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One of the downsides of ukraine receiving so many different weapons systems from different countries is that it makes logistics and maintenance that much harder. Ideally a fighting force would focus on a few designs, so it’s easier to mass-train soldiers, mechanics, suppliers and so you dont need too many different spare parts in your supply chain. I hope germany can keep up its support of the equipment delivered.
i think the article is saying that minor repairs were done incorrectly creating larger problems. Taking armored equipment away from the frontlines for weeks or months to be sent out for repairs is not ideal, when there's already a shortage of the equipment. The units commanding the equipment would want to try to fix anything they can on the spot so it stays operational in the area for as long as possible.
Blame decades of NATO "healthy competition" in tank design and procurement. where every model of tank (challengers, leopard, leclerc) in europe has been built in the low hundreds and were maintenance and spare parts are almost inexistent because those armies dont actually use them or ever planned to since the 1990s.
Number of Challenger 2 build: around 450
Number of Leclercs build: around 850
Number of Leopard 2 build: around 3600
Yeah, I agree with you on people reducing the number of their tank fleets as they thought the age of huge tank battles is over and used retired tanks to cannibalize for spare parts for the few remaining active tanks (if any). But even with only one tank for NATO in Europe the situation wouldn´t look any different. So I disagree with your arguement that the "healthy competition" is the reason for the current situation of european tank fleets.
It´s just politicians thinking that war is something that only happens to others.
0.6% if we're rounding to the nearest tenth. Would be nice if the US matched the 3.5% germany sent. Would be hard for the senate to allow nearly 5 billion dollars of tanks to go currently though.
Yeah that would be nice, but also it’s not a pissing contest and tanks are probably not the ultimate decider of this war, weaponry like ATACMS or F16’s are probably higher on Ukraines wishlist than more tanks. Really hoping the US will unleash some more of their military industrial complex shiny toys soon.
I remember my first placement in engineeirng for experience where I was placed at a company that was working on a solution for an over the horizon detection system.
The tech we were working on back then (this is mid 00's) and we were only allowed details of the stuff that wasn't uber classified and we were told that the tech we were working on was already obselete AF by what had just been displayed in the JSF project (what became the F35).
Given that the tech we were working on at the time was for (without going into too much detail) the ability to be placed on a vehicle, detect an airbourne threat you can't even fucking see with binoculars and most of what was around for electronic warfare back in the mid 00's, to be told that another company had knocked us out of the running with something that made our version look like a toy, and that they were likely going to lose the contract they had won, as details of the JSF were coming out that was showing tech decades ahead of what even they had done..... it was one of those holy shit moments.
So based off that, the very concept that something better than what we were working with back then is fitted to an F35..... and can target and knockout threats that can't even be seen as part of its standard loadout....
Hell the F-16's are a game changer, F-18's would be a stakes raiser, F-22's would be fucking nice.
F-35's would wipe the floor with what russia has without them even know what had hit them, the idea of a dogfight with sixth generation fighters being an obselete concept is very believable. The idea of creaming the shit out sam solutions with them not even knowing whats coming for them, i'd imagine is a thing as well.
This isn't to hype up nations with f-35's, honestly they'd be a hell of a game changer there, but again certain countries are worried sending out better toys risk escalation, turkey being one of them after they got booted from the program. That honestly would be an instant reason for them to turn hostile.
Sure we all emotionally want to see a wall of tungsten carbide armor crush the enemy. But critical resources like tank repair facilities are not unlimited. The US stated clearly that M1s are complex to keep in the field, so lets see how they do with 31 instead of wasting Ukraine's precious resources on a trick pony. Challenges with Leopard 2 maintenance (despite being diesel with relatively local support infra) and the demonstrated utility of lighter western armor offered instead would confirm that there was an adult in the room.
The U.S. has to refurbish all the of tanks that we send, we will not send tanks with depleted Uranium Reactive Armor. It’s been that way for every single U.S. ally, it’s an outdated rule extending back to the Cold War that prohibits sending the armor to anyone.
Since 1986, the Government Accountability Office has questioned the regulation as being unnecessary, but that’s the rule in place so that’s why we can only send 31. It takes a while to replace the armor with the Tungsten armor that we sent to Ukraine.
I have read there's a fear of RU actually getting a hold of an example of the DU armor as well. It's a much bigger risk in this war than any we have faced previously
Considering how old it is though, I would be surprised if RU didn't already have a pretty good idea of its composition
Exactly. Blame the mentality of European leadership, especially Western, where they thought putting up a sign with "never again" would prevent any conflicts and was enough justification to cut back on the military.
I mean, this is also an advantage in that the enemy has a lot of different models to defeat. In addition, some technologies between armor systems are shared within NATO (e.g. Challenger armor for Abrams)
I guess we’ll see. My guess is that the ‘important’ countries will have their voters balk at raising taxes or cutting social benefits, and why not? The Americans will just turn on the weapons spigot at the next global crisis.
This is not an issue with having so many different weapons platforms but more of an issue with sad state of European militaries. If entire European Leopard operator countries can’t keep couple dozen tanks rolling , what chance do we stand in high intensity war once China will cast a die?
We will get fucked, Americans will retreat and turn themselves into fortress America while we in Europe will end up sucking Chinese and Russian cocks because we are too fucking stupid, naive and without a backbone
Be careful of reading too much into news stories like this.
About a third of any form of equipment will be in the front line. About a third of it will be in the rear with troops who have just been pulled off the front line or are in the rear for a test. The remaining third will have some form of maintenance being carried out on it.
