The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

StobieWan · Jul 22, 2023

Ananda said:
Ukraine Could Get 60-Year-Old Ex-British Chieftain Tanks

The diesel-powered, four-person Chieftan is obsolete but not useless.

www.forbes.com

Is Brit still keep them on workable conditions? If not mistaken I watch YouTube video shown some UK civilians manage to get hold few of them. So is there any inventories still in military grade storage? I Imagine some in UK perhaps trying to buy back Challenger 1 from Jordan, or perhaps some wondering why the entire Challenger 1 being sold to Jordanian at first place.

The chieftain fleet is long since dispersed, disposed of for scrap or to civilian collectors and all were demilled on disposal. However, the article is talking about Challenger 1 - and most of the UK CR1 fleet were disposed of to Jordan, and have since been retired from service. I have no idea what standard fit out they have, or what upgrades they received in service in,or what condition there were retired in but the fleet is rumoured to be in storage. It's possible that they could be pulled from storage, refurbished and if so, would represent a large, homogenous fleet of tanks which would present a very credible threat to most of the Russian armour we've seen in theatre.

CR1 is almost a completely different tank to CR2 however, so spares interchange, less than one might think - although they both use the same engine.
It's not totally impossible, put it that way.

Chieftain on the other hand, no, not at all - not from UK stocks at least.

vonnoobie · Jul 22, 2023

Regarding the Chieftain/Challenger 1 tanks Jordan pretty much has the only fleet size of any real number from a nation that is on solid terms with the west with 274 Khalid's which are the precursor to the Challenger 1's and up to 400 or so Challenger 1's. The hull's for the most part are the same except the Challenger 1 incorporates Chobham armor and has a raised engine compartment. In theory one could actually if willing to put the time and money into it update the Khalid and Challenger 1's all the way up to Challenger 2's or even 3's (But would likely require stripping tanks down to bare hulls, tossing away turrets and all and replacing everything so don't think that would be ideal but maybe?

Even with out any updates and taking them as are they would still be a good option for Ukraine.

swerve · Jul 22, 2023

Stripping the tanks down to bare hulls, throwing away the turrets, & rebuilding them? What's the point? There are some decrepit old Leopard 2 sitting around which could be modernised with much less effort.

Refurbish so they're fit to operate, maybe. But how much 120mm rifled ammo is available? What's the production capacity, & how easily & at what cost could it be expanded?

StobieWan · Jul 22, 2023

swerve said:
Stripping the tanks down to bare hulls, throwing away the turrets, & rebuilding them? What's the point? There are some decrepit old Leopard 2 sitting around which could be modernised with much less effort.

Refurbish so they're fit to operate, maybe. But how much 120mm rifled ammo is available? What's the production capacity, & how easily & at what cost could it be expanded?

Absolutely. Brakes, oil filters and off you go.

Ammunition? Ukraine, you have 400 or so tanks, here's the production licence, off you go.

Anything more complicated, it's not worth the candle. The US has stores of m1s in depth, they're available year after next.

KipPotapych · Jul 23, 2023

No comments, but a good listen at War on the Rocks, a Rob Lee and Mike Kofman discussion of the counteroffensive. This “part one” is free to listen to: Ukraine Struggles to Scale Offensive Combat Operations - War on the Rocks

Feanor · Jul 23, 2023

KipPotapych said:
No comments, but a good listen at War on the Rocks, a Rob Lee and Mike Kofman discussion of the counteroffensive. This “part one” is free to listen to: Ukraine Struggles to Scale Offensive Combat Operations - War on the Rocks

Providing comments is literally part of the rules for posting outside materials. Please provide some additional explanation, commentary, or something of added value beyond just a link.

KipPotapych · Jul 23, 2023

Feanor said:
Providing comments is literally part of the rules for posting outside materials. Please provide some additional explanation, commentary, or something of added value beyond just a link.

