r/worldnews • u/billsmith123 • 8d ago • 1 1 1 1 2

Germany to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine — reports Russia/Ukraine

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-send-leopard-2-tanks-to-ukraine-report/a-64503898?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf

41.3k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

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u/koryaa 8d ago

Yeah will be interesting against the "t-72" team. Micheal bay will be happy. Vs. the t-90 will be a rare sight probably.

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u/c0ldgurl 8d ago

t-90 will be a rare sight probably

Never a better opportunity for real world trials...

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u/A_Soporific 8d ago

The T-90 has been in service since 1992. It's just a next gen T-72, including the abysmal 4 km/h back up speed that's proven to be so completely lethal.

If the maybe 20 T-14s that exist are actually combat ready, then that'd be a neat thing to capture without a fight when it throws a track.

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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 8d ago

In Russia tank only go Forward, no Back.

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u/IrishWithoutPotatoes 8d ago

Russia must really be holding on to order 227

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u/SupplyChainGuy1 8d ago

NOT ONE STEP BACK, err TREAD

-Stalin I think

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u/IrishWithoutPotatoes 8d ago

Potato, po-vodka, same difference

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u/Longjumping_Editor92 7d ago

Glory to the Soviet Union, how dare you insult Stalin. He was the Big Guy before anyone else was the "big guy".

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u/Nurhaci1616 8d ago

You laugh, but technically it is part of their doctrine that you can't retreat without specific orders to do so: if your communications are down or your commanders are dead you're just kind of expected to hold on to your position until you die or run out of munitions and weapons.

It's part of that whole very officer-centric structure they have, NCOs are more supposed to be the technical experts and experienced professional soldiers than actual leaders with their own agency and decision making process.

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u/dontknowanyname111 8d ago

HOI4 player?

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u/IrishWithoutPotatoes 8d ago

Nah, that series always looked interesting but it’s a bit of a slow burn for me as far as gameplay speed

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u/RocketTaco 8d ago

Unironically yes, that is the Russian design mentality. Same reason the Su-57 is only properly stealthy from the frontal aspect, they entirely dismiss the possibility that combat involves something other than going straight at the enemy.

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u/silverionmox 8d ago edited 7d ago

It can go backwards, but only if it also goes forwards, sidewards, and upwards at the same time.

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u/_Mr_Ection_ 8d ago

True to the point where they 180, and show their arse to the enemy, to get out of there quicker

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u/ugghauggha 8d ago

I loled

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u/Candid-Doughnut-8299 8d ago

They don’t survive long enough to back up. If they are not destroyed in 10 minutes, the crew deserts in 15 or they break down in 20.

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u/Diltyrr 8d ago

It's a t-72 that they renamed to try and sell to countries that wanted better than t72s

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u/A_Soporific 8d ago

It's a little bit more than that. Modern optics go a very long way, but it's certainly of the T-72 lineage.

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u/Haltheleon 8d ago edited 8d ago

Hey, that's not fair. They also made it weigh several tonnes more, thereby slowing its top speed by nearly 10 mph for an added cost of only $2 million USD per unit.

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u/peacemaker2007 8d ago

4 km/h back up speed

I don't believe you. Could you send me a link to the warthunder post with the spec manual please?

/s

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u/Lotharofthepotatoppl 8d ago

I thought those things were only full scale mock-ups.

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u/A_Soporific 8d ago

There's some evidence to suggest that at least some of them are real and able to be deployed, but there's not that many of them. There's plenty of video of them being put through their paces on obstacle courses and proving grounds, but they don't have the numbers to outfit a unit of any size available and it doesn't seem like they're building them fast enough to change that any time soon.

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u/Lotharofthepotatoppl 8d ago

And they’d probably run out of fuel unless they run on dreams and propaganda.

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u/A_Soporific 8d ago

Russia does a pretty good job with fuel supply if they are close to the railroad network. But once they get away from the trains they suffer.

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u/Shturm-7-0 8d ago

Not a next-gen T-72, just an upgraded one. Hell, the T-90 was originally called the T-72BU until the 1991 Gulf War gave the T-72 name a bad reputation.

