European military power with no American support - AKA the tank counting thread

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Moved the discussion to a new thread from The Trump Presidency - Part 2

Does Europe have enough capabiliies without any American military or financial support? If not what does it need?

Trains, planes and tanks, no John Candy
 
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I mean the tanks were just something that we got sidetracked into.

Anyway I did some digging are actual available MBT's are far less than the number: for example out of 220+- MBT's in Storage for UK, only 152 are actually useable right now, the others got cannibalized. France and Germany is slightly higher percentages but also do not have good availability. Italian Ariete's are a wreck at the moment and they're being phased out for KF51 Panthers which haven't been delivered yet. Polish numbers are practically impossible to decipher, mainly because their official government documents only mention buys and there's scant sources on which regiments have been given new equipment and which old equipment has been phased out. Also it's in Polish and google translate/chatGPT isn't doing a good job. Gave up after that.
Oo0AahCantona said:
how quickly could the EU reorganise itself into one compatible standard force?
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Decades. And I mean that. It means a restructuring from top to bottom, standardization of vehicle standards, aircraft standards and interchangable spare parts.

As an analogy, European armies right now are like 1943 Wehrmacht. Panzer III, Panzer IV, Tiger, Stug III, Stug IV, Elefant, Jagdpanther, Panzer V, Sd Kfz 234, Sd.Kfz 251, each vehicle with about 5 subvariants and each produced by a different manufacturer with different spare parts and standards.

Air forces are slightly better, with some standardization in F-16's and Eurofighters, but it truly lacks the high-end tech platforms that USA compensates with.

The whole point is from top to bottom European militaries are just really weak.

The only thing it doesn't lack from a pure security point of view is that it's navies are quite competent.
 
Frosty said:
How much would decent reorganisation cost?
Click to expand...

Depends if everyone can get together and standardize.

So the Americans get a huge bang for buck on all their systems just from the scale of the orders.

It's always cheaper to do R&D and then pay for 5000 frames/units than do the same R&D and then buy 200.

If say the EU + UK agree on using Panther KF51 as the standard MBT, negotiate a proper technology transfer and patent usage for BAE, Thales, CIO etc, the price per unit would come down immensely.

Then create, say a massive order of Tranche-3 Eurofighters of 500+, again the cost per unit will go down drastically.

As an example, right now the MoD is upgrading all the existing Challenger II's to Challenger III's, working out at around 9 million GBP per tank.

US just sold brand new M1A2 Abrams Sepv3 to Poland

https://www.gd.com/Articles/2022/08...-to-poland-under-foreign-military-sales-order

Working out to around 4.59 million USD per tank.

The UK upgrades to existing tanks is 2x the cost of what is practically brand new Sepv3's. (Although they are just using old chassis that were unused built in the 90's).
It's just the lack of scale that makes European procurement so expensive.
 
Tanks are slow and irrelevant and are only necessary to maintain your position so we do not need tanks. The next war if there is one won't be fought on the ground.

Not with missiles capable hitting any target in within hours or undetectable drones that can strike at a moments notice.

If you look at the advancement of Russian troops into Ukrainian territory it was always preceded with annihilation of the enemy defenses and usually whole towns from the air.

Let's not even go to the nukes as that would be the last war.

The world is changing every day, soon cyber warfare will be prevalent and a dominant form of conflict.
 
Ultimate Grib said:
Tanks are slow and irrelevant and are only necessary to maintain your position so we do not need tanks. The next war if there is one won't be fought on the ground.

Not with missiles capable hitting any target in within hours or undetectable drones that can strike at a moments notice.

If you look at the advancement of Russian troops into Ukrainian territory it was always preceded with annihilation of the enemy defenses and usually whole towns from the air.

Let's not even go to the nukes as that would be the last war.

The world is changing every day, soon cyber warfare will be prevalent and a dominant form of conflict.
Click to expand...

Since people have encouraged me to be nicer therefore I shall simply not respond to me.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
Since people have encouraged me to be nicer therefore I shall simply not respond to me.
Click to expand...
This is at least as condescending. There is a lot of space between being patronizing or condescending and not responding at all.
 
Cheimoon said:
This is at least as condescending. There is a lot of space between being patronizing or condescending and not responding at all.
Click to expand...

No you are right, but it's incredibly frustrating reading stuff like this.