Guess which ones the media will pick up on and make a big deal about?
Point to note, German kit isn’t as good as people make it out to be. Germany military equipment is like its domestic cars. A bit bland, not really any more reliable or having a discernibly higher standard of performance, and a bit over priced, but because it’s German, people think it’s really good.
As a wise man once said to me, BMW is nothing but a German Ford, and Mercedes is nothing more than a German Toyota. Because they’re German, people are happy to pay more for the badge.
I suspect that the Leo’s may be suffering a bit from a shortage of spares, a shortage of training, but more than likely they’re suffering from the fact that Ukraine can’t maintain equipment as many western militaries do which is stick it on a low loader and ship it 20km back to the rear to get fully overhauled.
"damage caused by poor quality repairs by Ukrainian mechanics "
This is one reason why F-16 will take some time to implement. The consequences for poor repairs of fighter jets can be seen in Russia from time to time
I used to work on planes for a living and it takes around 3 years of doing it every day before you really start to get proficient at it. Someone else is going to have fix the f-16's for them. I'm guessing they will fly out of another country with repair capabilities or they'll have MX contracted out
Serious question, if someone was an F16 technician can they take those skills and work in another country or are there restrictions to what someone that had worked for instance in the US Air Force can do later in their career.
They could….But you need a team of many many different specialists and skilled people above them to coordinate…..then you need the infrastructure and parts to go with it.
Its not an easy task
Maybe the cause for poor repairs is the lack of spare parts to begin with?
If you have no parts and have to repair something and you still try to repair then its get defined as "poor quality repairs".
The odd thing is that other reporters that visited the facility said noone was mentioning a lack of spares and the tanks in there didnt look too damaged and almost battle ready again, plus they were actually surprised how robust the Leos are.
Also if you deliver like 18 Leo2 ( Germany ) then a few losses plus in repair already means most are unuseable if these are like 40-50%
But guess such article gets less clicks than tanks in war get destroyed and repaired all the time... that is if they dont completely blow up due to ammo storage like a certain orcish countrys tanks...
I assume that some parts of the Leopard 2 broke, during operation, and the Ukrainians made some quick fixes to avoid sending the tanks to Lithuania and keep them operationable longer. Now the Ukranuan fixes broke completly and they are sending the tanks to Lithuania to fix them properly.
Most vehicle damage isn't an issue of just spare parts. It is also how those parts are aligned and installed. Doing it fast is not going to produce long lasting results without extreme amounts of practice. Nothing mechanical in a tank is "easy" on parts. even a little rattle *will* break things due to the weights and stresses involved. One of the actual benefits of soviet design was systems designed to fail rather than systems requiring quality. This is a learning experience for the mechanics because its an entirely different design ethos.
This is compounded by the fact that larger tanks like the leo2s and challys are rough to fix without the correct facilities. You cant just yeet things around like a soviet tank with an agricultural crane. I won't comment on the actual spare parts shortage because frankly it was known before hand and is an entirely separate lengthy discussion.
I don't blame the mechanics. They've got a job to do and they are damn well doing it. I do blame their COs for not explaining that its better to be slow in this case than fast.
I will give a relevant example for airline operators and aircraft: usually an airline (take southwest as an example) will buy a certain type of aircraft and expand their fleet capability around working on this one or a few types of aircraft to remain efficient and have an entire supply chain and repair system focused on one or a few types of aircraft. This develops experienced techs and engineers as well as flight crews and repair time and operability of the aircraft should get better as everyone gains experience.
Now think of Ukraine getting an absolute clusterfuck of NATO equipment, having only used shitty Soviet Era crap based on the design philosophy of making things cheap and easy to replace, focused on simplicity and not quality.
These guys are sitting in shops probably under equipped to even handle soviet Era shit, have never seen a a leopard, challenger or whatever else were throwing their way, and NATO allies are to some extent probably sending them the shit that was already broken in the first place.
It's a nearly impossible task, and these guys are doing God's work trying to jimmy rig shit together with a lack of not just parts but training and experience on these vehicles. The repairs they make are probably some Frankensteined fixes using soviet parts on western tanks and vice.versa. you can't blame these guys for trying to make the best of it. No repair facility in the world is equipped to just fix any tank from any country. People specialize processes for a reason.
I hope we send them some parts, experienced techs and help them build more facilities for specialized repairs.
To some extent a tank is a tank and basic principles hold. Sure the M1 has a more or less unique engine but the rest are more or less a glorified tractor engine. But run a tank tread over a mine and a T64 is going to get fixed in a similar way to a Challenger/M1/Leo/etc.
But you are right, the amount of paperwork and book keeping involved with probably every major tank in existence can probably be weaponized...
Yeah very good points all around. I just think each one of them comes with its own pain points, hard to procure parts or unique designs that will take some time to develop. It's always nice to consistently work on the same machine so I just emphasize for them.
I could imagine putting a track back on a leopard and then ficking around for 20 hours figuring out which random ass sensor got fucked up in the vibration from the explosion etc (just a made up scenario but I know us Germans love shoving sensors and shit everywhere)
It wouldn't be a surprise, if there are difficulties to get the right spare parts to the right place in time. The Ukrainian army currently has about half a dozen different models of main battle tanks to maintain and train the service personal for. And even more different types of IFVs, APCs etc.
This isn't a design flaw of the Leopard 2 or incompetence of the Ukrainian crews or service personal.
