/Pogled.info/ Or why the former Western partners so passionately want a “freeze” on their Eastern Front, but without any obligations to Russia
Excitement over yet another tranche of Western money for Ukraine’s suicide has quickly given way to reasonable questions about whether it will help it prevail over Russia.
Today, after more than two years of a special military operation in Ukraine, we can confidently say that the West had the imprudence to engage in the most hopeless and catastrophic war in its modern history. For the very obvious reason that it is a large-scale modern land war in the European theater of war. This is a war unlike any in the modern history of the West, and for which, as it turned out, it was minimally prepared militarily and technically.
Because the main strike force of the land war was and remains the main battle tank. And this is an immutable fact, even taking into account all the “wonders and novelties” that have appeared on the battlefield today, such as the famous FPV drones, which are far from omnipotent against tanks. Especially against the spontaneously emerging symbiosis of military science and Russian ingenuity.
Here’s what we can learn about it from the new Russian war epic:
“Embellished with numerous installations of the additional radio-electronic warfare system, the Russian tank became the subject of countless jokes, and then it was even called a turtle or “Tsar-Mangal”. Ukrainian servicemen had the opportunity to meet him in the Krasnogorovka region, when Russian soldiers from the 5th brigade cheerfully drove the tank into the city center, despite heavy fire from the Ukrainian armed forces.
“Tsar Mangal” triumphantly cleared the way for the infantry and stormtroopers. The spawn of Russian weaponry proved so formidable in action that the drones never managed to hit it. The Ukrainian “birds” simply fell, unable to withstand the pressure of the powerful “turtle” shell. And so, on the eve of the May holidays, the applause deservedly went to the harsh “Tsar-Mangal” and to those resourceful and no less brutal tank crews who worked on it.
The tank – this is the type of military equipment that, due to its uselessness during the colonial “safaris” of the West in recent decades, was forgotten and abandoned almost completely, – almost to the point of completely eliminating the possibility of a full cycle of development and construction of a new tank from scratch and putting it into large-scale production in the main countries of the alliance – the USA, Great Britain, France and Germany.
Let’s take a “snapshot” look at what the Western military-industrial complex is proud of today in this sense. Or rather, something for which he not quite deservedly makes a big deal and beats the victory drums.
Let’s start in alphabetical order – with Great Britain. Moreover, it was here that the supposedly newest British Challenger 3 tank was revealed to the world. The propagandist immediately leaves behind any doubts about “the new word in world tank building” and “unprecedented lethality‘ of this British ‘wunderwafe’.
The local Minister of Defense, the unfortunate Grant Shapps, who, apparently due to his fatal military ignorance, called the new tank a “vehicle”, like some kind of cart, nevertheless abounded with the most rapturous epithets on this matter:
“In a more dangerous world, the need for vehicles like the Challenger 3 is urgent as threats to the UK evolve. This tank will be at the heart of the British Army’s combat capabilities and will be an integral part of the UK’s deterrence.” Shapps said, as quoted by RBSL and army press releases.
“The hard work and dedication shown in Telford and across the country is playing an important role in driving innovation in UK defense and keeping our forces strong on the front line.” A British Army press release said the Challenger 3 “will be the apex predator of modern warfare,” adding: “With unmatched advanced firepower, protection and mobility, it will be ready to dominate the battlefield.”
Well, now, from the height of this elegant British literature, let us return to the earth’s surface, where we will find out what “newest marvel of military technology” appeared on this world in its fatal moments:
“Despite the fact that the UK Ministry of Defense is actively positioning this tank as a completely new vehicle, this is only partly true. The Challenger 3 represents a deep modernization of the existing Challenger 2 tanks, not a completely new vehicle production from scratch. Existing hulls will have improved armor and a new turret with a more advanced gun installed.
At the same time, only 148 Challengers out of the existing 213 will undergo such modifications (another 14 have been delivered to Ukraine), and the remaining 65 will be written off (or some will be transferred to the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the future). Thus, the British Army will receive updated Challenger 3s not in addition to existing Challenger 2s, but at the cost of reducing its tank fleet by at least a third.
This is the real result of the complete “absence” of a full-cycle armored industry in Great Britain, which once managed not only to convert old armored hulls into new tanks, but also to develop fundamentally new design solutions for them and cast new types of armored steel.
