I really hope Russia is collapsing soon so Ukraians can have actual peace.
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.
Agreed. I want the killing to stop and Russia to stop it’s conquest.
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.
Elsewhere on Lemmy today;
Germany warns Russia may be preparing attack on NATO
Both of these cannot be true.
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.
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.
They can flood the Baltics with drones and cause plenty of chaos and destruction.
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
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).
There are ways Russia can attack that doesn’t include massive tank charges
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
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.Starting this war in the first place was the worst possible idea that never made any sense
It made sense to the NATO strategists who recommended to not expand NATO further, because of that war.
Not allowing countries that Putin wanted to annex to join an alliance that was made to prevent Putin from annexing countries, is exactly what shouldn’t be done if you want to prevent Putin from annexing countries.
Unless some members of the alliance take part in offensive wars. Then you trigger an arms race or other measures when the alliance becomes too big.
Ukraine isn’t a very small army. They’re the second largest army in Europe.
You know I didn’t mean now
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 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.
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
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. https://youtube.com/@covertcabal
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.
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.
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.
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).
decommissioned = destroyed? Funny way of describing it.
No but non-functional can be considered destroyed in this context…
Tanks have not been very useful relative to their expense in the age of drones.
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.
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Kinda what happened to battleships in the era of aircraft carriers and submarines?
Here’s to hoping 🍻
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.
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.
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.
That’s always been true of city warfare though. Tanks are not designed for that.
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.
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.”
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?
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
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.
And yet somehow they will attack nato until 2030, according to the news…
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.
Just like they would never attack Ukraine…
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Yet we must triple up military budget in case they decide to invade whole europe on empty tanks…
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.
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.
Europe does nothing.
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.
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.
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:
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Hostile foreign power invades America.
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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.
European leaders are already talking about using the new army to invade the Middle East.
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
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