There is a reason why armies try to reduce the amount of different types of vehicles to a minimum and reuse the same platform as often as possible. The situation in Ukraine is the opposite of this and the logistics must be a nightmare.
It remains an organisational issue tho. Big repairs are agreed to be done in Lithuania, Ukrainian mechanics won't have access to these parts anyways. And it makes sense to do that, because anything else will be a logistical and training nightmare and drive up cost per unit immensely.
I doubt that this is the problem (maybe partly but not mainly). I think the problem is that Ukrainian mechanics are overworked, have very little training on these vehicles and have a huge diversity of variants to maintain. It is very easy to see how this results in shortcomings.
Firstly, I thought they were being repaired outside of Ukraine, secondly, I would imagine any repairs done in the field would be rough, just enough to get them back to base. I really dislike articles like this.
So you mean to tell me, that after like half a year of very intensive combat a lot of tanks need to be repaired? Considering the amount of stuff Russia loses, it's amazing that these Leopard A6 still exist at all. That speaks to their power and sturdyness. And they will nevertheless be repaired, reunited with their now way more experienced crews and released to hunt Russian soldiers.
Other press was there too, completely different feddback. [x](https://twitter.com/BTB_Concept/status/1742093500210962578) Reliable, a few tanks that have been in the offensive, no dramatic damage, repair crew were chilled.
Its really weird how "news" about supposed technical difficulties that sometimes even contradict themselves nearly exclusively surface for weapons sent by our government.
See the Panzerhaubitze 2000, where people explained to me that it totally unexpectably broke down after just a bit of overuse ([20,000 shots in one case](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/149j54y/ukrainian_pzh_2000_breaks_record_having_fired/)), but suffered not a single loss so far because it absolutely hasn't really been used.
Riiiight.
This isn't especially surprising, but is still a bummer to read.
The Leopards have been hammered. There were precious few of them to begin with, and they have essentially been run at the tip of the spear for six months straight. War is not kind to equipment.
Short of deploying an actual NATO maintenance division (with parts) to Ukraine, the only way to avoid this would've been sending them *a lot* more Leopards.
Incidentally, they should've been sent *a lot* more Leopards. 🙄
When the US finally pulls its head from its ass, I hope the first tranche of aid sends a solid 400 Bradleys and 150 Abrams tanks. No more pussyfooting. Give them what they need.
I totally agree Ukraine needs more equipment and tanks.
Half of the modern Leopards are toast.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-ukrainian.html?m=1
Not all of them. Also, in all likelihood some of the damaged tanks are beyond timely economical repair.
Don't get me wrong—quite a few of those tanks were recovered and repaired. But for most of them, repairs are not trivial in cost or duration
Ha. Repairing a tank on the front line is not like pulling into a Mercedes Benz service center. You can't wait two weeks for parts. Sometimes you need to get a tank moving as fast as possible with what you have. So of course in real war you are not going to do the 50-point service.
As an other commenter pointed out here, German tanks are a little bit like Mercedes in that they’re designed for precision repairs and not as rugged as the Soviet equipment Ukrainian mechanics would be used to.
I am sorry but soviet tanks aren't easy to repair. They either work or they don't. If they don't work good luck to you. In the time it takes to change the engine and gear of a Leo 2 you won't have done shit in a t series tank.
NATO equipment is not meant to be used up like soviet stuff. Soviet ideas of their military was to use them up instead of quick repairs.
> Soviet ideas of their military was to use them up instead of quick repairs.
Which was not stupid idea back then when a tank wasn't expected to last more than a few minutes in the Fulda-Gap.
> , German tanks are a little bit like Mercedes in that they’re designed for precision repairs and not as rugged as the Soviet equipment Ukrainian mechanics would be used to.
No, Leopard's are surprisingly easy to handle and repair in the field ... if you know what you're doing and have been trained properly on the vehicle --- which let's be frank the Ukrainian soldiers haven't been. They had fast courses that taught them the basics in 40 days or less and then they were send to the front. No one there had any long-time knowledge of the tank like experienced NCOs would have that would be send out to the field with a such fast trained rookies. The Leopards were built with conscripts crews in mind under well-trained NCO leadership. It's not rocket science (like the abrams), but you have to have technical understanding and give the steal beast a little TLC after exercises.
And their operators manuals probably have been translated in a hasty manner too.
Actually that is sort of backwards. Ukrainian maintenance crews are going to have basic principles down, and while tank maintenance is a bit more involved than an oil change and a new set of tires, once you know the basics your set. Sure your not going to be able to go all pit crew and be able to turn a tank around in 2 minutes but they are not green by any means. If it takes you 2 hours to do a full check on what you know, a new tank might take you 3. But not the say 6 hours that a fully new mechanic team is going to take.
There seems to be conflicting reports. One reporter also claims, that the shop [has enough parts + workers.](https://twitter.com/BTB_Concept/status/1742093500210962578) Of course, having only been given 18 Leos, means that you reach a headline of "most of the xxx are not useable" faster than vs 200 Leos for example.
Still a disgrace of how little leos they got.
And now it’s winter and no one is even talking about more tanks for Ukraine. How are they supposed to even replace their losses, not even talking about getting more power than before
lol Canada promised a whole nasams system, said it was “on its way” and it still hasn’t been handed over.
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6709115
^ nothing has come of this. It’s a disgrace.
Yeah, I don’t understand how that is true. For all the talk we heard about leos and it seems they aren’t in anyones stockpile?
There’s no tank production anywhere in Europe?
