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crissindahouse on 30 September 2022
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Bofferbrauer2 said:
crissindahouse said:

It's time for Western tanks. If he's talking like Russia is already fighting against the West then he can also fight against Western tanks. He also mentions the USSR way too much so that every other country which was part of it should know they would be next to 100%

Western tanks work very differently to Russian/Soviet designs. Training troops on those would take many months.

While I agree, Ukraine would need some stopgap or upgrades for the tanks they have. Thus my suggestions:

Concerning western tanks: With the German Ringtausch system, they could provide older Leopard 2 tanks (A4 is pretty prevalent in several countries and should still trounce anything that's older than a T-90) and equip them with newer A6/A6M/A7 versions instead. Troop training for those tanks would be in Europe, close to Ukraine but out of reach for Putin.

For the Stopgap upgrade: If the facilities in Poland are still working and with EU financing, Ukraine could send some of their captured T72 tanks to Poland, where they could then be repaired and upgraded to PT-91 Twardy standard, strongly strengthening it's defenses, mobility and targeting systems. This way there would be practically no crew retaining needed and Ukraine would still benefit from having a tank that is superior to most of what Russia is fielding, if in limited numbers due to probably slow production.

However, I think Ukraine would benefit more from having some more modern IFVs. Their own BTR-4 ain't bad, but numbers are limited. Outside of that model, the vast majority are still soviet-era BMP-1 and BMP-2, which are pretty outdated by now.

I doubt it would take "many" months. They may be different but someone with experience with any tank will still learn much faster and we talk about training which would be only about how to use the tank without all the other stuff a normal soldier normally does every day which has nothing to do with the tank itself.

May take some time but with daily training it will be fine. I heard that argument already 5 months ago and we could already have some who know how to use whatever tank they would've learned to use. If you always argue how training will take too much time they will obviously never learn it so even if it would take more than two or three months it's still no argument. The war may take years and in 2013 people will still say how it will take too long to learn. And the time could come when there aren't enough soviet tanks left for Ukraine and they still didn't get the chance to learn how to use alternatives

Just start already to train them.