NATO return to Cold War force structure

[urbanoid]

2 hours ago, Martineleca said:

It's not about the security of one country though, it is about participating in collective defence which is the entire point of NATO. As Macron has said, having the capability to back up an ally in a modern high intensity conflict must be the guiding principle of rearmament. In that case since Poland as a front line nation will be procuring up to 1500 modern MBTs, it would be insulting if much larger economies Germany, UK and France cannot support at least a thousand each.

Of course they could support them, but I'm not sure if they should. While every country should pay its fair share and expand capabilities, they don't have to do it in the exact same way. Maybe there should be some expansion of their ground forces, but not necessarily to match 'frontline' Poland's expansion. Maybe they should focus more on air force, shitload of long-range precision missiles, air defense systems and at least gear themselves to expand ammunition production if needed. Sure, expensive, but requires less manpower than big ground forces expansion and at the same complements weaknesses of Central European countries that can't afford air forces to match those that countries like Germany, France or UK could support.  

[Pavel Novak]

10 hours ago, seahawk said:

Everybody knows there is no reason for that. Russia is not a threat to France or West Germany.

... West Germany 😄

[Martineleca]

2 hours ago, Pavel Novak said:

... West Germany 😄

Nations divided East-West or North-South, this is Russia's contribution to the world and they're still at it...

[Stuart Galbraith]

7 minutes ago, Martineleca said:

Nations divided East-West or North-South, this is Russia's contribution to the world and they're still at it...

To be entirely fair to Russia, I believe the Western Allies had a LITTLE bit to do with it as well. 

 

 

[Martineleca]

14 hours ago, urbanoid said:

Maybe there should be some expansion of their ground forces, but not necessarily to match 'frontline' Poland's expansion. Maybe they should focus more on air force, shitload of long-range precision missiles, air defense systems and at least gear themselves to expand ammunition production if needed.

That's all well and good, but what happens when the frontal country inevitably suffers heavy armored losses, requires rapid replenishment or direct reinforcements to hold a line thousands of km long and there is barely anything to send, as is the situation with Ukraine today. I'm sure the RAF would have been very useful for a hot war in Europe, but that didn't excuse BAOR from fielding multiple heavy divisions at the point of contact for the entirety of the cold war. Air power can provide support but it can't take or hold ground, ground force formations do that, also unlike back then the present conditions on the continent are a lot more volatile...

[Stuart Galbraith]

I think we all should be prescribed a minimum of capabilities we need to bring to NATO. And Armoured Brigade, a Mechanized Brigade, x squadrons of fighters. I look at the number of warships NATO has, just Europe alone can provide 52 Frigates, yet we have almost no ground forces Western Europe can send east. Which frankly is completely nuts. Its not that I dont think we should not have viable seapower, but we probably need to do a far better job of burden sharing in that aim (particularly outside the NATO area) and start providing landpower far more.

Oh, im sure the likes of Belgium will scream about that. But if NATO is to be viable, it has to be full force viable, not each nation concentrating on what its personal proclivities want to prioritize. We only have to see the utterly nuts way the British Army has been smashed up in the vain pursuit of a wholly ridiculous 'strike' doctrine to see how dangerous that can be for European security, not least our own.

[glenn239]

22 hours ago, Martineleca said:

The invasion and other more recent conflicts happened precisely because of the political and military weakness displayed by the West in Europe since the end of the Cold War, the excessive military capability that had successfully kept the peace for half a century is now missing. 

It happened because NATO attempted to expand into a region where NATO's doctrine of collective security could not apply and a Great Power response to push Western influence back out was inevitable.

Quote

 In that case since Poland as a front line nation will be procuring up to 1500 modern MBTs, it would be insulting if much larger economies Germany, UK and France cannot support at least a thousand each

The problem with the state of being insulted is that it requires someone to care.  That is to say, Poland can do whatever it wants, but France and Germany may take a different approach.

Edited March 6, 2023 by glenn239

[urbanoid]

13 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

It happened because NATO attempted to expand into a region where NATO's doctrine of collective security could not apply and a Great Power response to push Western influence back out was inevitable.

If NATO kept reserves of a fraction of equipment (even the same one) that it had in 1990, there would be so much to send to Ukraine on a relatively short notice that the Russians would be already impaled on the stakes along internationally recognized borders of Ukraine.

