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.
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…
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.
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…