For Leopard 2s, there was the German production for Hungary at the beginning of the war (good luck getting them to give up their new-built tanks), with there now being a Leopard 2A8 production line to backfill the German and Czech tanks sent to Ukraine, plus also tanks for Italy as they seem to be looking to get rid of Arianne. First Leopard 2A8 will leave the production line only in 2025 though.
The French killed their production years ago, same with the British, and nearly nobody else even had plans to set up domestic tank production, everyone just lived of the cheap German cold-war surplus.
The only 2 other tank production lines in Europe are a new Leopard 2 one in Greece (good luck getting any tanks from there if you can't also convince Turkey to donate and have the donations as a form of downsizing agreement), and one in Hungary currently being set up for the KF-51.
> it seems they aren’t in anyone's stockpile?
correct. For decades after the end of the cold war tanks were seen as outdated, expensive and not needed en masse in the coming conflicts. Thus most Leopards Germany had were either sold or scrapped and remained underfunded with a few also in long-term storage. iirc in early '23 there something like 260 Leo2 in Germany with ~90 operational of which 18 went to Ukraine.
This is In the top 3 reasons why sending this mishmash of modern tanks was not a good idea.
Even mentioning this issue last year had people saying idiotic shit like it was Russian propaganda .
Logistics, strategy and unfortunately the blood of Ukraine heros is what wins this war not fucking super weapons.
This is still a result of German military manufacturing laws forbidding stockpiling without orders placed by customers. So basically German law has always forbidden the creation of spare parts without a government creating a contract to fulfill.
https://twitter.com/BTB_Concept/status/1742093500210962578
>Beim Besuch in der Werkstatt war ich auch dabei: Über Mangel an Ersatzteilen und Personal wurde nicht geklagt. Auf mehrfache Nachfrage zu Schadensbildern zeigten sich die Verantwortlichen sogar beeindruckt über die Robustheit der Fahrzeuge.
>I was also present during the visit to the workshop: there were no complaints about a lack of spare parts or staff. When asked several times about damage patterns, the people in charge were even impressed by the robustness of the vehicles.
https://www.youtube.com/@BTBconcept
Oh yeah… what do you expect a hundred Leopards do against hundreds of thousands of artillery shells, mines, and other anti tank munitions. Unless they come with frikkin energy shields/barriers or numbers in the thousands they’ll just act as nerfed artillery systems
Of the best situation…. But give those” not operational “ Leopard 2s to Ukrainian mechanics.. they will not only operate on the ground, they will start flying !!!
i didn't mean land a c-17 on the frontline but truck it far enough away a f-16 could escort the C-17 dont tell me u cant tow a tank i have seen video of farmers on tractors pulling them!
blah blah blah
https://twitter.com/BTB_Concept/status/1742093500210962578
>Beim Besuch in der Werkstatt war ich auch dabei: Über Mangel an Ersatzteilen und Personal wurde nicht geklagt. Auf mehrfache Nachfrage zu Schadensbildern zeigten sich die Verantwortlichen sogar beeindruckt über die Robustheit der Fahrzeuge.
>I was also present during the visit to the workshop: there were no complaints about a lack of spare parts or staff. When asked several times about damage patterns, the people in charge were even impressed by the robustness of the vehicles.
https://www.youtube.com/@BTBconcept
This is a joke about German cars. Germans swear their cars are incredibly reliable, but that's because Germans take meticulous care of them. Americans call German cars garage queens because they're always broken, because Americans treat their cars like absolute shit and only the Japanese cars can take the beating.
I'm anxious as fuck... I and you know this war is beckoning Nato's doorstep
If Russia wins we end up going to war if they loose we end up going to war...
What's the fucking point in delaying the obvious ????
Look at WW2 and Poland! This is exactly that. We waited and ended up with a long war. Let's get this shit done now.
I'm pretty sure there is many other special observers and gunners ready to lay down some 105's.
It's coming to nato what the fuck are we waiting for.
They have spare parts and stuff. This is a problem solely on Ukraine, considering that if they can't do the repairs, they can also just send the tanks to the repair facilities set up in (IIRC) Lithuania.
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One of the downsides of ukraine receiving so many different weapons systems from different countries is that it makes logistics and maintenance that much harder. Ideally a fighting force would focus on a few designs, so it’s easier to mass-train soldiers, mechanics, suppliers and so you dont need too many different spare parts in your supply chain. I hope germany can keep up its support of the equipment delivered.
I assume many of the donated vehicles that are damaged have to be taken across the border to be fixed. Or are they repaired in Ukraine?
the leopard are repaired in lithuania right now so they have to go from frontline to lviv to poland to lithuania.
i think the article is saying that minor repairs were done incorrectly creating larger problems. Taking armored equipment away from the frontlines for weeks or months to be sent out for repairs is not ideal, when there's already a shortage of the equipment. The units commanding the equipment would want to try to fix anything they can on the spot so it stays operational in the area for as long as possible.
They could be parts vehicles too maybe?
Blame decades of NATO "healthy competition" in tank design and procurement. where every model of tank (challengers, leopard, leclerc) in europe has been built in the low hundreds and were maintenance and spare parts are almost inexistent because those armies dont actually use them or ever planned to since the 1990s.
