Just don’t be surprised if leopard losses are high. Also talking about mobility and sped and firing while moving then saying weak armor doesn’t matter because they mostly defilade is contradictory. The leopard 1s are just as welcome as polands t72s and will likely be more useful. They still will suck and that is why they need 6 months rehab to even be suitable for hand me downs.
Ukraine has a lot of weird armor now. The AMX-10RCs have lighter armor than the Leopards. There are also the M55Ms from Slovakia which are T-55s that were rebuilt into more modern tanks in the 1990s.
The triad of tank qualities are: mobility, protection, and firepower. With the engines of the 1940s, at least one had to be sacrificed for the others. That's why armies had light, medium, and heavy tanks. Light tanks focused on mobility above all else. Originally a tank division would have one or more regiments of light tanks that were tasked with lighter duties, but as the war went on the light tanks were assigned to recon roles. Heavy tanks focused on the protection and often firepower in exchange for mobility. Not all heavy tanks had big guns. The KV-1 had the same 76mm gun of the same generation of T-34 and the Sherman Jumbo assault tank had a low velocity 75mm.
Medium tanks tried to balance out these factors as well as possible. The T-34 managed this best in the early and middle years of the war and then the Panther became the first real MBT, though it was not considered that at the time.
In the post war years the light tank was pushed into a niche role, such as supporting airborne troops with air mobility being an advantage and the heavy tank was squeezed out as the medium tanks grew in weight and capability.
Vehicles like the AMX-10RC have sacrificed most armor protection to put a relatively large gun on an armored car. It has excellent road mobility, but being wheeled it's offroad performance is not as good as a tank.
The modern MBTs from the west are like the heavy tanks of the WW II era. They have excellent protection as well as the largest guns available on tanks, and while they are faster than old heavy tanks, they suffer in the mobility department because their weight prevents their use in some areas. A lot of road bridges can't handle their weight, combat engineering bridges have to be more robust, and they are more likely to sink into soft ground.
The old armor like the M55Ms and Leopard 1s don't have the armor of the third generation MBTs, nor are their guns as big caliber, but they do have better mobility and at least the Leopards have better crew survivability as well as more comfortable crew compartments.
Soviet/Russian tanks sacrificed crew comfort to stay as small as possible. They are very cramped. I forget which Soviet tank it was but the only people who were taken into units to operate them had to be under 5 ft 6. These tanks are very fatiguing on even a veteran crew on a long march where the crew has to be in their tank for hours at a time.
That's an important factor for an army that is hoping to roll up a lot of territory fast. A crew who is worn out from being in a cramped position and jostled around for the last 6 hours is not going to be as alert to new threats than a crew that has had a smoother ride and a bit of leg room.
Ukraine still has a lot of Soviet/Russian tanks and at least late last year there were signs they still had enough ammunition for them. But they wanted western tanks for the offensive and they seem happy to be getting a lot of Leopard 1s. Looking at the ergonomics of the tanks they had compared to western tanks probably contributed to their requests. Once Ukraine punches through the first line of Russian defenses, they want as few factors as possible slowing them down.
The Leopard 1s are old and that is a factor. Even with a thorough deep maintenance cycle there could be hidden wear that they miss that will come back to bite the tank once it's running across fields at full throttle. The breakdown rate of the Leopard 1s will probably be higher than the 2s. I don't think their combat losses will be proportionally all that much higher. By the time the tanks get somewhere, there will be few Russian tanks to oppose them.
Modern MBTs are also vulnerable to modern ATGMs and while Leopard 1s are more vulnerable to older missile weapons, most of those weapons don't have a guidance system. Hitting a vehicle moving at relatively high speed with on takes some skill. That's where good mobility becomes protection.
It's a very old tactic for tankers. Keep moving and the enemy will have fits hitting you. In North Africa the British used American light tanks (Stuarts which the British called Honeys) which had a 37mm gun and very light armor, but were fast. They could take on 88mm flak guns used in the anti-tank role by moving too fast for the 88s to hit them. The Honey crews could close in to where the 37mm gun could fire canister round which were essentially large shotgun shells. Those were devastating to the gun crews.
I think the Leopard 1 will prove to be good enough to get the job done. Most of the work for tanks in the offensive is going to be clearing out infantry fortifications and any vehicle with some armor and a gun 100mm or larger is a good candidate for this job.
In WW II the old pre-war US battleships were considered obsolescent early in the war as the carrier proved to be the weapon best suited to the Pacific. The old battleships were too slow to keep up with the carriers and the new battleships coming into service as the war started (for the US) were just barely fast enough, though they had to run faster than normal cruising speed to keep up. In the end the old battlewagons became the mobile artillery for island invasions and the new battleships became flak batteries.
The fast battleships would have worked better if they had taken the 16inch turrets off and replaced them with 5 inch guns. The fast battleships were only needed once for their intended roll when on November 15, 1942 the USS Washington and South Dakota were thrown into the fray to stop a surface bombardment force with four destroyers scraped together at the last moment. These were thrown in only because there was nothing else available. The last cruisers the US Navy had in the area had been mauled tow nights before.
All 4 destroyers got hit early and three sank. The South Dakota got illuminated by Japanese search lights and pummeled. The first salvo to hit knocked out the electrical system so the ship couldn't respond. The Japanese had a battleship and several cruisers, but they were loaded with bombardment ammunition and none of the shots penetrated the SD's armor. The ship was still badly damaged.
The Washington was not spotted by the Japanese and it was able to sneak in and do a lot of damage before slipping away unhurt. With radar gunnery, the Washington was able to see exactly where the enemy were and hit the Kirishima (Japanese battleship) with 9-20 16inch rounds crippling the ship and forcing the Japanese to withdraw.
There were a couple of other instances where the fast battleships were given a chance to take out some ships once the aircraft had done most of the work such as pursuing Japanese ships fleeing Truk, but the fast battleships were little more than big flak gun platforms for most of the war.
The old battle wagons were used heavily in support of amphibious operations and even got their own chance at surface action on October 25.1944 when they were used in the Battle of Surigao Strait where a Japanese force trying to get at the unloading transports in the Philippines was mauled by a US and Australian force that was waiting for them. Allied forces were arrayed to ambush the Japanese as they made their way to the landing beach with the old battleships, now upgraded with the latest targeting radar as the last line. Several ships were picked off on the way in and the old battleships finished the job sinking one Japanese battleship and pretty much smashing the remaining attack force.
Even though slow and not as flashy as the fast battleships, the old slow battleships proved to be more useful in the end.
on a more positive note the darn Green Lemons have made the most significant donation since the HIMARS...talking of course about the Storm Shadow. Ukrainian shaping operations just continue right along. That was from the other day, today more strikes by storm shadows and likely glide bombs all across the port cities. Just waiting..
Nobody is saying how many Storm Shadows were given to Ukraine, but it must be a lot of them. Ukraine is good at holding back their better weapons that are in short supply for high value targets. They are out of Tochkas now, but they held back a number of them well into 2022.
They are using a lot of Storm Shadows which tells me they have a lot of them. Which is a good thing. The ability to hit Russian targets anywhere on Ukrainian territory is a game changer as big as the introduction of the HIMARS last summer.
@wdolson re the prediction for June 6th...could be
We'll know whether or not in 3 days.
