be disastrous if Europe doesn’t act fast. It’s not that Russia is strong—it’s that Europe can’t afford to be slow or divided.
We can’t put all our troops in the Baltics, nevermind the fact that we don’t have all that much troops and ammunition. Most of our money is spent on high tech weapons in limited numbers.
Not really.
In terms of Euros spent, yes, we outspend them, but when adjusted for purchasing power we’re scarily close to parity: 100 rubles in Russia buys you a lot more than 1 euro in Europe. And our militaries are hopelessly fragmented, and behind in the rearming race.
Anders Puck Nielsen has a very informative video on the topic: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxq-TvgNCBU
The rubel is massively devalued. PPP calculations have to be taken with a grain of salt.The ruble’s exchange rate is on the level of 2020-2021: 0,011 euro to the ruble. Shows how much you know.
Also, most of the military production is internal… so the exchange rate of the ruble is meaningless to determine relative military strength, which is precisely why a PPP conversion is needed.
Right, I was too lazy to check.
Russia wouldn’t exactly not try, but they have a very 19th century realpolitik take everything and exploit the fuck out of it approach. I would have said that’s silly. now, not so sure it isn’t working
This your first round in front of the firehose of lies?
Best guess: Russia is a paper bear that need to keep growling before the bookworms eat it
The idea is that after some kind of cease fire, russia will churn out stuff for 3-4-5 years (so mebbe 1.000 tanks?) and then not go full frontal against NATO but say take a bite out of Lithuania, just to see what the response will be.
Like they have been doing since forever (Chechnya, Moldavia, Georgia, Ukraine and so on).
Correct. The issue with Ukraine though is they fought back and didn’t give any land to Russia. Now Putin needs to save face and how many people put through the meat grinder to do that is irrelevant.
Irrelevant to Putin. It matters a lot to Europe and Ukraine.
If you know anything about current Russian government, you’d know that one necessarily follows the other. The more desperate Russia gets, the less reserves they have, the more bold and aggressive they’re getting. There is a combination of factors leading into it, both psychological and material.
They can flood the Baltics with drones and cause plenty of chaos and destruction.
Not with tanks. Probably with hypersonic nukes instead.
Everything written about this conflict (by anyone) is propaganda. The enemy is a powerful and maximally oppressive force we all need to fear, but is also so weak it’s losing equipment fast and its final defeat is only a matter of time.
I was told that russia was bankrupt and the war would be over in 3 months. And then when that wagner guy revolted, it was the final nail in the coffin
Yet here we are and the war is still on.
Yea I remember the videos of all the civilian cars being delivered via trains because “russia was out of military vehicles” like 5 months after it started
It’s not our fault you have been badly informed.
Everyone knows the russian economy is on the ropes for example, but when will it crack? No one knows.
What was crazy during the Wagner Revolt was the intransigence of the Ukraine line.
You’d think that would be the moment for a full press by Ukraine troops over a lightly defended border. But no… they just stayed put and watched Prigovian flounder.
The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine lemmy.world/post/27574354
NYT article explains it.
Heavy stuff.
TLDR?
Both things can be true because Germany is talking about risks in the upcoming 5 to 10 years, while this issue is relevant today.
They absolutely can.
Russia has thousands of men willing to fight in horrendous conditions.
A few thousand soldiers that are very well equipped might lose to 10x as many badly equipped enemies.
I think they would lose, but they might not think so.
<img alt="1000019138" src="https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/90e805da-cb32-4090-a80f-9169afe4a2b8.jpeg">
I still can’t believe how fucking shameless their regime is with those “prizes”. Like… holy fuck.
It’s about search engine squatting, if you now search “Russia meatgrinder” you get that, instead of articles about losing the war.
Lmfao this is hilariously logical and I bet it’s actually the reason
I mean it is so ridiculous on so many levels but also the gifts themselves are so absurd. If some of their high up elites just skipped a single dinner, they could probably buy something that is worth 10x more. The ruling class became so addicted to their money that they can’t even sacrifice a minute fraction of it for proper propaganda lol.
They’ve got hundreds of thousands of conscripts who are largely dug in along an enormous front, along the four eastern most seized Oblasts in Ukraine.
Any attack they would make into a NATO state would be an artillery bombardment intended to deny Ukrainians resupply, not a ground invasion to secure territory. Particularly not when they have poor control over their own borders and a nasty instance of counter-insurgence popping up in and around their major cities.
One of the traits of fascism by Umberto Eco, enemy is in the same time weak and strong.
Right, so in your version of this world, who is the fascist? Germany?
Fascists are the ones that do or promote fascist things. Germany is not one of those countries.
Russia is still ramping up military production on a wartime economy, to be used after the Ukrainians stop fighting back. Also their production focuses on their modern options for land and air. I don’t know what their naval production is doing.
We have to keep in mind that Europe needs to justify austerity for the citizens and rearmament for their militaries. I have no evidence of this, but I think it’s an entierly sensible read that the warning from Germany is an overstatement with that intent in mind.
Yes, because it will impact social programs. That hardship needs to be justified.
I guess you need to pretend there’s a threat NOW in order to divert funds towards defense now.
If the threat is in more like 10 years, why don’t we start investing next year instead? etc.
We’re on the verge of total victory
The enemy is prepared to launch its biggest attack yet
Is the same war time propaganda we’ve been served up for decades. Iraq/Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Kosovo, Vietnam, Korea…
The news coverage is totally divorced from what is happening on the ground. There’s even a term for it.
Credibility Gap
Taking over a Baltic state is feasible. NATO might react by sending helmets and prayers.