Isn’t “a good listen” a comment of itself? Can I take a ngatimozart’s (fairly certain, but I may be mistaken the user) clause where they say something along the lines of “no commentary on purpose, but here is a ISW report for you to consider and make your own interpretations” and, perhaps a few copy/paste paragraphs?

Edit: The idea of the post was basically to let members know that there is a free half an hour of a good listen of otherwise paid podcast, where people with a solid knowledge base and good ideas and feel of the situation express their opinions. I can comment, sure:

I agree with Mike, I think it was completely nuts to go on a straight frontal attack at the Orikhiv axis because of the established defence lines, Russian troops that are fairly well rested, but mainly because that was the most obvious place with the most rewards that was talked about in the media and otherwise of the most expected Ukrainian counteroffensive efforts.

This is quite literally (as far as defence lines are concerned) what the Russians have been doing at Avdiivka, Mariinka, for example, and Vuhledar in particular without much progress since they approached these places a long while ago. Bakhmut, on the other hand, was a grind but a success at a great cost (but no expense to the “regular” Russian forces), yet could be lost further down the line.

I sincerely hope this is a sufficient commentary but I could expand further if necessary.

ngatimozart · Jul 23, 2023

KipPotapych said:
Isn’t “a good listen” a comment of itself? Can I take a ngatimozart’s (fairly certain, but I may be mistaken the user) clause where they say something along the lines of “no commentary on purpose, but here is a ISW report for you to consider and make your own interpretations” and, perhaps a few copy/paste paragraphs?

Edit: The idea of the post was basically to let members know that there is a free half an hour of a good listen of otherwise paid podcast, where people with a solid knowledge base and good ideas and feel of the situation express their opinions. I can comment, sure:

I agree with Mike, I think it was completely nuts to go on a straight frontal attack at the Orikhiv axis because of the established defence lines, Russian troops that are fairly well rested, but mainly because that was the most obvious place with the most rewards that was talked about in the media and otherwise of the most expected Ukrainian counteroffensive efforts.

This is quite literally (as far as defence lines are concerned) what the Russians have been doing at Avdiivka, Mariinka, for example, and Vuhledar in particular without much progress since they approached these places a long while ago. Bakhmut, on the other hand, was a grind but a success at a great cost (but no expense to the “regular” Russian forces), yet could be lost further down the line.

I sincerely hope this is a sufficient commentary but I could expand further if necessary.

A "good listen" isn't comment enough. My ISW comments are: "These are deliberately posted without comment in order for members to reach their own conclusions." It is specific to that post. The readers can read the ISW material and ISW list their sources.

Feanor · Jul 23, 2023

Update.

Not a whole lot has happened. There are two major areas of interest where heavy fighting is still happening, one of them is still the Zaporozhye area. But the other is the Oskol front where Russia has been on the attack, gaining ground albeit quite slowly. There is a third minor area of interest, where Ukrainian forces have put considerable pressure of Klescheevka, in an attempt to begin encirclement of the Artemovsk/Bakhmut area from the south. Overall the fighting has turned into a meatgrinder and it's unclear who's getting the worst of it. On the one hand Russia is reportedly losing a lot of artillery to Ukrainian counter-battery efforts. On the other hand Ukraine hasn't gained any ground and continues to expend manpower and vehicles in less-than-successful attacks on a broad front.

Zaporozhye.

No significant ground has changed hands at all. Ukrainian pushes at Pyatihatka and Orekhov to Rabotino are still stalled where they were last time. Several more attacks have occured, strong points were taken and lost repeatedly, but no significant movement. At the Vremyevskiy bulge the continuing push with many small infantry teams have allowed Ukrainian forces to gain some more ground in the center of the bulge, making a push on Staromayorskoe and Urozhanoe easier, with some reports having Ukrainian forces dug in on the outskirts of Urozhaynoe.

Ukrainian MRAPs unloading infantry near Staromayorskoe getting hit by ATGM fire. Some survive and withdraw. Note this is confirmation that Staromayorskoe is contested.

The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

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