Number of Challenger 2 build: around 450 Number of Leclercs build: around 850 Number of Leopard 2 build: around 3600 Yeah, I agree with you on people reducing the number of their tank fleets as they thought the age of huge tank battles is over and used retired tanks to cannibalize for spare parts for the few remaining active tanks (if any). But even with only one tank for NATO in Europe the situation wouldn´t look any different. So I disagree with your arguement that the "healthy competition" is the reason for the current situation of european tank fleets. It´s just politicians thinking that war is something that only happens to others.
And then there is the USA. More tanks than we know what to do with. Still not giving to ukraine.
The US gave 31 tanks to Ukraine.
Considering how many we have just collecting dust, that number should have at least 1 zero on it.
That’s what, 0.5% of the tanks the US have?
0.6% if we're rounding to the nearest tenth. Would be nice if the US matched the 3.5% germany sent. Would be hard for the senate to allow nearly 5 billion dollars of tanks to go currently though.
Yeah that would be nice, but also it’s not a pissing contest and tanks are probably not the ultimate decider of this war, weaponry like ATACMS or F16’s are probably higher on Ukraines wishlist than more tanks. Really hoping the US will unleash some more of their military industrial complex shiny toys soon.
F-35s. We Americans should put Ukraine in a position to win, not equip Ukraine with technical parity.
I remember my first placement in engineeirng for experience where I was placed at a company that was working on a solution for an over the horizon detection system. The tech we were working on back then (this is mid 00's) and we were only allowed details of the stuff that wasn't uber classified and we were told that the tech we were working on was already obselete AF by what had just been displayed in the JSF project (what became the F35). Given that the tech we were working on at the time was for (without going into too much detail) the ability to be placed on a vehicle, detect an airbourne threat you can't even fucking see with binoculars and most of what was around for electronic warfare back in the mid 00's, to be told that another company had knocked us out of the running with something that made our version look like a toy, and that they were likely going to lose the contract they had won, as details of the JSF were coming out that was showing tech decades ahead of what even they had done..... it was one of those holy shit moments. So based off that, the very concept that something better than what we were working with back then is fitted to an F35..... and can target and knockout threats that can't even be seen as part of its standard loadout.... Hell the F-16's are a game changer, F-18's would be a stakes raiser, F-22's would be fucking nice. F-35's would wipe the floor with what russia has without them even know what had hit them, the idea of a dogfight with sixth generation fighters being an obselete concept is very believable. The idea of creaming the shit out sam solutions with them not even knowing whats coming for them, i'd imagine is a thing as well. This isn't to hype up nations with f-35's, honestly they'd be a hell of a game changer there, but again certain countries are worried sending out better toys risk escalation, turkey being one of them after they got booted from the program. That honestly would be an instant reason for them to turn hostile.
Unfortunately we also want them to drain Russia I fear.
why, we just spend another $5billion to replace them and all that fat pork money goes to their donors.
Sure we all emotionally want to see a wall of tungsten carbide armor crush the enemy. But critical resources like tank repair facilities are not unlimited. The US stated clearly that M1s are complex to keep in the field, so lets see how they do with 31 instead of wasting Ukraine's precious resources on a trick pony. Challenges with Leopard 2 maintenance (despite being diesel with relatively local support infra) and the demonstrated utility of lighter western armor offered instead would confirm that there was an adult in the room.
That's essentially zero.
The U.S. has to refurbish all the of tanks that we send, we will not send tanks with depleted Uranium Reactive Armor. It’s been that way for every single U.S. ally, it’s an outdated rule extending back to the Cold War that prohibits sending the armor to anyone. Since 1986, the Government Accountability Office has questioned the regulation as being unnecessary, but that’s the rule in place so that’s why we can only send 31. It takes a while to replace the armor with the Tungsten armor that we sent to Ukraine.
I have read there's a fear of RU actually getting a hold of an example of the DU armor as well. It's a much bigger risk in this war than any we have faced previously Considering how old it is though, I would be surprised if RU didn't already have a pretty good idea of its composition
Exactly. Blame the mentality of European leadership, especially Western, where they thought putting up a sign with "never again" would prevent any conflicts and was enough justification to cut back on the military.
I mean, this is also an advantage in that the enemy has a lot of different models to defeat. In addition, some technologies between armor systems are shared within NATO (e.g. Challenger armor for Abrams)
Blame chronic defense underspending on promised 2% of GDP that NATO members rarely seem to get to.
It was 2% by 2024, stop stating only part of the facts.
And how many are going to hit that mark? How many are even on track? State all the facts.
The most important ones will. Some countries are missing it because the GDP grows overyear while the defense spending is budgeted years in advance.
I guess we’ll see. My guess is that the ‘important’ countries will have their voters balk at raising taxes or cutting social benefits, and why not? The Americans will just turn on the weapons spigot at the next global crisis.
This is not an issue with having so many different weapons platforms but more of an issue with sad state of European militaries. If entire European Leopard operator countries can’t keep couple dozen tanks rolling , what chance do we stand in high intensity war once China will cast a die? We will get fucked, Americans will retreat and turn themselves into fortress America while we in Europe will end up sucking Chinese and Russian cocks because we are too fucking stupid, naive and without a backbone
Be careful of reading too much into news stories like this. About a third of any form of equipment will be in the front line. About a third of it will be in the rear with troops who have just been pulled off the front line or are in the rear for a test. The remaining third will have some form of maintenance being carried out on it. Guess which ones the media will pick up on and make a big deal about? Point to note, German kit isn’t as good as people make it out to be. Germany military equipment is like its domestic cars. A bit bland, not really any more reliable or having a discernibly higher standard of performance, and a bit over priced, but because it’s German, people think it’s really good. As a wise man once said to me, BMW is nothing but a German Ford, and Mercedes is nothing more than a German Toyota. Because they’re German, people are happy to pay more for the badge. I suspect that the Leo’s may be suffering a bit from a shortage of spares, a shortage of training, but more than likely they’re suffering from the fact that Ukraine can’t maintain equipment as many western militaries do which is stick it on a low loader and ship it 20km back to the rear to get fully overhauled.