Artikel 42 EU treaty. All members of the EU have to fight with their full capacity. This will escalate quickly.
There are already EU troops in the Baltics, just to remind the Russans of it.
You should read Article 42.
“obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power”. Which is far above what being in NATO requires states to do. Which just btw also covers Greenland. Only ones off the hook are Ireland and Austria due to being neutral, the treaty still covers them though.
If a state decides that what’s in their power is sending 5000 helmets, then nobody will be able to force them to do more. Misinformed internet people think Article 42 is an automatic collective war switch, it is most certainly not and doubly so in the case of Greenland, lmao.
They can be true. They might be low on current stockpile, but what is building up is production capacity. Preparing to attack doesn’t mean immediately attacking, what most have concern is that once Russia’s war against Ukraine cools down, Russia will spend the next 4-10 years building up towards potentially attacking NATO nations.
Yes, years down the line doesn’t sound as alarming to the layman, but it is critical for that eventuality to be recognized and prepared for, nations and industry move slowly, and they need to prepare to fight another long drawn out war.
where’s that super next-next-gen Russian Armata thing? is that a ghost tank?
T14 was officially canceled last year citing cost efficiency.
lol it failed
It very much did. From the looks of it, it would’ve been “ok”, except a notoriously unreliable drivetrain, and electronics that are almost on par with the rest of the world. However, it couldn’t be built without western components, it was ridiculously expensive, couldn’t be built at a high enough rate, and not combat proven.
As easy as it is to make fun of russian tanks these days, it does make a lot more sense to focus on T-90 or the likes instead. Hell, t-72m is also a reasonable choice given the circumstances.
they should have tried putting all those electronics on a cybertruck. i love to see rich people bullshit AND war profiteering bullshit catch fire
I don’t think there was a good option that was also realistic. The T-90M is itself a long in the tooth design that hasn’t gotten the kinds of modernizations that tanks like the Abrams have to keep it relevant (and even then the Abrams is already being retired by the U.S.) Russian tanks needed an overhaul from the T-90M.
The T-14 on paper had a lot of good upgrades. The problem of course being that it’s much easier to draw something than make it work.
So the two options were keep building obsolete “modern” tanks or build a next gen tank that doesn’t work.
What Russian tanks needed was an overhaul to their fire control and ideally their protection to keep up and shift into active protection. The ancient curtain system is not cutting it.
Part of my wonders if maybe they should have invested in something scaled back and novel. Make a lightweight vehicle like the totally-not-a-tank-we-swear M10 Booker. Something lightweight, with a smaller caliber main gun to focus on taking out structures and infantry targets. Stick some active protection on it, and some missiles and you’ve got a vehicle that bridges that gap between IFV and MBT.
From my very limited understanding that’s kinda what they tried with the BMD lineup. Problem is because they’re for airborne use they end up too light to protect anything, and loaded with ATGMs, a 100mm cannon, and a 30mm for squirting lighter targets. Basically on first hit it goes up like a Christmas tree lol
Kind of sort of, but I was thinking more along the lines of the U.S. Army’s “MFP” M10. Essentially reviving the light tank but adding some Science on top.
BMDs were still made along the trajectory of IFVs where they can hold troops, and like you mentioned the lighter armor from the airborne desire for use makes them vulnerable even to smaller diameter HEAT rounds.
My vague vision would be something more like a light tank (by the modern definition of “light” which is more like 50ish tons bare and 60 with all the fixins), with enough armor to survive side hits from low 80ish-mm rounds, and very importantly investment in active protection. Thermal signature reduction like a lot of new showcase vehicles are adding. Maybe even something like the new KF Panther where they have a dedicated drone operator to control a drone that shadows the tank. This all is kind of “if I were king of the world” thought experimenting since of course Russia clearly doesn’t have the resources to even make proper upgrades to T90Ms to bring them up to a 2020s standard.
In all fairness tanks seem to be an outdated tool in 2025’s modern warfare and everyone’s refocusing on drones.
It’s so stealthy it has never been seen in combat /s
It never really existed in production, of course. It is like the early builds of the AK-12 where one offs were made and shown off as if they were going into full scale production soon.
The more real BMPT was at least fielded in double digit numbers, although conceptually it seems more suited to being a terror weapon supporting a shock & awe type advance rather than something used in a prolonged war.
i don’t mean this in a dickish way, but I do love that concept of “just say something incorrect or incomplete” about war and someone will be happy to bring clarification
Can you clarify.
so basically the histories whole WW2 genocide forget to mention all the advancements the Nazis made, the bicycle? nazis. nuclear power, the microwave mounted about your stove, power steering and automatic transmissions, and just love between two people. fucking nazis
definitely sounds ridiculous – but – maybe i listen to a lot of knowledge fight – could be a psy-op? can you prove to me that beans growing with corn is not a psy-op?
'Cuz it’z painted purple. Purple is sneaky!
It’s ok, they’ll just buy them from the US. That’s what allies do.
Tanks have not been very useful relative to their expense in the age of drones.
Kinda what happened to battleships in the era of aircraft carriers and submarines?
And yet, moving the front is almost impossible without them. All vehicles struggle with drones but at least tanks won’t go down from machine gun fire, and without vehicles were pretty much back to WW1 tactics, fighting over inches.
Which is kind of what the war in Ukraine has become.
Maybe one day we’ll learn as a species that there is no good way to fight a war and we should just avoid it altogether.
Most of us are just fighting over what the ruling class wants us to fight over, anyways.
And somehow it won’t effect the war at all
Russia has been on the brink of collapse for 20 years now.
Ping me when something actually happens that isn’t just propaganda.