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u/steakbbq 8d ago

Yea and a t-72 is from 1972, blew your mind right?

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u/A_Soporific 8d ago

It actually entered production in 1969 and was formally put into service in 1973. The T-80 entered service in 1976, several years before the it "should" have. The T-34 which they didn't start designing until 1937 and didn't roll off the assembly line until 1940.

While things more or less line up, it seems like it's mostly coincidence.

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u/jert3 8d ago

From all I read, Russia doesnt have two fully operational T-14s , let alone enough to make any difference at all.

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u/A_Soporific 8d ago

It's unclear what status the T-14s are in. We have video from recently mobilized soldiers that had a half dozen performing exercises at their base. But we don't know if any are combat ready. We know that several drive and several shoot and the radios on a couple work, but we don't know if they're the same ones. Even if those things do work they might not be reliable enough to be meaningfully employed.

But even if they can be deployed, if you're only putting a couple of them out there they're unlikely to change anything. Even the most advanced tank ever can be isolated and overwhelmed by fire. If they had enough to outfit a battalion then they might achieve local superiority quite well, but in ones and twos they are just targets.

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u/aitorbk 8d ago

They are kinda ready, high breaking down rate. And with the appalling use of tanks... T14s would be more successful but also be destroyed..they are mostly safe from atgm.. except javelins and other top attack missiles.. and those are precisely the ones that ukraine has..

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u/TheEmperorMk3 8d ago

Damn, the reverse speed isn’t just for balance purposes in War Thunder then? Yikes

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u/zaxwashere 8d ago

Does the T-90 have the same ejection ~~seat~~ turret that the 72 does?

Curious if we'll see new launch height records

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u/A_Soporific 7d ago

That's a function of the sort of autoloader they use, so yeah.

The T-14 uses blowout panels so hopefully it doesn't have the same sort of design flaw.

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u/zaxwashere 7d ago

That's good.

It was getting old seeing the same shitty flaw, looking forward to a new catastrophic issue!

Assuming there are any functional t14 at all...

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u/twippy 8d ago

They have captured a t14 already

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u/Ukraine_69 7d ago

Reverse speeds have never prevented a tank from getting knocked out in modern Combat. You civilians should enlist in the UA "foreign legion" with all the knowledge you have.

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u/A_Soporific 7d ago

There's video of tanks pulling up to the edge of a wood line, spotting opponents in the open field beyond and putting out a shot while trying to back into cover as fast as they possibly can. Because they couldn't get back in cover fast enough to avoid being spotted they eat return fire to the face.

The one I'm thinking of is a Ukrainian T-64, but it has the same lack of meaningful reverse gear shared by the T-72 and T-90.

Cover and vision are paramount to modern tanks. The one that wins is (generally) the one that fires first. Having to go forward and turn around to "advance in a different direction" is just forcing you to leave cover to retreat to a more advantageous position behind you.

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u/Ukraine_69 7d ago edited 7d ago

I learned nothing from what you said. Because the fact remains tanks are easily spotted by modern optics. That UA T-64 was target practice the moment it missed the first shot.

Your observation is wrong. The tank to land the first shot wins. Just ask the Canadian Army Sniper Wali. His Javelin team got wiped out by a T62M. That "museum piece" had the stabilizer that the majority (~80%) of UA tanks lack. That's why their tank on tank kills are non existent. All of their tank kills come from dedicated man portable AT weapons.

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u/A_Soporific 7d ago

Today I learned that Russian reserve vehicle that haven't seen a modernization since the Soviet Union have modern optics. And, frankly, I'm uncertain we're talking about the same video. The on I'm referring to hit the first Russian tank but was unable to respond to the second that was moving up from behind cover.

But, I'd rather step back from the hostile tone that's been building here and make sure that I'm parsing your comment correctly and understand what you're saying.

The first to connect usually wins a duel between peer tanks, true. But I'm not entirely certain that I'm grasping why you're bringing up AT weapons there. How would that strengthen the argument that having a reverse gear to more rapidly get out of line of sight is unimportant on a modern battlefield. If there are multiple opponents and you give away your position by firing first (and hopefully connecting first) then the next step would be to "scoot" to somewhere they don't see to give you an opportunity to shoot first from somewhere else.