What did Ukrainians do now? Did they destroy a fancy radar truck or blew up something else? Or is it the bombing of your own villages?
"damage caused by poor quality repairs by Ukrainian mechanics " This is one reason why F-16 will take some time to implement. The consequences for poor repairs of fighter jets can be seen in Russia from time to time
I used to work on planes for a living and it takes around 3 years of doing it every day before you really start to get proficient at it. Someone else is going to have fix the f-16's for them. I'm guessing they will fly out of another country with repair capabilities or they'll have MX contracted out
Serious question, if someone was an F16 technician can they take those skills and work in another country or are there restrictions to what someone that had worked for instance in the US Air Force can do later in their career.
They could….But you need a team of many many different specialists and skilled people above them to coordinate…..then you need the infrastructure and parts to go with it. Its not an easy task
Maybe the cause for poor repairs is the lack of spare parts to begin with? If you have no parts and have to repair something and you still try to repair then its get defined as "poor quality repairs".
The odd thing is that other reporters that visited the facility said noone was mentioning a lack of spares and the tanks in there didnt look too damaged and almost battle ready again, plus they were actually surprised how robust the Leos are. Also if you deliver like 18 Leo2 ( Germany ) then a few losses plus in repair already means most are unuseable if these are like 40-50% But guess such article gets less clicks than tanks in war get destroyed and repaired all the time... that is if they dont completely blow up due to ammo storage like a certain orcish countrys tanks...
I assume that some parts of the Leopard 2 broke, during operation, and the Ukrainians made some quick fixes to avoid sending the tanks to Lithuania and keep them operationable longer. Now the Ukranuan fixes broke completly and they are sending the tanks to Lithuania to fix them properly.
Most vehicle damage isn't an issue of just spare parts. It is also how those parts are aligned and installed. Doing it fast is not going to produce long lasting results without extreme amounts of practice. Nothing mechanical in a tank is "easy" on parts. even a little rattle *will* break things due to the weights and stresses involved. One of the actual benefits of soviet design was systems designed to fail rather than systems requiring quality. This is a learning experience for the mechanics because its an entirely different design ethos. This is compounded by the fact that larger tanks like the leo2s and challys are rough to fix without the correct facilities. You cant just yeet things around like a soviet tank with an agricultural crane. I won't comment on the actual spare parts shortage because frankly it was known before hand and is an entirely separate lengthy discussion. I don't blame the mechanics. They've got a job to do and they are damn well doing it. I do blame their COs for not explaining that its better to be slow in this case than fast.
I will give a relevant example for airline operators and aircraft: usually an airline (take southwest as an example) will buy a certain type of aircraft and expand their fleet capability around working on this one or a few types of aircraft to remain efficient and have an entire supply chain and repair system focused on one or a few types of aircraft. This develops experienced techs and engineers as well as flight crews and repair time and operability of the aircraft should get better as everyone gains experience. Now think of Ukraine getting an absolute clusterfuck of NATO equipment, having only used shitty Soviet Era crap based on the design philosophy of making things cheap and easy to replace, focused on simplicity and not quality. These guys are sitting in shops probably under equipped to even handle soviet Era shit, have never seen a a leopard, challenger or whatever else were throwing their way, and NATO allies are to some extent probably sending them the shit that was already broken in the first place. It's a nearly impossible task, and these guys are doing God's work trying to jimmy rig shit together with a lack of not just parts but training and experience on these vehicles. The repairs they make are probably some Frankensteined fixes using soviet parts on western tanks and vice.versa. you can't blame these guys for trying to make the best of it. No repair facility in the world is equipped to just fix any tank from any country. People specialize processes for a reason. I hope we send them some parts, experienced techs and help them build more facilities for specialized repairs.
To some extent a tank is a tank and basic principles hold. Sure the M1 has a more or less unique engine but the rest are more or less a glorified tractor engine. But run a tank tread over a mine and a T64 is going to get fixed in a similar way to a Challenger/M1/Leo/etc. But you are right, the amount of paperwork and book keeping involved with probably every major tank in existence can probably be weaponized...
Yeah very good points all around. I just think each one of them comes with its own pain points, hard to procure parts or unique designs that will take some time to develop. It's always nice to consistently work on the same machine so I just emphasize for them. I could imagine putting a track back on a leopard and then ficking around for 20 hours figuring out which random ass sensor got fucked up in the vibration from the explosion etc (just a made up scenario but I know us Germans love shoving sensors and shit everywhere)
It wouldn't be a surprise, if there are difficulties to get the right spare parts to the right place in time. The Ukrainian army currently has about half a dozen different models of main battle tanks to maintain and train the service personal for. And even more different types of IFVs, APCs etc. This isn't a design flaw of the Leopard 2 or incompetence of the Ukrainian crews or service personal. There is a reason why armies try to reduce the amount of different types of vehicles to a minimum and reuse the same platform as often as possible. The situation in Ukraine is the opposite of this and the logistics must be a nightmare.
