Secret Plans to Attack NATO

[Laodicean60]

Germany is one of Ukraine's biggest supporters both financially and militarily. But the Taurus missile system is an offensive weapon that would enable them to strike deep into Russian territory. Germany wants Ukraine to be able to defend itself but not to widen the conflict. The USA has not sent cruise missiles either. But the British have a proposal on the table to send Storm Shadow missiles there. Ukraine has its own R-360 Neptune missile also.

Yes second to the US. Taurus missiles can be programmed for a shorter range by Germany.

 

[The Barbarian]

Even if we allow for 2500 tanks destroyed which is a high-end estimate the Russians may still have as many as 17000 tanks built since the 50s in storage.

They are being chewed up in Ukraine even now. They've worked overtime, trying to get WWII-era tanks of museums:

Why Ukraine Capturing So Many Antique Tanks Is Bad News For Russia​

These numbers show how Russia is heavily reliant on the older types. But almost five months into the war, something even older turned up: a vintage T-62, which was abandoned on the battlefield and ignominiously destroyed by a Ukrainian drone dropping a grenade through an open hatch.

The T-62 is not supposed to be in frontline service. Analysts speculated that the T-62s would be used to backfill training and reserve units so that more modern tanks could be sent to Ukraine to make up losses, so seeing one in Ukraine was a surprise.

Why Ukraine Capturing So Many Antique Tanks Is Bad News For Russia

The capture of increasing numbers of broken-down T-62 tanks from the 1970s indicates that Russia is running out of more modern vehicles and is now forced to field tanks which are hopelessly outmatched.

www.forbes.com

What is not sustainable is the human losses - some estimates suggest as high as 300000 dead. This in a generation that was already demographically insufficient.

Good point. It will be easier to replace those tanks than those young men. If the war stopped right now, it would be a demographic disaster in the making, even worse than that facing China and Japan. And both China and Japan are doing everything they can in a failing effort to increase births.

The Ukrainians themselves are producing more drones than tanks. This seems to be one of the major lessons of the war, again the drone advantage is with the West because of chips. Using an AI to control a drone swarm is not something that the Russians have demonstrated yet but the USA and maybe now China does have this capability

The war colleges are going be doing a lot of analysis on this war. Ukraine has been extraordinarily inventive in many ways, most notably use of drones to take out Russian armor.

 

[The Barbarian]

Ukraine's Tank Numbers Now Equal Russia's – Analysis​

Ukraine and Russia's tank numbers are now roughly equal to one another's, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the Oryx open-source analysis website.
The figures underscore the extent to which Russia's advantage in heavy weapons has been reduced since it sent troops into Ukraine over 16 months ago.

According to the Kiel Institute's Ukraine Support Tracker, Russia has lost over 2,000 of the 3,417 tanks which it used to invade Ukraine in February 2022.

Oryx estimates that the Russian army now has about 1,400 tanks remaining.

Ukraine in comparison has lost 550 of the 987 tanks it had at the start of the invasion and has managed to capture 545 Russian tanks, according to Oryx. Western allies have transferred 471 tanks to Kyiv, with an additional 286 expected to arrive soon.
In total, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are estimated to have approximately 1,500 tanks.