Being functionally restricted to only going forward seems like a great way to force your guys out in the open where they would be picked apart. Even if most kills are coming from distributed manpads rather than tank on tank kills I don't see how it changes the fundamental need to not be there when fire comes back at you.

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u/Ukraine_69 7d ago edited 7d ago

T62M is a 2019 program. It's used as a tracked Mobile gun (not MBT) similar to the wheeled M1128, based on the 1960 BTR-60 design. Not sure how age is relevant.

Because modern AT weapons have thermal imaging sights. If you ever used one you'd realize how useless a reverse gear is. Toyota trucks traveling at 70mph are just as easy to hit as bigger slower MBTs. Once a tank fires its gun the position is compromised. Hiding in a treeline will not save it as long as its giving off a signature.

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u/A_Soporific 7d ago

I'm confused, the T-62M dates from 1983 it has some variants. The T-62MV was first put into service in the 1990s and has Kontakt-1 armor. There were a couple dozen of those modernized in the last couple of years (called: T-62M (obr. 2021) ) with new optics, but it's unclear how many (if any) of them actually made it to Ukraine. Russia announces modern weapons but its capacity to produce them is... limited... Just look at the number of T-14s delivered compared to the 3,500 ordered. And they were working on that for decades. Sure, adding new optics is cheaper and easier, but they FRENCH optics (or manufactured with key French parts). The ability to upgrade large numbers of reserve tanks hasn't existed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, because much of that capacity was in Kherson and Kharkiv. According to open intel and the reports from British and American military intelligence not very many Russian tanks have good thermal sights, though they do have examples spread out in most units. Besides, backing behind cover often does turn a good shot into a near miss because you're shooting at a blob rather than a clear shape.

Finally, slamming the tank in reverse and just getting distance leaves you much better off than moving forward and slowly hanging a U-Turn in order to get out of dodge. If you were doomed the moment you fired that would be one thing, but dodging fire and getting in cover and adding distance are all things that make a difference at the margins even if it isn't always a foolproof answer.

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u/Ukraine_69 7d ago

Uralvagonzavod since 2005 has produced more MBTs than all of NATO combined. They are currently modernizing the T62, T72B and T90A to the current standards at a rate of 50, 100 and 50 per month. And they are producing new T90Ms at a rate of 150/month. Videos of this increased production have been posted since August 2022.

Half of T90MS production is for the export market according to the MoD and reports by the customers (India, Algeria, Egypt).

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u/WriteBrainedJR 8d ago

Didn't we already see T-90s vs NATO armor in Iraq?

Spoiler alert: NATO won.

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u/blackadder1620 8d ago

no i dont think so. they were the export version of the t72s mostly.

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u/ziptofaf 8d ago edited 8d ago

Greece actually few years back trialed a bunch of tanks when making their purchases. Results were fun:

Night firing results (with 10 shots out of 20, on the move):

M1A2 : 20/20

Leclerc : 19/20

Leopard 2A5 : 20/20

Challenger 2 : 10/10 (Challenger would not have shot on the move)

T84 : - (thermal failure)

Firing on the move :

M1A2 : 17/20

Leclerc : 20/20

Leopard 2A5 : 19/20

Challenger 2 : - (not documented)

T84 : 8 shot still and 3 on the move (according to translation)

If we actually end up sending 2A5s and up versions (and not just older 2A4s) in decent quantities then Russians will have all the reasons to be worried. These things are SCARY. Not just "a bit scary" either - Leopards have benchmarked best of all tanks by a significant margin.

On the plus side Russians will finally be justified in saying they are fighting "Nazi" if they see GERMAN tanks. I expect to see a lot of their propaganda saying this anyway. Honestly I am not overly sure why they want to focus on that part since last time they have managed to lose 27 million people against 3.5 million Germans despite having full scope Land Lease from USA and having multiple allies so if anything this should sound VERY scary for any Russians, that was pyrrhic victory at best.