Anti-western great powers shouldn't have a say in what things look like, they should be told how they will look like, or else. That obviously requires having sufficient arguments and here is where NATO failed, especially the European part.

[glenn239]

2 hours ago, urbanoid said:

If NATO kept reserves of a fraction of equipment (even the same one) that it had in 1990, there would be so much to send to Ukraine on a relatively short notice that the Russians would be already impaled on the stakes along internationally recognized borders of Ukraine.

"If"

Quote

Anti-western great powers shouldn't have a say in what things look like, they should be told how they will look like, or else. That obviously requires having sufficient arguments and here is where NATO failed, especially the European part.

Anti-Western powers don't care what you or I or anyone else thinks they should or should not have a say in.   The way it works is that once the shooting stops, the dead will no longer have a say.

 

Edited March 6, 2023 by glenn239

[kokovi]

3 hours ago, urbanoid said:

If NATO kept reserves of a fraction of equipment (even the same one) that it had in 1990, there would be so much to send to Ukraine on a relatively short notice that the Russians would be already impaled on the stakes along internationally recognized borders of Ukraine.

Anti-western great powers shouldn't have a say in what things look like, they should be told how they will look like, or else. That obviously requires having sufficient arguments and here is where NATO failed, especially the European part.

Sad but true. The 1989 NORTHAG would wipe the floor with today‘s conventional European forces.

 

[urbanoid]

2 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Anti-Western powers don't care what you or I or anyone else thinks they should or should not have a say in.   The way it works is that once the shooting stops, the dead will no longer have a say.

They shouldn't care because they want to, they should care because they are forced to do so. One of the lessons from Ukraine is that there should always be enough arguments on hand to force them.

[glenn239]

3 hours ago, urbanoid said:

They shouldn't care because they want to, they should care because they are forced to do so. One of the lessons from Ukraine is that there should always be enough arguments on hand to force them.

So long as you understand that your country's future is automatically on the table as part of the bet, and that it is quite possible the course you advocate for will bring ruin upon your people, knock yourself out.   We are your ally, and we have 4 more tanks where the 4 we sent Ukraine came from.  

[Josh]

It seems likely Uncle Sugar has Poland's back in the short term, and in the medium term it seems likely they could grind up what's left of the Russian armed forces and spit out the seeds. They already are going to have all the toys Ukraine asked for going into any future conflict with more and better tanks, and soon a lot more better tanks.

[Martineleca]

22 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

I think we all should be prescribed a minimum of capabilities we need to bring to NATO. An Armoured Brigade, a Mechanised Brigade, x squadrons of fighters.

Alongside rearmament of NATO is the process of supplying Ukraine with enough heavy equipment until the war is over, after that their capability needs to be restored at least to the level of Poland. This means around 2000 new MBTs to deter from future incursions, the Abrams ought to be best placed to provide this number in a timely manner. If not then the KF51 Panther also seems to be a great choice, Rheinmetall is reportedly setting up production in Germany and Hungary with plans for a Ukrainian facility to deliver 400 examples a year, the Malyshev tank plant would just have to transition to the new design. AFV manufacturers are going to be very busy this coming decade, steelmakers too.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Martineleca

[bojan]

KF-51 (and Abrams-X) are tech demonstrators that no country so far was realistically interested in. Tanks are not bought because factory produced them (unless country in question is one of the oil-sheiks personal fiefdoms), they are bought after fulfilling certain military requirements.

IOW KF-51 and Abrams-X are "hey, look at all those things we can cram on tank". Then someone from military (more than a single person) will have a look at it and say "Nice, but we don't need 1/3 of those things, another 1/3 can be put on much simpler vehicle than tank and you don't actually have what we need". Then a long process of modifying vehicle to suit the real needs will begin.

I would advise you to watch nice Nick's video on Abrams-X and KF-51:

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by bojan

[BansheeOne]

All the talk about Panther production for or even in Ukraine is another part of Rheinmetall's offensive PR strategy since the war started. Everyone's pretty clear that if ordered today, serial production would be at least two years down the road, possibly after the war has ended; and that they're unlikely to build any plants in Ukraine before that has happened.

[Martineleca]

1 hour ago, BansheeOne said:

Everyone's pretty clear that if ordered today, serial production would be at least two years down the road, possibly after the war has ended; and that they're unlikely to build any plants in Ukraine before that has happened.