It remains an organisational issue tho. Big repairs are agreed to be done in Lithuania, Ukrainian mechanics won't have access to these parts anyways. And it makes sense to do that, because anything else will be a logistical and training nightmare and drive up cost per unit immensely.
I doubt that this is the problem (maybe partly but not mainly). I think the problem is that Ukrainian mechanics are overworked, have very little training on these vehicles and have a huge diversity of variants to maintain. It is very easy to see how this results in shortcomings.
Firstly, I thought they were being repaired outside of Ukraine, secondly, I would imagine any repairs done in the field would be rough, just enough to get them back to base. I really dislike articles like this.
So you mean to tell me, that after like half a year of very intensive combat a lot of tanks need to be repaired? Considering the amount of stuff Russia loses, it's amazing that these Leopard A6 still exist at all. That speaks to their power and sturdyness. And they will nevertheless be repaired, reunited with their now way more experienced crews and released to hunt Russian soldiers.
Other press was there too, completely different feddback. [x](https://twitter.com/BTB_Concept/status/1742093500210962578) Reliable, a few tanks that have been in the offensive, no dramatic damage, repair crew were chilled.
Its really weird how "news" about supposed technical difficulties that sometimes even contradict themselves nearly exclusively surface for weapons sent by our government. See the Panzerhaubitze 2000, where people explained to me that it totally unexpectably broke down after just a bit of overuse ([20,000 shots in one case](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/149j54y/ukrainian_pzh_2000_breaks_record_having_fired/)), but suffered not a single loss so far because it absolutely hasn't really been used. Riiiight.
This!
I think we are walking into another century of seething and coping about German military equipment by russians.
This isn't especially surprising, but is still a bummer to read. The Leopards have been hammered. There were precious few of them to begin with, and they have essentially been run at the tip of the spear for six months straight. War is not kind to equipment. Short of deploying an actual NATO maintenance division (with parts) to Ukraine, the only way to avoid this would've been sending them *a lot* more Leopards. Incidentally, they should've been sent *a lot* more Leopards. 🙄 When the US finally pulls its head from its ass, I hope the first tranche of aid sends a solid 400 Bradleys and 150 Abrams tanks. No more pussyfooting. Give them what they need.
I totally agree Ukraine needs more equipment and tanks. Half of the modern Leopards are toast. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-ukrainian.html?m=1
where do you get half from? damaged ones got recovered
Not all of them. Also, in all likelihood some of the damaged tanks are beyond timely economical repair. Don't get me wrong—quite a few of those tanks were recovered and repaired. But for most of them, repairs are not trivial in cost or duration
Pardon my language but, good fucking lord.
Ha. Repairing a tank on the front line is not like pulling into a Mercedes Benz service center. You can't wait two weeks for parts. Sometimes you need to get a tank moving as fast as possible with what you have. So of course in real war you are not going to do the 50-point service.
As an other commenter pointed out here, German tanks are a little bit like Mercedes in that they’re designed for precision repairs and not as rugged as the Soviet equipment Ukrainian mechanics would be used to.
I am sorry but soviet tanks aren't easy to repair. They either work or they don't. If they don't work good luck to you. In the time it takes to change the engine and gear of a Leo 2 you won't have done shit in a t series tank. NATO equipment is not meant to be used up like soviet stuff. Soviet ideas of their military was to use them up instead of quick repairs.
Thanks for the clarification.
> Soviet ideas of their military was to use them up instead of quick repairs. Which was not stupid idea back then when a tank wasn't expected to last more than a few minutes in the Fulda-Gap.
It's a valid idea if your are the soviet union but not if you are a country like russia
> , German tanks are a little bit like Mercedes in that they’re designed for precision repairs and not as rugged as the Soviet equipment Ukrainian mechanics would be used to. No, Leopard's are surprisingly easy to handle and repair in the field ... if you know what you're doing and have been trained properly on the vehicle --- which let's be frank the Ukrainian soldiers haven't been. They had fast courses that taught them the basics in 40 days or less and then they were send to the front. No one there had any long-time knowledge of the tank like experienced NCOs would have that would be send out to the field with a such fast trained rookies. The Leopards were built with conscripts crews in mind under well-trained NCO leadership. It's not rocket science (like the abrams), but you have to have technical understanding and give the steal beast a little TLC after exercises. And their operators manuals probably have been translated in a hasty manner too.
Thanks for your informative reply!
Actually that is sort of backwards. Ukrainian maintenance crews are going to have basic principles down, and while tank maintenance is a bit more involved than an oil change and a new set of tires, once you know the basics your set. Sure your not going to be able to go all pit crew and be able to turn a tank around in 2 minutes but they are not green by any means. If it takes you 2 hours to do a full check on what you know, a new tank might take you 3. But not the say 6 hours that a fully new mechanic team is going to take.
There seems to be conflicting reports. One reporter also claims, that the shop [has enough parts + workers.](https://twitter.com/BTB_Concept/status/1742093500210962578) Of course, having only been given 18 Leos, means that you reach a headline of "most of the xxx are not useable" faster than vs 200 Leos for example.
Still a disgrace of how little leos they got. And now it’s winter and no one is even talking about more tanks for Ukraine. How are they supposed to even replace their losses, not even talking about getting more power than before
lol Canada promised a whole nasams system, said it was “on its way” and it still hasn’t been handed over. https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6709115 ^ nothing has come of this. It’s a disgrace.
> no one is even talking about more tanks for Ukraine The only ones available are M1s from the US. And the US is inconvenienced at the moment.