Military procurement and doctrine is a very technical field, that requires years and years of study to even begin to understand the basics. It's also ever evolving and it's also a topic that you can't really study or research in your spare time by reading articles online.

I've been in the field for over a decade and honestly there's a shit tonne of stuff that I still get wrong, that I make assumptions on and then find out it's actually not correct. Things like tank doctrine at the strategic and tactical level requires decades of experience first hand in command positions to fully understand and appreciate.

Imagine I go into a thread about vaccines and start spouting stuff about how it causes autism and how it's actually harmful etc despite having no background in medicine or biomedical sciences. I would definitely get shouted or laughed out the thread.

The confidence and arrogance displayed in the post above is really grating for that reason and it's basically like an anti vacc stance but on a wholly different topic.


Anyway I'll apologise for being condescending but the confidence in such a complex technical matter despite being so wrong is pretty irritating.
 
Probably the most rage-inducing part of European military integration is that the UK will probably eventually sit it out as Farage and Reform call it "even worse than being in the EU" and the whole next election would be fought on mutual defense or isolationism. It feels like such an important moment for collective defense and national issues will ultimately end up killing it.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
No you are right, but it's incredibly frustrating reading stuff like this.

Military procurement and doctrine is a very technical field, that requires years and years of study to even begin to understand the basics. It's also ever evolving and it's also a topic that you can't really study or research in your spare time by reading articles online.

I've been in the field for over a decade and honestly there's a shit tonne of stuff that I still get wrong, that I make assumptions on and then find out it's actually not correct. Things like tank doctrine at the strategic and tactical level requires decades of experience first hand in command positions to fully understand and appreciate.

Imagine I go into a thread about vaccines and start spouting stuff about how it causes autism and how it's actually harmful etc despite having no background in medicine or biomedical sciences. I would definitely get shouted or laughed out the thread.

The confidence and arrogance displayed in the post above is really grating for that reason and it's basically like an anti vacc stance but on a wholly different topic.


Anyway I'll apologise for being condescending but the confidence in such a complex technical matter despite being so wrong is pretty irritating.
Click to expand...
That's fair enough, but as long as people are open for discussion, its always a good time to have a conversation and exchange and update views. Or that's my perspective, anyway.
 
@AfonsoAlves
So what is your opinion on the effectiveness of tanks in Ukraine - Russia war? How effective are they? Are they used appropriately? In light of that, how do you think they will be used in future? Can they be replaced by some form of drones or remote controlled armored vehicles.
 
I guess Trump hasn't done anything insane for about 12 hours if we're all talking about tanks today
 
AfonsoAlves said:
I mean the tanks were just something that we got sidetracked into.

Anyway I did some digging are actual available MBT's are far less than the number: for example out of 220+- MBT's in Storage for UK, only 152 are actually useable right now, the others got cannibalized. France and Germany is slightly higher percentages but also do not have good availability. Italian Ariete's are a wreck at the moment and they're being phased out for KF51 Panthers which haven't been delivered yet. Polish numbers are practically impossible to decipher, mainly because their official government documents only mention buys and there's scant sources on which regiments have been given new equipment and which old equipment has been phased out. Also it's in Polish and google translate/chatGPT isn't doing a good job. Gave up after that.


Decades. And I mean that. It means a restructuring from top to bottom, standardization of vehicle standards, aircraft standards and interchangable spare parts.

As an analogy, European armies right now are like 1943 Wehrmacht. Panzer III, Panzer IV, Tiger, Stug III, Stug IV, Elefant, Jagdpanther, Panzer V, Sd Kfz 234, Sd.Kfz 251, each vehicle with about 5 subvariants and each produced by a different manufacturer with different spare parts and standards.

Air forces are slightly better, with some standardization in F-16's and Eurofighters, but it truly lacks the high-end tech platforms that USA compensates with.

The whole point is from top to bottom European militaries are just really weak.

The only thing it doesn't lack from a pure security point of view is that it's navies are quite competent.
Click to expand...

So are their air forces and military aviation.
Tornado sold almost 1000 and provided 3 different roles.
Now we have Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen.

And 2 6th generation fighter jet programmes while the US is still thinking about what to do.
 
Sky1981 said:
Is tank still relevant with the cheaper drones, and fifth generation jet fighter?
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If you study the actual footage from Ukraine, you can see how deadly tanks can still be in combat zones, even in this age of drones.