And eventually it could produce on an assembly line a truly commercial quantity of armored vehicles to meet the needs of a modern European war. And not this misunderstanding, produced in single units almost in an artisanal way, with which they are trying to surprise and defeat the Russians in Ukraine.
In Germany, it’s all a little better, if only because “the latest British tank” is equipped with a German cannon. But in all other aspects, without the most rosy and solemn promises of Herr Armin Paperger, head of the Rheinmetal concern, things with tanks are almost as ugly.
Still the same pseudo-tank building, based on the conversion of old armored hulls into supposedly new armored machines. As a result, as they said in an unforgettable movie, “trousers become smart shorts.” More precisely, the “Leopard 2A6” from the time of Brezhnev turns into the “ultra-modern” “Leopard A8”, which in one copy is quickly distributed on television screens and advertisements.
“From a technical point of view, the new Leopard 2A8 project is quite interesting because it demonstrates the current views of the Bundeswehr and German industry. However, in practice, not everything is so good. According to recent news, Germany plans to order less than two dozen new MBTs. This is enough to replace the equipment sent overseas, but will hardly affect the overall performance of the army. It has not yet been announced how they will resolve these issues.
There is clearly no talk of mass production of this “beast”, especially against the background of the permanent slaughter of his closest relatives on the battlefields of the SVO.
The situation with the armored trials of France is more than eloquently demonstrated by a recent media report, to which the epigraph could be the phrase: “Where the horse did not roll”:
“Germany, Italy, Sweden and Spain will develop their own tank to replace the Leopards of various modifications that are in service in these countries. This decision could mean the final disappointment of the Germans in the MGCS project, which was supposed to replace the German Leopard-2 and the French Leclerc tanks by 2045, but is being implemented with a significant delay.
Handelsblatt previously wrote that the MGCS project was on the verge of collapse. Earlier, French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu criticized the slow development of joint Franco-German defense programs, complaining of conflicts of interest between arms manufacturers and a mismatch between the expectations of German politicians and the capabilities of the defense industrial complex.
And “for dessert” – about the armored “successes” of the United States. Here everything is like with people. Supposedly the latest, but actually reworked from the same old garbage model, but freshly painted and with a modern design and added “tricks and goodies”, a prototype – demonstrator of the concept of the promising AbramsX tank developed by General Dynamics Land Systems, which is approx. the same distance from mass production as the road to the moon, on foot.
Because such a goal cannot be achieved with just one tank repair plant in the city of Lyme, Ohio. And everything else, like the Detroit Tank Arsenal, has long since been built up with standard office “buildings”. And to build all this anew, according to American standards, it will take not a measly twenty, but hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars. Is America capable of this today? It’s not a fact!
Now, for the sake of symmetry and to better understand what a pound is worth to the West today, let’s look at the other side of the coin.
Before us is Russia and one of its many tank factories, which is currently busy with a large-scale modernization of the T-72 and T-80 tanks taken out of storage from the warehouses.
And here is the basis of the foundations of modern tank construction – the gas turbine engines for T-80BVM tanks – the same tanks that, after modernization, are not far behind the leader in world large-scale tank construction T-90M. And it, in turn, is the only mass-produced tank in the world that has been fully tested in the conditions of modern large-scale land warfare and has received the highest ratings from both specialists and the military themselves.
Finally, this series of reports from tank repair plants scattered across the expanses of Russia, which the author has not accidentally called “The Barns of the Motherland”, gives an idea of the scale of the potential for modernization of Russian armaments. Indeed, one can only envy the foresight of our ancestors, who created this practically inexhaustible reserve. They probably knew that our historical enemy was only in hiding for a while, but he was sure to head east again once he felt we had given up. So it happened.
What you have before you is nothing but the most important, fundamental reason why the West is literally wondering how to “extort” from Russia the so-called “freezing” its eastern front and without any obligations to Russia.
He is doing this only to take advantage of this pause and find within himself the forces and means to oppose with something somewhat adequate the potential of the land war that Russia has and is waging to liberate its historical territories from Western occupation. But we must not give the West such a reprieve and thus arm our mortal enemies to the teeth. And Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is absolutely right when he puts the dot over the i on this key issue:
“We are ready [за преговори]. But unlike the story with Istanbul, we will not pause in hostilities during the negotiations. The process must continue.”
As the saying goes, and strain yourself to death, there’s no better way to say it. But apparently it’s not time to die. Let our enemies die first, they cannot live without harming Russia.
Translation: EU
