Yeah, seems simpler. Who are the candidate countries, I wonder?
That looks like a bit more than an armored brigade’s worth of tanks.
Dejin
22974
Okay, can someone with better European Flag knowledge help me out here?
I’ve got Germany, Poland, Spain. What’s that flag between Spain and the UK that’s donating 4 Leopard 2A6’s? UK, US, Norway. Sweden, Netherlands, Finland?, Denmark?.
KevinC
22975
Tank-sized dick. I remember that pixelated video of a beached whale getting blown up so I know how we can deal with that.
This crap drives me nuts. I dare say the majority of the folks on the thread, knew that the M1A2 had upgraded armor, many of us knew it was depleted uranium. It is 40 year old tech, I find it virtually impossible to believe, that Kari Russell or some equally cute spy and her partner, haven’t taken a zillion pictures of A2s and analyzed the armor. It wouldn’t surprise me if both Russian and Chinese spies have penetrated the Abrams factories and have reasonably good intelligence on how to make it.
Knowing how to do something (e.g. build a nuclear bomb) and being able to do it are two different things. I’ve seen no evidence that Russian are capable of the craftsmanship to make the armor in large quantities. Admittedly, China is different. But, fundamentally I just don’t believe you can keep secrets for 40 years. Especially,now that everyone knows you just check ex-presidents and VPs house and vacation homes if you want top secret info.
If Ukraine succeeds in pushing Russia out of its territory, odds are excellent, Russia will cease to be a major security threat for a long time.
But even more important is the morality of it. Presumably, the armor in A2 increases the survivability of the crew. I think we should do our best to keep Ukrainian soldiers alive. Spending money, and more importantly precious time to downgrade our tanks makes no sense. If we were talking about giving them F-35, I can see a case for downgrading the electronics, but not 40+ year old tech.
jpinard
22979
Anyone know why we’re sending “31” Abrams tanks? Why not a round number, like 30 or 40?
UK is sending 14 challengers equipped almost certainly with top secret chobham armour, and there must be plenty of export versions of the M1 lying around. How secret can the armour be?
abrandt
22981
I think Poland is just starting to get theirs and they seem like the easiest country to convince to just delay receiving their orders and forward on any tanks produced for them to Ukraine.
Egypt has the largest number of Abrams by far outside of the US, but chances they’d send any seem low.
According to Wikipedia Morocco has several hundred Abrams and I know they just recently donated a bunch of Soviet tanks to Ukraine. They may be the other best option? Give them a really sweet deal if they send a good chunk of their Abrams.
Outside of that I don’t think Australia has enough to donate any and Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait probably wouldn’t be willing to send any, although an Al Jazeera article from last year indicates that Kuwait has been the most pro-Ukraine country in the area.
This is not the correct answer, as noted above.
Yay Spain!
Tbf, we are very well situated in terms of defense, but that’s, I believe, 50% of our Leopard stock (the mothballed half, tbh).
Jaws_au
22984
I’ve been wondering about that - because we ordered 75 M1A2s last year to replace the current fleet. Due for delivery next year. So, maybe we can? I’ll be interested to see if there’s any talk about it here…
abrandt
22985
Well, I had typed up a whole response before the site went down. Basically, the article mentioned that the US has continued to develop new tank armors in the intervening 40 years, so I agree with you that it seems unlikely the older stuff needs to remain that classified and banned from export. Seems like it could just as well be bureaucratic inertia that wants to just keep things classified how they’ve been classified.
Regardless, it seems like it would take top-level intervention to undo that in time to help Ukraine. So I think we’re stuck with any tanks that get sent from US stock getting re-armored before they go.
vyshka
22986
Kuwait has a number of M1A2 tanks, like 200+, and the Egyptians have over 1000 M1A1s. Saudis have some M1A2s as well I think, but with MBS in charge it could be difficult to make that happen. I’d say Kuwait and Egypt are the best bet for grabbing them from a partner.
abrandt
22987
Why not Morocco? They have several hundred Abrams and unlike Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt they have already shown a willingness to donate equipment to Ukraine.
Sadly, you are probably right. Honestly, I’m fine with our Middle Eastern “allies” having inferior tanks, they aren’t in a shooting war, and the way the region is, there is a reasonable chance we may end up being at war with them in the future. At which point, I obviously want the US to have the best tanks.
What I don’t understand is say we convince Egypt, Kuwait or Saudi to send their export M1s to Ukraine. What do we to backfill them? Do we give them new M1A2s, or do we restart the M1 export lines, or do we retrofit the tanks to remove the DU armor? None of these steps make much economic or military sense.
rho21
22989
Chobham is British (at least the original version), so there’s a good chance there’s some agreements in the way of the US exporting it or other armour based on the original research.
Another issue is Trophy. You don’t need DU armor if you can intercept the antitank missile/rocket before it even hits. I can’t imagine we’re sending Trophy-equipped tanks.
KevinC
22991
Oops! That’s what I get for skimming quickly. I was scratching my head wondering what you were talking about because Portugal doesn’t have a white/red flag. For some reason I read it as the flag between Germany and Spain. No idea why!