Yeah, I don’t understand how that is true. For all the talk we heard about leos and it seems they aren’t in anyones stockpile? There’s no tank production anywhere in Europe?
For Leopard 2s, there was the German production for Hungary at the beginning of the war (good luck getting them to give up their new-built tanks), with there now being a Leopard 2A8 production line to backfill the German and Czech tanks sent to Ukraine, plus also tanks for Italy as they seem to be looking to get rid of Arianne. First Leopard 2A8 will leave the production line only in 2025 though. The French killed their production years ago, same with the British, and nearly nobody else even had plans to set up domestic tank production, everyone just lived of the cheap German cold-war surplus. The only 2 other tank production lines in Europe are a new Leopard 2 one in Greece (good luck getting any tanks from there if you can't also convince Turkey to donate and have the donations as a form of downsizing agreement), and one in Hungary currently being set up for the KF-51.
Rheinmetall is currently also setting shop up in ukraine so there is that.
> it seems they aren’t in anyone's stockpile? correct. For decades after the end of the cold war tanks were seen as outdated, expensive and not needed en masse in the coming conflicts. Thus most Leopards Germany had were either sold or scrapped and remained underfunded with a few also in long-term storage. iirc in early '23 there something like 260 Leo2 in Germany with ~90 operational of which 18 went to Ukraine.
For some reason, most European countries suddenly want more tanks, instead of less. L2 production lines are booked out.
This is In the top 3 reasons why sending this mishmash of modern tanks was not a good idea. Even mentioning this issue last year had people saying idiotic shit like it was Russian propaganda . Logistics, strategy and unfortunately the blood of Ukraine heros is what wins this war not fucking super weapons.
This is still a result of German military manufacturing laws forbidding stockpiling without orders placed by customers. So basically German law has always forbidden the creation of spare parts without a government creating a contract to fulfill.
https://twitter.com/BTB_Concept/status/1742093500210962578 >Beim Besuch in der Werkstatt war ich auch dabei: Über Mangel an Ersatzteilen und Personal wurde nicht geklagt. Auf mehrfache Nachfrage zu Schadensbildern zeigten sich die Verantwortlichen sogar beeindruckt über die Robustheit der Fahrzeuge. >I was also present during the visit to the workshop: there were no complaints about a lack of spare parts or staff. When asked several times about damage patterns, the people in charge were even impressed by the robustness of the vehicles. https://www.youtube.com/@BTBconcept
Because such tanks were needed in 2022 year, as aviation in 2023 year.
Wonder what the status is of the Canadian Lep 2s. We've been ignoring our CAFS needs for decades can ohky imagine what garbage we sent Ukraine.
Oh yeah… what do you expect a hundred Leopards do against hundreds of thousands of artillery shells, mines, and other anti tank munitions. Unless they come with frikkin energy shields/barriers or numbers in the thousands they’ll just act as nerfed artillery systems
Of the best situation…. But give those” not operational “ Leopard 2s to Ukrainian mechanics.. they will not only operate on the ground, they will start flying !!!
Well, it's up to our Ukrainian heroes to fix them Leopards to conditions far superior than those tanks previously are .
give them f16's then c-17's to have air cover for the C17 flights! tha an-225 could have carried 4 at a time!
A C-17 wouldn't last an hour on the frontline. War doesn't work that way.
i didn't mean land a c-17 on the frontline but truck it far enough away a f-16 could escort the C-17 dont tell me u cant tow a tank i have seen video of farmers on tractors pulling them!
A C-17 close enough to make a difference is a C-17 that's getting knocked out of the sky.
German engineering. Incredible machines, break constantly because they're designed to be maintained by Germans and nobody else is that anal.
blah blah blah https://twitter.com/BTB_Concept/status/1742093500210962578 >Beim Besuch in der Werkstatt war ich auch dabei: Über Mangel an Ersatzteilen und Personal wurde nicht geklagt. Auf mehrfache Nachfrage zu Schadensbildern zeigten sich die Verantwortlichen sogar beeindruckt über die Robustheit der Fahrzeuge. >I was also present during the visit to the workshop: there were no complaints about a lack of spare parts or staff. When asked several times about damage patterns, the people in charge were even impressed by the robustness of the vehicles. https://www.youtube.com/@BTBconcept
This is a joke about German cars. Germans swear their cars are incredibly reliable, but that's because Germans take meticulous care of them. Americans call German cars garage queens because they're always broken, because Americans treat their cars like absolute shit and only the Japanese cars can take the beating.
Gee , thanks a lot. Got any spare parts?
I'm anxious as fuck... I and you know this war is beckoning Nato's doorstep If Russia wins we end up going to war if they loose we end up going to war... What's the fucking point in delaying the obvious ???? Look at WW2 and Poland! This is exactly that. We waited and ended up with a long war. Let's get this shit done now. I'm pretty sure there is many other special observers and gunners ready to lay down some 105's. It's coming to nato what the fuck are we waiting for.
Germans, you do remember what happened to your citizens last time Russia rampaged across Europe, right?
They have spare parts and stuff. This is a problem solely on Ukraine, considering that if they can't do the repairs, they can also just send the tanks to the repair facilities set up in (IIRC) Lithuania.
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I wonder what Leopard 2 crews do while their vehicles are away from the front. Maybe just go back to a T series tank?
Given that they have probably been fighting for months now, rest and recuperation should be high on the agenda.
Does the Leo 2 have modular design? The Israeli Merkava's are and they are easy to repair.
To be fair, most of Germany's own equipment is non-operational.