 
Ultimate Grib said:
Tanks are slow and irrelevant and are only necessary to maintain your position so we do not need tanks. The next war if there is one won't be fought on the ground.

Not with missiles capable hitting any target in within hours or undetectable drones that can strike at a moments notice.

If you look at the advancement of Russian troops into Ukrainian territory it was always preceded with annihilation of the enemy defenses and usually whole towns from the air.

Let's not even go to the nukes as that would be the last war.

The world is changing every day, soon cyber warfare will be prevalent and a dominant form of conflict.
Click to expand...
Agree. When I play Civ 5, tanks are almost never used in late game war. It’s all about air power, nukes, and fast moving infantry.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
No you are right, but it's incredibly frustrating reading stuff like this.

Military procurement and doctrine is a very technical field, that requires years and years of study to even begin to understand the basics. It's also ever evolving and it's also a topic that you can't really study or research in your spare time by reading articles online.

I've been in the field for over a decade and honestly there's a shit tonne of stuff that I still get wrong, that I make assumptions on and then find out it's actually not correct. Things like tank doctrine at the strategic and tactical level requires decades of experience first hand in command positions to fully understand and appreciate.

Imagine I go into a thread about vaccines and start spouting stuff about how it causes autism and how it's actually harmful etc despite having no background in medicine or biomedical sciences. I would definitely get shouted or laughed out the thread.

The confidence and arrogance displayed in the post above is really grating for that reason and it's basically like an anti vacc stance but on a wholly different topic.


Anyway I'll apologise for being condescending but the confidence in such a complex technical matter despite being so wrong is pretty irritating.
Click to expand...
Have you studied history at University, then? Because I distinctly remember you having very determined opinions about that (the siege of Leningrad comes to mind, for example).
 
AfonsoAlves said:
No you are right, but it's incredibly frustrating reading stuff like this.

Military procurement and doctrine is a very technical field, that requires years and years of study to even begin to understand the basics. It's also ever evolving and it's also a topic that you can't really study or research in your spare time by reading articles online.

I've been in the field for over a decade and honestly there's a shit tonne of stuff that I still get wrong, that I make assumptions on and then find out it's actually not correct. Things like tank doctrine at the strategic and tactical level requires decades of experience first hand in command positions to fully understand and appreciate.

Imagine I go into a thread about vaccines and start spouting stuff about how it causes autism and how it's actually harmful etc despite having no background in medicine or biomedical sciences. I would definitely get shouted or laughed out the thread.

The confidence and arrogance displayed in the post above is really grating for that reason and it's basically like an anti vacc stance but on a wholly different topic.


Anyway I'll apologise for being condescending but the confidence in such a complex technical matter despite being so wrong is pretty irritating.
Click to expand...
This is a forum, you will always get different opinions. Just because you gave worked in this field for so long does not mean that you’re going to be correct on absolutely everything either. Just a thought
 
AfonsoAlves said:
Decades. And I mean that. It means a restructuring from top to bottom, standardization of vehicle standards, aircraft standards and interchangable spare parts.

As an analogy, European armies right now are like 1943 Wehrmacht. Panzer III, Panzer IV, Tiger, Stug III, Stug IV, Elefant, Jagdpanther, Panzer V, Sd Kfz 234, Sd.Kfz 251, each vehicle with about 5 subvariants and each produced by a different manufacturer with different spare parts and standards.

Air forces are slightly better, with some standardization in F-16's and Eurofighters, but it truly lacks the high-end tech platforms that USA compensates with.

The whole point is from top to bottom European militaries are just really weak.

The only thing it doesn't lack from a pure security point of view is that it's navies are quite competent.
Click to expand...
So unified standard would be a no, how well can they cohesively fight together if they had to without it?

Would it be more “British division here, French division here” fighting together but supplied individually in different sectors?
 
Oo0AahCantona said:
So unified standard would be a no, how well can they cohesively fight together if they had to without it?

Would it be more “British division here, French division here” fighting together but supplied individually in different sectors?
Click to expand...
I’m no expert but you’d have to think so, otherwise it could lead to a lot of communication issues
 
golden_blunder said:
This is a forum, you will always get different opinions. Just because you gave worked in this field for so long does not mean that you’re going to be correct on absolutely everything either. Just a thought
Click to expand...
I did actually admit that himself btw.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
I mean the tanks were just something that we got sidetracked into.