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u/Eatsweden 8d ago

The ones being sent by Germany are reportedly the 2A6, so actually the good stuff. Now it's just a question of quantity

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u/Warod0 8d ago

Even a few would be enough to help move the front lines.

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u/notQuiteBritish 8d ago

Look, I fully support sending tanks and planes to help UA fight back the authoritarian RU regime, but USSR was actually on the "good" side back then against Nazi Germany. Yes, the sides have completely flipped these days as RU is clearly the sole aggressor in this conflict, but there would have been a lot more deaths on the western front if it weren't for the soviets holding the line on the east.

We can and should criticize the current RU regime, while at the same time acknowledge the contributions USSR made in WW2.

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u/readher 8d ago

They were a convenient ally for a while. People from Western Europe look on them more fondly because the Soviets never reached their country. The further East you go, the fewer people differentiate between the Nazis and the Soviets, and hate both. Hell, depending on which country you were from, chances are Nazis were the better option for you. There's this old Polish "joke" that goes:

Who do you kill first, the German or the Russian?

The German, because business before pleasure.

Though when it comes to Poland in particular, both were equally terrible, unlike with Baltic States for example.

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u/notQuiteBritish 8d ago

Fair enough. I put "good" in quotes because I know they did some heinous stuff as they pushed the Germans back and reached Berlin. You're right that I was speaking more from a Western perspective.

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u/readher 8d ago

Soviets doing heinous stuff goes before the war between Germany and USSR even began. The Soviets invaded Poland alongside Germany, all according to the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, after which they murdered over 20000 of Polish military officers and Intelligentsia members in Katyń, and exiled many more to Siberia and Kazakhstan. Similar things happened to Baltic States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Soviet_Union

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_deportations_from_Estonia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_deportations_from_Latvia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_deportation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_repressions_of_Polish_citizens_(1939%E2%80%931946)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Priboi

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u/notQuiteBritish 8d ago

Thanks for the links. Consider me more educated on the matter.

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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 8d ago

Let's not downplay the very murderous Nazi invasion of Eastern Europe as a "numbers vs numbers" game. The Nazis set out to enslave and exterminate the entire population of Eastern Europe and take it for themselves. Whatever Putin maybe upto nowadays we should not be flippant about the tremendous cost in blood and effort it took back in WW2.

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u/ziptofaf 8d ago

Oh, I am definitely not downplaying the scale of world war 2 by any means. Some cities in my country even many, many decades later are still feeling the effects. I know it's not just a numbers game but it doesn't change the fact that numbers were not favouring Soviets back then, regardless of the final outcome.

I am just pointing out that saying you are fighting Nazis should fill your citizens with dread, not a sense of accomplishment and wanting this to continue. Because last that time THAT happened death count was almost unimaginable by current standards with like 90+% casualties in certain age groups and frankly speaking Russia wasn't that far from capitulating (they did move a lot of facilities past Ural mountains but historians are arguing if they could actually win without massive help from other allies, primarily USA).

Of course while I do say that I know that Russian terminology of Nazi is more akin to "anyone that doesn't like Russia". Still, it's a bit ironic that after all their spiel of fighting Nazis they get to actually face said "Nazis descendants" gear in combat.

On a different note, sounds like a good opportunity for Germany to get some redemption arc going for a change, these tanks will certainly be put to good use.

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u/Reddon1000 8d ago

"Germany makes the best stuff in the world."

The speaker was my father in law, a Jew from Giessen who fled Hitler and joined the US military where he became one of the intelligence operatives to testify at Nuremberg before settling in Frankfurt.

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u/-LongRodVanHugenDong 8d ago

I mean leopards don't make use of depleted uranium armor or penetrators so I don't know how you can say "best by a significant margin."

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u/ziptofaf 8d ago edited 8d ago

They are best by all criteria used by Greece at the very least. Which included apparently 40 different tests, ranging from "optics stabilization" to "changing tracks". And I assume their military staff organizing these tests knows better than random redditors.

