Best thing they could do with the Challenger 1s is upgrade that damn gun..why? ..ammo..they use a 2 piece round where as all other NATO tanks don't.
Also and the Brits themselves are having this problem right now..lack of ammo..this issue was brought up when it was decided to send the Challenger 2 to Ukraine.
The L-11 120mm is a great gun but it's not good without the ammo..go with the 120mm smoothbore (Challenger
3 ) and yip new sights and fire control systems..or just fully upgraded systems would work.
The reason for the Rheinmetall 120mm gun is simple..firepower and ammo...the smooth bore can handle much higher pressure rds than a rifled gun which means you get to use the powerful tank gun rds there are and ammo supply..super easy to get and quantity.
New ammo storage would be a PITA but smart minds could soon figure that out.
New night vision systems would be a huge help to .

Quote from: kitbasher on March 01, 2023, 11:38:39 PM

Quote from: AeroplaneDriver on March 01, 2023, 08:55:29 PMIt's becoming clear that fighting Russia doesn't need top of the line equipment.

During the days of the Cold War NATO - in terms of its equipment - generally enjoyed a not inconsiderable qualitative advantage over the Warsaw Pact.

However the Pact enjoyed a significant numerical advantage.

Assuming of course everything (on both sides) would have been serviceable had the 'balloon gone up'.

At one point the USSR had at least 50.000 tanks in their arsenal..the numbers didn't lie but what alot of ppl didn't know what the numbers changed quite alot as you went up the list..most numerous..the T54/55..then T62..64 72 and so on ..how many of these worked?..in the early days pretty much all of them .
On pic I saw from a friend's archive was a exercise held in 1977 ..in russia..a spy plane photoed the lot..over 9000 vehicles used all on display before the exercise started.
Today it's an entirely different story...ive got pics of russian tank repair yards with thousands of wrecked armoured vehicles..some of these pics fellow tread heads might of seen shows one yrd..over 700 tanks in it..many stacked on top of another and in places 3 high.
The numbers might be there but the actual working numbers aren't.
It's why the russians have been going thru their yards and finding and repairing everything they can to send to Ukraine..even tanks as old as T62s are being sent because when the poop hit the fan they lost so many tanks so fast they couldn't replace them.
You could say the curtain got lifted as to just how many turely modern-day vehicles they actually had.

Now the 2000..didn't that have a ground attack ability?

I saw a report yesterday the Russians have brought some old BMDs back. The one in the photo looked to be fresh out of a museum display.
One video on Youtube reckoned he'd seen better tactics from a World of Tanks player.....

Poland have delivered the first of 60 of their PT-91s this week. These are upgraded and modernized T-72s which Ukrainian tankers should have little trouble learning to drive.

Russian ground force tactics had always been based on attacks en masse, in an attempt to outnumber enemies and literally rollover them. This is also reflected in many tanks' design, which are quite cramped internally (due to the attempt to keep the silhouette low and equipemnt like an auto-loader) and heavily armored at the front. They are less versatile than Western tanks, which might be bigger but are better equipped overall. No wonder that there are heavy losses - Russian tanks (and their crews) are rather disposable items.

Quote from: Nick on March 03, 2023, 02:54:57 AMI saw a report yesterday the Russians have brought some old BMDs back. The one in the photo looked to be fresh out of a museum display.
One video on Youtube reckoned he'd seen better tactics from a World of Tanks player.....

Poland have delivered the first of 60 of their PT-91s this week. These are upgraded and modernized T-72s which Ukrainian tankers should have little trouble learning to drive.

Yes that's ture ...BMD 2 and 3s ..the 2 is from 1985 and the 3 from 1990 but chaps it's worse than that ..try BTR50s from 1954 ..there being demothballed for use ..on the T-62 from so far at least 90 have been seen as the Ukrainian forces now have 58 of them and
 are converting them all into ARVs which they are desperately short off.
Thomas that's so ture as all russian ground forces are seen as deposable ..massed attack doctrine might have worked in the early days but not anymore.
With western tanks being able to hit targets in any weather at ranges nearly 3 times that of russian armour that alone is a force multiplier which the russian can't stop..the MANPATS are absolutely devastating even on the most modern russian armour and again they have no counter for it .
I'm wondering how long it will be before we see the ol T-55 make an appearance...because the way its going and how desperately tanks are needed by the russians ya just never know.

Quote from: Wardukw-NZ on March 03, 2023, 11:37:30 AMI'm wondering how long it will be before we see the ol T-55 make an appearance...because the way its going and how desperately tanks are needed by the russians ya just never know.

Are there any T-44s still in storage? 

Ol' Uncle Joe once said "Quantity has a Quality all it's own." Which is all well and good, but you're still going to be taking monumental losses wielding said blunt instrument.
And it's not too happy a time for the folk who make up said Quantity, either.
It will be interesting to see what comes of Tsar Vladimir's talks with the CCP...

I agree that the Western powers need to shift themselves and get the gear to the folk that need it, but I do wonder what's going on behind the scenes.
Is all (or part) of this ongoing debate about how/when/what/whether to send stuff part of a cover story?
We can hope...

Quote from: scooter on March 03, 2023, 12:08:59 PM

Quote from: Wardukw-NZ on March 03, 2023, 11:37:30 AMI'm wondering how long it will be before we see the ol T-55 make an appearance...because the way its going and how desperately tanks are needed by the russians ya just never know.

Are there any T-44s still in storage? 