As far as I'm aware the Panther has a lot of the same components from the Leopard 2, especially in the underbody section, only the turret is wholly new. The ability to use much of the existing supply chain is a big part of establishing production earlier, certainly nothing will happen until a contract is signed.

[Ssnake]

4 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

Everyone's pretty clear that if ordered today, serial production would be at least two years down the road, possibly after the war has ended; 

But what, if not?

"Everyone" was pretty clear that the war would last three weeks, until it didn't. At that point the majority of opinions slowly drifted apart, whether it'd be another three months or a year. I don't think that this will be over in the next twelve months. Possibly not in the next two years. There simply is no sign that any party to the conflict is ready to give up. I don't want this war to last for years, but as a means of risk mitigation we should have started building a new tank production line a year ago, with generous state guarantees just in case the war would be over much quicker. We got to stop with the borderline ciminal wishful thinking.

[urbanoid]

39 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

But what, if not?

"Everyone" was pretty clear that the war would last three weeks, until it didn't. At that point the majority of opinions slowly drifted apart, whether it'd be another three months or a year. I don't think that this will be over in the next twelve months. Possibly not in the next two years. There simply is no sign that any party to the conflict is ready to give up. I don't want this war to last for years, but as a means of risk mitigation we should have started building a new tank production line a year ago, with generous state guarantees just in case the war would be over much quicker. We got to stop with the borderline ciminal wishful thinking.

They wouldn't have to be that generous anyway, it's not like Bundeswehr couldn't use some new/more tanks, eh?

Edited March 7, 2023 by urbanoid

[BansheeOne]

Regardless of how long the war possibly continues, I think the lead time to start production and the decision to build a plant in Ukraine only after immediate hostilities stop will remain the same.

[Martineleca]

1 hour ago, BansheeOne said:

Regardless of how long the war possibly continues, I think the lead time to start production and the decision to build a plant in Ukraine only after immediate hostilities stop will remain the same.

If the plan is to eventually assemble the KF51 in Ukraine, a good first step would be to set up low rate production in a neighbouring country, Hungary had been mentioned previously.  This will not only shorten the supply line to the front, but will also facilitate more rapid exchange of materials and engineering experience, that way the Ukrainian Army can start receiving Panthers long before local industry ramps up to produce the type.

[Martineleca]

On 3/6/2023 at 3:25 PM, Stuart Galbraith said:

We only have to see the utterly nuts way the British Army has been smashed up in the vain pursuit of a wholly ridiculous 'strike' doctrine to see how dangerous that can be for European security, not least our own.

Previously you've mentioned that a lot of the technology in the Chally 3 upgrade comes from Rheinmetall, since they are so intent on putting the KF51 into production somewhere, could deeper cooperation with BAE be established to jointly develop a successor to the Challenger based on it?

[DB]

BAE Systems has effectively distanced itself from the Challenger 3 programme by forming the new company with Rheinmetall. I don't think they're interested in it except as a dead-end single upgrade, squeezing the last juice out of the UK's tank manufacturing industry.

[glenn239]

16 hours ago, Martineleca said:

If the plan is to eventually assemble the KF51 in Ukraine, a good first step would be to set up low rate production in a neighbouring country, Hungary had been mentioned previously.  This will not only shorten the supply line to the front, but will also facilitate more rapid exchange of materials and engineering experience, that way the Ukrainian Army can start receiving Panthers long before local industry ramps up to produce the type.

Panther might be an aptly named tank, as it would be the second case of it arriving at the front a day late and a dollar short.

The lesson from the Ukraine war so far seems to be that to have enough tanks to assert a policy, you have to have 3,000 or more of them.  They have to be simple and robust enough to go for months in the field with only minimal material support.   Is the Panther like that, or is it like the Leopard in Canadian service seems to be  -  a temperamental beast with low serviceability rates?

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by glenn239

[Martineleca]

14 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

The lesson from the Ukraine war so far seems to be that to have enough tanks to assert a policy, you have to have 3,000 or more of them.  They have to be simple and robust enough to go for months in the field with only minimal material support.

 

I highly doubt any MBT currently produced anywhere in the world, even North Korea, can stay on a front line for months with minimal maintenance, the wear of combat means that both troops and equipment have to be rotated out regularly. You're spot on with the 3 000 figure, however to constantly support that number of active units in the field translates to a total of at least 5 000 tanks, so there is enough of a buffer for repair and production efforts to restore any losses.