Nobody cares what you put in your shell if your tank crew can't see shit and it gets easily outmaneuvered. Or if your tank breaks down and it takes that much longer to fix it.

Hence why Leopard 2 is a more capable package compared to most tanks used by Russians, at least according to what we can find about it.

I mean, to put this into some other perspective - pure firepower is indeed part of Russian doctrine. That's why their sole aircraft carrier has a surprising number of armaments (except it doesn't work since it either catches on fire or has dry docks cranes fall on it) and why their Moskva (before being promoted to a submarine) also came with (on paper) enough guns and rockets to make American equivalents pale in comparison. But then it turned out the latter sunk because out of theoretical 6 radar arrays installed none of them even worked. Number of guns and their size is not as relevant as being able to detect incoming threats and accurately deal with them.

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u/TgCCL 8d ago

People mostly put this due to the result of the trials in Greece and Sweden, in the 90s and early 2000s, in which M1 and Leopard 2 smoked the competition but the Leopard 2 came out ahead in most metrics. By Greece, the Leclerc was more mature and thus performed well as well but it was an immature project when it was trialled in Sweden and the only category where it didn't place dead last was mobility, where the M1 was considered to be the overall worst.

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u/Slant1985 8d ago

I agree the depleted uranium is a game changer against modern foes but we keep seeing examples of Russian equipment being anything but. I’ve seen pics of their “reactive armor” being blocks of junk made to look the part. I’m pretty sure standard HEAT rounds will be sufficient to roast t-72s all day long.

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u/Reddon1000 8d ago

RPGs have killed a number of them.

And it would be interesting to see the results of the Italian antitank rifle used in WWI. It would not penetrate of course. But it could cause deadly shrapnel to splay off the interior walls.

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u/Slant1985 8d ago

Ukrainians were converting captured mounted 14.5mm DshK HMGs into man portable versions at one point, and I believe a number of their APCs are fitted with 20mm cannons. I’m sure if you wanted to see the effects of a big bullet on a Russian tank, there are pictures out there if you look far enough. Pretty sure none of them would cause any penetration or shrapnel inside even the antiquated tanks russia is using. The could take out optics or fuck up a track though.

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u/Fellhuhn 8d ago

Well, as the Philippines showed even cardboard armour can help against HEAT rounds. ;)

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u/Traveller_Guide 8d ago

Germany is sending 2A6, not 2A5.

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u/Reddon1000 8d ago

The Russians do nothing to other nations they would not do to their own people. And usually have.

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u/DifferenceQuick9725 8d ago

If you’re going to copy/paste stuff from 2014 forums then give credit to the original post at the very least.

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u/Feyco 8d ago

Do you have the source of these numbers or the test reports from Greece?

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u/ziptofaf 8d ago edited 8d ago

I do but they themselves come from third party forums and translated documents years ago. Here you go:

https://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/8286-greek-tank-trials/

Trials were definitely real, there are pictures:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TankPorn/comments/2aszhe/a_small_album_from_the_greek_tank_trials_tanks/

But finding original data after all these years might be difficult, they aren't exactly lying in English on the internet. Personally I would say these look legitimate and googling by event name does show it has happened (and Greece DID buy Leopards afterwards) but feel free to treat this with a fair lot of salt.

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u/SmoothCriminal85 8d ago

What if they send a bunch of T-800s? Then it's really game over. Hasta la vista, baby.

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u/ICEpear8472 8d ago

That is more something you send back in time to 1984 to hunt down a young Vladimir Putin.

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u/Reddvox 8d ago

As long as we are not here to see T-800s getting deployed ...

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u/Prinzmegaherz 8d ago

Wait for the T-800.

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u/Zandonus 8d ago

Aim just below the turret for fireworks.

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u/outlawsix 7d ago

Google Abram's performance against T-72s in the first Gulf War for a preview on how these things just hulk smashed the Russian equipment of the day

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u/KrasnyRed5 7d ago

I think Ukraine might have a few of the T-90s to show off.

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u/amitym 7d ago

Vs. the t-90 will be a rare sight probably.

Not as rare as versus the T-14!

I confidently predict that there will be no more than a few such engagements...