I’m sure most readers have seen the stories recently about the severe recruitment problems facing the US military. Here’s a good example: Biden Administration Intentionally Weakening Military: Retired General Boykin [Lt. General (Ret.) William Boykin] believes weakness is more than an international perception, and he gave examples of how
"A few days ago a commenter wrote about the Russians being so short of tanks that they were having to use “obsolete” T-62 tanks (in fact, Russia has also deployed T-90s). I responded at some length regarding the T-62."
There was a considerable discussion of this issue on the FYEOX discussion group over at Strategypage.com. (This is behind a paywall) Strategypage has a long history and was really OSINT before OSINT was a thing. Jim Dunnigan has a heavy wargaming background, and these aren't the kind of people who peddle stories about the Ghost of Kiev or the epic of Snake Island.
At the time we speculated about why the Russians were taking T-62s out of storage when newer models were available. I thought at the time that they might be using them to equip soldiers recruited in the Middle East, Wagner Group types maybe, or second line troops raised in the eastern provinces of Ukraine. One thing that they are reporting over there is that the Russians are falling out of love with the autoloader on their T-72s. You dispense with the gunner, but the price is that you end up storing ammunition in a carousel in the turret. Take a hit in the wrong place, and that turret gets blown fifty feet in the air. The blast is not survivable, and trained tank crews are not easily replaced.
My understanding is that the T-72 was made for export or as a cheap product on license. Thus the Poles had lots of them, also the Czechs, which they gladly shipped to Ukraine. They have largely been destroyed. I've seen repeated references to Polish T-72s being destroyed.
Not the case. There are export versions of the T-72, but there are versions the Russians use themselves that are not for export. The same is true of the T-90. The latest upgrade to the T-72 appeared in 2016, and I don't think they export those.
The T-72M is an export version of the T-72, and I think those actually were made in Poland and maybe still are.
I meant to say in my earlier comment that autoloader dispenses with the loader, not the gunner. I should not comment in the predawn hours before I leave for work.
The 82nd Airborne Division spent a not inconsiderable amount of time back in 2008-9 teaching me how to kill tanks and armored fighting vehicles, Soviet made ones in particular, and I have been loving the credulous coverage of the corporate press on all these armored warfare claims from the Ukrainians.
First off, epic tank battles have never been a thing that defines land warfare. Kursk, El Alamein, 6-Day War are some of the rare exceptions. Historically, tanks have been used to break through an enemies line and thrust deep into his rear, and the best responses to those thrusts have been to attack them with aircraft or with specialized anti-tank units waiting in ambush. Ukraine is no different—most of the destroyed armored vehicles we see have been taken out by drones, aircraft, artillery, or anti-tank guided missiles.
Secondly, to the extent the Russians have brought T-62’s out of storage, they most likely gave them to the DPR and LPR militias holding the line that had no armor. The chance they’ve been attrited of over 6000 T-72’s and T-90’s beggars belief. Of course, the Ukrainians could be lying, or they could have confused some T-64’s for T-62’s.
Soviet Medium Tank and MBT nomenclature really is pretty easy, numbers go up the younger the design—T-34 was the epic WWII tank, the T-54/55 was its early Cold War replacement, the T-62 was an iterative replacement for them, then the T-64 was a dramatic improvement in design but incredibly expensive and time consuming to build, so a cheaper version was built starting in the 1970’s—the T-72, probably the most prolifically manufactured Cold War MBT. The T-80 was a upgraded version of the T-64 that never caught on due to expense and reliability issues, and the current T-90 is the best of all post Soviet tanks being an upgraded T-72. I think when Mark says the Russian T-62’s are better he’s thinking of the T-64.
All of them have a big problem that NATO MBT’s got rid of in the 1980’s—they store ammunition for the main gun in the crew compartment, so a hit that penetrates the turret will likely detonate the ammo and kill the gunner and commander. The flip side is that NATO tanks are a foot or two taller and 20-30 tonnes heavier—making them more conspicuous targets and less likely to be able to get over Soviet made bridges. It drives me nuts they keep on writing Leopard and Leopard II interchangeably for the tanks Ukraine is using in Kharkov—that’s a 20 year and 20 ton difference in design, and the 2 probably will have bridging difficulties.