Anyway I did some digging are actual available MBT's are far less than the number: for example out of 220+- MBT's in Storage for UK, only 152 are actually useable right now, the others got cannibalized. France and Germany is slightly higher percentages but also do not have good availability. Italian Ariete's are a wreck at the moment and they're being phased out for KF51 Panthers which haven't been delivered yet. Polish numbers are practically impossible to decipher, mainly because their official government documents only mention buys and there's scant sources on which regiments have been given new equipment and which old equipment has been phased out. Also it's in Polish and google translate/chatGPT isn't doing a good job. Gave up after that.


Decades. And I mean that. It means a restructuring from top to bottom, standardization of vehicle standards, aircraft standards and interchangable spare parts.

As an analogy, European armies right now are like 1943 Wehrmacht. Panzer III, Panzer IV, Tiger, Stug III, Stug IV, Elefant, Jagdpanther, Panzer V, Sd Kfz 234, Sd.Kfz 251, each vehicle with about 5 subvariants and each produced by a different manufacturer with different spare parts and standards.

Air forces are slightly better, with some standardization in F-16's and Eurofighters, but it truly lacks the high-end tech platforms that USA compensates with.

The whole point is from top to bottom European militaries are just really weak.

The only thing it doesn't lack from a pure security point of view is that it's navies are quite competent.
Click to expand...
So in essence, if you wanted to attack Europe, now wouldn't be the worst time to do so.
 
Oo0AahCantona said:
So unified standard would be a no, how well can they cohesively fight together if they had to without it?

Would it be more “British division here, French division here” fighting together but supplied individually in different sectors?
Click to expand...

Different countries has been ganking up since the dawn of history. It's not the best but it's workable

And that's before the era of real time war HQ where everyone can relay messages in real time
 
nimic said:
Have you studied history at University, then? Because I distinctly remember you having very determined opinions about that (the siege of Leningrad comes to mind, for example).
Click to expand...

We covered pretty in depth military history at Sandhurst which covered WWII in quite some depth.

Although my opinions in Leningrad are't that determined? My opinion is that the original plan was never to have a long term siege and the only reason it reached that point was because Army Group North got asset stripped for other operations in Center and South. Which is backed up by OKH minutes and documents.
 
I've heard that tanks can get crushed by badgers if you pile enough badgers on top of it - like fifteen of them or something. Does this crushing prevent the tank from being operable or does it glitch into the ground then fly around in a spin like in real life in Battlefield 3?

Any experts on tanks and military stuff able to help me out? A football forum must be littered with them.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
We covered pretty in depth military history at Sandhurst which covered WWII in quite some depth.

Although my opinions in Leningrad are't that determined? My opinion is that the original plan was never to have a long term siege and the only reason it reached that point was because Army Group North got asset stripped for other operations in Center and South. Which is backed up by OKH minutes and documents.
Click to expand...
I don't know if it's in the Sandhurst curriculum but there's a fantistic book about maintaining troop morale in times of war, written for the Germans during WW2 by Hauptmann Hans Nessun-Boompsadaisy.
 
What’s controversial about saying tanks aren’t the future of war? They aren’t, are they?
 
Mr Pigeon said:
I've heard that tanks can get crushed by badgers if you pile enough badgers on top of it - like fifteen of them or something. Does this crushing prevent the tank from being operable or does it glitch into the ground then fly around in a spin like in real life in Battlefield 3?

Any experts on tanks and military stuff able to help me out? A football forum must be littered with them.
Click to expand...
What kind of badger are we talking Honey, European, American or other?

I’ve been in badgers for over a decade.
 
Ultimate Grib said:
Tanks are slow and irrelevant and are only necessary to maintain your position so we do not need tanks. The next war if there is one won't be fought on the ground.

Not with missiles capable hitting any target in within hours or undetectable drones that can strike at a moments notice.

If you look at the advancement of Russian troops into Ukrainian territory it was always preceded with annihilation of the enemy defenses and usually whole towns from the air.

Let's not even go to the nukes as that would be the last war.

The world is changing every day, soon cyber warfare will be prevalent and a dominant form of conflict.
Click to expand...
Unless you have troops on the ground you do not take territory, so yeah it will be!
Russia have lost so many young men and have a low birth rate (1.4 per woman), they're pretty screwed long term.
Then with the growing move away from fossil fuels their economy is also going to have issues going forward. A bit of forward thinking from Putler to steal Ukraine's lithium deposits though.
 
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