    Scooter me good mate known russians it wouldn't surprise me ..in Poland there's this disused rail tunnel and inside it are about 200 brand new T-55s...and I mean brand new..was built..shipped there and that's where they've sat for over 40yrs ..for emergencies ya see 

Rick mate what the western powers was waiting for was one member to make a move..the US was already making moves with the Abrams and the UK now with Challenger..once that happened the Germans got on board now with Leo 2s ..they have this clause in their sales contracts with other counties staring that those countries can only sell their Leo 2 tanks with Germanys permission..seems now that the German government have come to the party which if they have then there's going to be quite a few more Leo's heading to the Ukraine.
Let's hope that's what happens .

Let's not forget that the West still has to replace most of that armour & the slow production rate of modern armaments is a major concern, at the moment, &, unlike the US prior to WW2, no-one has set up a system of broad-based emergency large-scale production of anything, especially ammunition - which is being used up at a much more prodigious rate, & for longer, than Western militaries thought was possible in a modern conflict (everyone expected such a war to have been fought & won, or to have gone nuclear before now).

Quote from: Old Wombat on March 03, 2023, 08:05:59 PM...... (everyone expected such a war to have been fought & won, or to have gone nuclear before now).

Thank goodness it hasn't, or we may not have been reading and writing here....................

Quote from: PR19_Kit on March 04, 2023, 02:52:40 AM

Quote from: Old Wombat on March 03, 2023, 08:05:59 PM...... (everyone expected such a war to have been fought & won, or to have gone nuclear before now).

Thank goodness it hasn't, or we may not have been reading and writing here....................

Quote from: Old Wombat on March 03, 2023, 08:05:59 PMLet's not forget that the West still has to replace most of that armour & the slow production rate of modern armaments is a major concern, at the moment, &, unlike the US prior to WW2, no-one has set up a system of broad-based emergency large-scale production of anything, especially ammunition - which is being used up at a much more prodigious rate, & for longer, than Western militaries thought was possible in a modern conflict (everyone expected such a war to have been fought & won, or to have gone nuclear before now).

I guess we're going to have an ammo shortage again ...   

As far as the Ukraine are concerned with ammo they aren't going to have much issues as most calibers they use are russian and there's plenty of countries who make it .
Places like Poland which are going to loose all there russian based main line heavies ..ie tanks and SPGs are going western and they are moving there excess ammo to the Ukrainians which is a huge amount.
The westerners have massive stock piles of ammo which is mind boggling ..I have seen one warehouse with over 20 billion rds of ammo in it ..made up of multiple calibers of course..5.56 ..7.62..  .50..9mm and .45 ...these are all normal military rds for the US and UK militaries.
For the heavy stuff they don't keep huge amounts of that in one place..a wee bit dangerous but in most warehouses 10s of thousands of rds is normal for what's called ready use..for the normal day to day military stuff ..then there's the stock piles which are swapped out all the time when it's starting to get to old ..that's then issued for ready use and it's replaced with new ammo.
A large amount of NATO countries do this for which is now pretty obvious reasons.
We might have a little storage for a little while but these numbers can be made good extremely fast .
Theses a manufacturing site in Missouri which is over 15sq kms in size and all it does is make ammo for the US Army.. it's only job and when it hits its peak it can punch out millions of rds a month.
Stock piles of weapons is also pretty damn amazing ..France released a large pile of 155mm guns to Ukraine not long ago ..they found them in a warehouse that everyone had forgotten about..ment to be scrapped..didn't get to them and then forgotten ..I believe they were FH70s.
In one warehouse in German ..in private hands is over 80 Leo1 MBTs and ARVs ..the German government is trying to buy them back to send to Ukraine after they've been upgraded..the seller is kinda playing ball but he's wanting a million euros each once all work has been done to them which is quite a lot .asbestos removed ..fire control systems fully upgraded..gunners sites to new thermal systems and so on...course the government wants them for JS..but that's normal.
In warehouses all over the planet there are stored thousands apon thousands of military vehicles..yup some pretty damn old but quite a few are not .
A perfect place for example is the bone yrds in Arizona..there is quite modern aircraft there..F16s..F18s..AH64s and so on..wrapped up and protected for future use...all the ones stored for use are in perfect condition and flight ready..with a little work .
When you get the numbers ..which are massive ..it is incredibly interesting to see what's not being used as to what is.

They probably tend to keep making things just to keep the production lines open & running, which hopefully that means they could ramp up fairly quickly.

Sez he, who has no real knowledge or experience of things like that... don'tcha just love ill-informed, ignorant speculation and assumptions?   

Still, it keeps me off the streets and out of trouble... mostly...

Quote from: Rick Lowe on March 04, 2023, 12:12:13 PMThey probably tend to keep making things just to keep the production lines open & running, which hopefully that means they could ramp up fairly quickly.

Sez he, who has no real knowledge or experience of things like that... don'tcha just love ill-informed, ignorant speculation and assumptions?   

Still, it keeps me off the streets and out of trouble... mostly...

Hahaha ..least your under control Rick..well to a point 

Quote from: Wardukw-NZ on March 04, 2023, 02:42:30 PM

Quote from: Rick Lowe on March 04, 2023, 12:12:13 PMThey probably tend to keep making things just to keep the production lines open & running, which hopefully that means they could ramp up fairly quickly.

Sez he, who has no real knowledge or experience of things like that... don'tcha just love ill-informed, ignorant speculation and assumptions?   

Still, it keeps me off the streets and out of trouble... mostly...

Hahaha ..least your under control Rick..well to a point 

Only to a given value of... after that, all bets are off!   

Well this is getting interesting. Finnish PM on the trip to Ukraine started publicly musing whether we should send (some of) our Hornets to Ukraine, but that such an endeavour would have to be coordinated with other countries (Australian Hornets were already sold, so presumably with Canada, Spain, and the US - there's of course 300 airframes in the Boneyard, so presumably we could get some of those restored to flying condition as an interim replacement before the F-35's start to come online from 2025 onwards).