But none of these tank features matter if you don’t have air defense that can keep attack helicopters or kamikaze drones from hitting the lightly armored top of your tank turret. If you have poorly trained crews that can’t maintain them or employ them properly. Or if you don’t have any good infantry to accompany them to screen for and kill ATGM’s.
The reality is that Ukrainian tv doesn’t have thousands of Russian POWs in cages to show us or a No-man’s land covered in Russian corpses, so they try to show us as many reused pictures of destroyed vehicles as they can along with pictures of supposedly obsolete material being used at the front in order to show that their army is attriting the Russian army as bad as they’re getting hit.
We have been in teh process of recreating the old Third Chief Directorate of the Cheka/NKVD/KGB that spied on the Russian army. The Red Army was capable of overthrowing the regime and therefore had to be watched, and it was more important that the army be politically reliable than that it be combat effective. (This is not unheard of in dictatorships and revolutionary regimes) Hence the hunt for invisible Nazis and White Supremacists in the ranks.
A good friend of mine has been telling me about the kid across the street named Braxton who walks his dog when he's at work. Braxton has enlisted in the Army and has been cautioned by his recruiter against expressing any conservative political opinions. Apparently, the Cheka is on the lookout for that sort of thing.
Regarding the destroyed tank, two notes. First, these things don't seem to have reactive armor panels. The Germans, the US, and the Turks seem to have confidence in the composite armor they have now. That may be misplaced. Second, the survivability of tanks depends a lot on the skill with which they are employed. I don't think equipping the Iraqi army with different tanks would make it notably more effective.
Then we have the Air Force short of pilots. Well, pilots with the correct skin color or biological sex... For those who have experienced incoming rounds, they don't pay any attention to skin color or gender. And never forget that the 'adults' are now in charge. God help us.
We must have an Army capable of defending Marthas Vineyard and Kamala Harris. Already too many domestic terrorists and white supremacists have guns, which we are doing our best to confiscate. Arming and training unreliable election doubters is a no-no, and many of our best trained and most capable military have fortunately been weeded out of our military, as they may harbor old-fashioned ideas of patriotism.
"A few days ago a commenter wrote about the Russians being so short of tanks that they were having to use “obsolete” T-62 tanks (in fact, Russia has also deployed T-90s). I responded at some length regarding the T-62."
There was a considerable discussion of this issue on the FYEOX discussion group over at Strategypage.com. (This is behind a paywall) Strategypage has a long history and was really OSINT before OSINT was a thing. Jim Dunnigan has a heavy wargaming background, and these aren't the kind of people who peddle stories about the Ghost of Kiev or the epic of Snake Island.
At the time we speculated about why the Russians were taking T-62s out of storage when newer models were available. I thought at the time that they might be using them to equip soldiers recruited in the Middle East, Wagner Group types maybe, or second line troops raised in the eastern provinces of Ukraine. One thing that they are reporting over there is that the Russians are falling out of love with the autoloader on their T-72s. You dispense with the gunner, but the price is that you end up storing ammunition in a carousel in the turret. Take a hit in the wrong place, and that turret gets blown fifty feet in the air. The blast is not survivable, and trained tank crews are not easily replaced.
My understanding is that the T-72 was made for export or as a cheap product on license. Thus the Poles had lots of them, also the Czechs, which they gladly shipped to Ukraine. They have largely been destroyed. I've seen repeated references to Polish T-72s being destroyed.
Not the case. There are export versions of the T-72, but there are versions the Russians use themselves that are not for export. The same is true of the T-90. The latest upgrade to the T-72 appeared in 2016, and I don't think they export those.
The T-72M is an export version of the T-72, and I think those actually were made in Poland and maybe still are.
I meant to say in my earlier comment that autoloader dispenses with the loader, not the gunner. I should not comment in the predawn hours before I leave for work.
The 82nd Airborne Division spent a not inconsiderable amount of time back in 2008-9 teaching me how to kill tanks and armored fighting vehicles, Soviet made ones in particular, and I have been loving the credulous coverage of the corporate press on all these armored warfare claims from the Ukrainians.
