Comments by "Dale Crocker" (@dalecrocker3213) on "UK to send Challenger II tanks to Ukraine: An end to the West's tank taboo? | DW News" video.

  1. A dozen ancient, heavy, hard to maintain and hard to operate tanks which might just about arrive as Russia's winter blitz reaches its successful conclusion. Yup. A real game-changer.
    2
  2.  @hochmeisterr  I think that's just the start. Soledor makes a good rear base for the eventual front line along the Donbass border. We can anticipate invasions from both the north and the east in perhaps just a few days. Ukraine will probably have to move troops out of Donbass to defend Kiev, leaving the Russians to fulfil their military objectives in the south.
    1
  3.  @ThatGuy-bz2in  It has had to be heavily adapted, I believe and does not enjoy much of a reputation. I am no expert in these matters but I gather it is pretty useless on narrow roads and built-up areas. But all that's fairly irrelevant. The whole picture will change before they arrive on the scene.
    1
  4.  @ThatGuy-bz2in  I just wonder though what stage things will be at by the time they all arrive and crews are trained to operate them. If over the next few weeks Russia succeeds in taking Donbass while the Ukrainians are protecting Kiev, then tanks will be fairly irrelevant since the whole industrial region is relatively built up. The infantry movements we have seen in Soledar and Bakhmut will be the way things go, not the tank battles out in the open fields. I suppose a good benchmark would be if Russia can take Kramatorsk before the tanks arrive.
    1
  5.  @ThatGuy-bz2in  Russia doesn't want Ukraine. It just wants Donbass mainly, and it already has three quarters of it. Ukraine is putting up a magnificent fight, but it is exhausting all its resources in the process - which has been Russia's plan throughout. Russia has an extra half million men ready for Phase Two, and some of them are as battle-hardened as the Wagners, and have hardly been used at all so far. It could go either way, but if the recent recruits come in from the north and east, and the Chechen, the Syrians and the DPA and the LPA push up to the Donbass border the Ukrainians will be hard put to fight on all three fronts. This is what the Russians do. They don't worry about losses. They don't worry about keeping ground they don't need. They just keep pounding away till the enemy breaks and then they move in for the kill.
    1
  6.  @ThatGuy-bz2in  Your information doesn't coincide with mine. I'm afraid. While Putin, in a famous essay, describes the Ukrainians and Russians as "one people " he knows full well that many have been seduced into Western attitudes and anything like a militarily imposed regime would result in an endless and costly civil war. A Russian-leaning regime would have to be the result of some sort of electoral process (inasmuch as such things exist) and Russian troops on the streets would never do. And he's not that bothered. Donbass is where the real money is. I can't see there's much of a percentage any longer in "drip feeding" armaments to Ukraine. The investment isn't paying off. Russia, on the other hand appears to have a very healthy munitions industry, and can buy in extras on the arms market anyway. It's got gas and oil to swap. Ukraine has virtually nothing. Even Western observers admit that Russia has this number of men waiting in the wings.. Don't forget that the majority of Russian men undergo compulsory military training of between two and four years, and before the war Russia had a reserve army of two million. The number of men of military age is about 33 million. Russian tactics are always to secure the field with trained troops who then retire to the rear while disposable units with old equipment bear the brunt of the response. The troops at the rear also shoot any of the newcomers who try to retreat. Wagner has been doing this with its released prisoners, but the elite are highly trained and experienced. Many have fought in Syria, as have battalions of regular Russian troops who appear not to have been much used yet. Neither have the Chechen mercenaries who were so instrumental in capturing Mariupol. I think there may be a whole Chechen army standing by. I don't think the Russians were "smashed" in Kharkiv or Kherson or anywhere else. They used the tactics outlined above to drain Ukrainian forces before withdrawing to the south, preparatory to the new three-pronged assault which it is about to commence.
    1