This goes against my pacifism, but Ukraine didn’t start this stupid war. I hope Russia gets pounded into the dirt.
Like the woman throwing sunflower seeds at a Russian soldier telling him that his blood was going to be fertilizing the soil:
Also: [for those that partake in alcohol; others please ignore]:
If this is available in your area:
The one exception being when you have to turn around on a road.
M2/M3: pivot steer and away you go
Stryker: awkward three point turn in the woods. TC may have to dismount to ground guide, and a whole minute later away you go.
If Russia deployed T-14s in Ukraine, I imagine that it would end arguments about whether giving Ukraine modern NATO tanks is “escalation”.
My first thought was “what is its top-armour like?” Any sense of that?
And it this a good “run, strike, run” vehicle that can hit something and move on quickly?
Found the 2018 article on these beasts that I recalled seeing…
“… the Russians like to build things that — like the AK, you can throw it through the mud and it’ll keep shooting,” the specialist said. "I feel like with the T-14, they got their eye off the ball, trying to be fancy.
So, one solid hit, one gob of mud anywhere, jams anything and the crew is sitting in a really big paperweight.
Moscow said it would put 2,300 T-14s into service by 2020, but has massively scaled back procurements due to budget constraints.
Understatement of the year… It sounds like 
might field both of them.
Not too good, by the sound of it…
The turret is not well armored and current estimates suggest that it would be vulnerable to anything larger than a medium calibre autocannon.
I wonder if the crew compartment will survive a round of 
turret-tossing?
Ah. I was asking about the Stryker, but not in a clear way.
Given the events in Ukraine over the past 12 months, I’m deeply suspicious of any report that describes a Russian tank in ways that suggest superiority.
Not much too armor at all. Or side armor for that matter.
What, realistically, could Germany do if Poland and Finland did unilaterally supply Ukraine with Leopards?
Probably refuse to provide spare parts in the future.
That tank description makes no sense. Most breakdowns of late soviet and modern Russian tanks that I’ve seen seem to suggest they are machines designed for killing the crew. Their turret problem for multiple generations of tanks seems to be solved, for the crew at least, if not for its chances of taking anything else out. I also would not want to be depending on their spanking new Afghanit APS actually working.
(Doesn’t apply to WWII where they had tanks that could go toe to toe with the German ones. They used to shoot each other to get American aid Jeeps, they’d shoot themselves if they got an American aid tank. They were genuine death traps)
A lot of wheeled vehicles can do a pivot turn as well, like the AMX-10RC that the French are providing. Kind of an oversight that the Stryker’s drivetrain doesn’t support it.
That’s also part of why I admired the thinking behind the Spähpanzer Luchs scout vehicle: it had a rear-facing driver for situations like that. Instead of even bothering to turn, the controls were switched to the back and the scout car could skedaddle.
The Biden administration has decided against sending tanks to Ukraine for now, which comes after weeks of buzz around the topic.
Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon press secretary, told reporters Thursday it “doesn’t make sense” to give Ukraine the tanks at this stage.
“The maintenance and the high cost that it would take to maintain an Abrams, it just doesn’t make sense to provide that to the Ukrainians at this moment,” Singh said.
A blow to Kyiv: Ukraine has been asking for the M1 Abrams main battle tank and other, modern tanks for months amid its war with Russia.
Ukraine is expecting a big offensive from Russia in the spring and will also need to conduct another major counteroffensive of its own to keep the upper hand in the war.
Kyiv has had its hands on Soviet-era tanks upgraded for use but would like the firepower offered from modern, western-designed tanks.
“There is no rational reason why Ukraine has not yet been supplied with Western tanks,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted earlier this month.
I considered that, but wondered whether obligations under Nato and/or EU (or the trade deals that led to buying the Leopard) forbade withholding parts or supplies of consumables.