First off, epic tank battles have never been a thing that defines land warfare. Kursk, El Alamein, 6-Day War are some of the rare exceptions. Historically, tanks have been used to break through an enemies line and thrust deep into his rear, and the best responses to those thrusts have been to attack them with aircraft or with specialized anti-tank units waiting in ambush. Ukraine is no different—most of the destroyed armored vehicles we see have been taken out by drones, aircraft, artillery, or anti-tank guided missiles.
Secondly, to the extent the Russians have brought T-62’s out of storage, they most likely gave them to the DPR and LPR militias holding the line that had no armor. The chance they’ve been attrited of over 6000 T-72’s and T-90’s beggars belief. Of course, the Ukrainians could be lying, or they could have confused some T-64’s for T-62’s.
Soviet Medium Tank and MBT nomenclature really is pretty easy, numbers go up the younger the design—T-34 was the epic WWII tank, the T-54/55 was its early Cold War replacement, the T-62 was an iterative replacement for them, then the T-64 was a dramatic improvement in design but incredibly expensive and time consuming to build, so a cheaper version was built starting in the 1970’s—the T-72, probably the most prolifically manufactured Cold War MBT. The T-80 was a upgraded version of the T-64 that never caught on due to expense and reliability issues, and the current T-90 is the best of all post Soviet tanks being an upgraded T-72. I think when Mark says the Russian T-62’s are better he’s thinking of the T-64.
All of them have a big problem that NATO MBT’s got rid of in the 1980’s—they store ammunition for the main gun in the crew compartment, so a hit that penetrates the turret will likely detonate the ammo and kill the gunner and commander. The flip side is that NATO tanks are a foot or two taller and 20-30 tonnes heavier—making them more conspicuous targets and less likely to be able to get over Soviet made bridges. It drives me nuts they keep on writing Leopard and Leopard II interchangeably for the tanks Ukraine is using in Kharkov—that’s a 20 year and 20 ton difference in design, and the 2 probably will have bridging difficulties.
But none of these tank features matter if you don’t have air defense that can keep attack helicopters or kamikaze drones from hitting the lightly armored top of your tank turret. If you have poorly trained crews that can’t maintain them or employ them properly. Or if you don’t have any good infantry to accompany them to screen for and kill ATGM’s.
The reality is that Ukrainian tv doesn’t have thousands of Russian POWs in cages to show us or a No-man’s land covered in Russian corpses, so they try to show us as many reused pictures of destroyed vehicles as they can along with pictures of supposedly obsolete material being used at the front in order to show that their army is attriting the Russian army as bad as they’re getting hit.
Thanks for the thorough treatment.
We have been in teh process of recreating the old Third Chief Directorate of the Cheka/NKVD/KGB that spied on the Russian army. The Red Army was capable of overthrowing the regime and therefore had to be watched, and it was more important that the army be politically reliable than that it be combat effective. (This is not unheard of in dictatorships and revolutionary regimes) Hence the hunt for invisible Nazis and White Supremacists in the ranks.
A good friend of mine has been telling me about the kid across the street named Braxton who walks his dog when he's at work. Braxton has enlisted in the Army and has been cautioned by his recruiter against expressing any conservative political opinions. Apparently, the Cheka is on the lookout for that sort of thing.
Regarding the destroyed tank, two notes. First, these things don't seem to have reactive armor panels. The Germans, the US, and the Turks seem to have confidence in the composite armor they have now. That may be misplaced. Second, the survivability of tanks depends a lot on the skill with which they are employed. I don't think equipping the Iraqi army with different tanks would make it notably more effective.
Then we have the Air Force short of pilots. Well, pilots with the correct skin color or biological sex... For those who have experienced incoming rounds, they don't pay any attention to skin color or gender. And never forget that the 'adults' are now in charge. God help us.
https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/09/18/unexpectedly-the-usaf-finds-itself-with-a-critical-shortage-of-pilots-while-it-says-it-has-too-many-white-officers-n629231
There was that woman who couldn't quite manage to land an expensive plane on an aircraft carrier.
We must have an Army capable of defending Marthas Vineyard and Kamala Harris. Already too many domestic terrorists and white supremacists have guns, which we are doing our best to confiscate. Arming and training unreliable election doubters is a no-no, and many of our best trained and most capable military have fortunately been weeded out of our military, as they may harbor old-fashioned ideas of patriotism.