Remember all the fanfare over the U.S. sending Abrams tanks to Ukraine? Supposedly in time for the much vaunted Spring Offensive?
That didn’t happen. Evidently the usual Biden Administration competency was in play. But now the allotment of M1A1 Abrams tanks (not the M1A2s previously discussed) are finally ready to be shipped over.
The first batch of Abrams tanks that the U.S. is providing to Ukraine was approved for shipment over the weekend, and the tanks remain on track to arrive in Ukraine by early Fall, Army Acquisition Chief Doug Bush told reporters on Monday.
“The last of the set was officially accepted by the U.S. government or the production facility over the weekend. So they are done,” said Bush. The 31 Abrams tanks destined for Ukraine – older M1A1 variants – had been undergoing refurbishment and preparation for shipment for months.
Though the tanks are ready, they still have to be shipped overseas and sent to Ukraine, “along with all of the things that go with them – ammunition, spare parts, fuel equipment, repair facilities,” Bush said. “So it’s not just the tanks.”
The goal, said Bush, remains to get the Abrams tanks to the unit level by “early Fall.” He did not give a specific date or even month. Last month, Politico reported that the tanks would arrive on the battlefield in September.
Helping Ukraine repel Russia’s illegal war of territorial aggression has frequently been cited as a top priority by members of the Biden Administration,a cause in whose over $46 billion in military aid has been sent. Given that the UK’s Challenger 2 tanks arrived in Ukraine in March, it would seem like the Biden Administration hasn’t treated their pledge of Abrams tanks with any urgency.
To be sure, several U.S. weapon systems (HIMARS, Patriot, Excalibur and various drones) have proven absolutely vital in letting Ukraine resist the Russian invasion. But for something the U.S. defense establishment, and just about all our NATO allies, view as a top priority, the Pentagon as been quite sluggish at getting them tanks. A cynic might wonder if it’s because, being drawn from existing stocks, sending them M1A1s doesn’t grease enough Beltway Bandit palms.
Given how long it will take to train Ukrainians on them, maybe they’ll be available for the 2024 Spring Offensive…
Tags: Department of Defense, Foreign Policy, M1A1, Military, Russo-Ukrainian War, tanks, Ukraine
How many Ukrainians have to die before we let them negotiate a settlement?
Hope it occurs before this becomes NATO vs Russia.
They are slow-rolling the M1 tanks because they hope it’ll all be over before they show up. Possibly in a “negotiated settlement” that the Biden Krime Krewe will force down Ukraine’s throat…
Do not make the mistake of thinking that Biden’s faction is on Ukraine’s side in all this. I’d lay you long odds that they’re being blackmailed into supporting Ukraine due to the dirt that the Ukrainians have to have on them. Remember that the Burisma owner that paid off Hunter is a Russian oligarch, and that the whole thing is highly suspect, a minefield of unrevealed truths and factions.
I think you can make out an outline of what the original intent was, which was to betray Ukraine into Russian hands. That’s why Zelensky was offered the flight out of Kyiv; he refused it, and I suspect he made the Biden faction a counter-offer: You give me weapons, and I don’t do a data-dump of all this crap we have on you to the world…
You can make out the gritted-teeth manner in which we’re “aiding” the Ukrainians, and slow-rolling the stuff they really need, like ATACMS, M1 tanks, and F-16 fighters.
Of course, I might be totally mistaken…
After observing some of the recent Bradley/Leopard II combined arms footage and the aftermath I am – shall I say – non-plussed about the Ukrainian army’s combined arms skill. Granted they have had to be trained on the fly, but on the fly training is still on the fly training. A two month crash course in armored platoon doctrine with a dash of ‘here’s how you work with infantry’ and ‘here’s how you develop a breaching plan’ do not successful OpOrds make.
It pains me to say that, short of a miraculous spool-up, we’ll be seeing smoking M1A1s in the zaporizhzhia salient once the rasputitsa thaws next year. The same applies to F16s and all the other whizz-bang gear (short of ATGWs…which they need more of) we’ve been sending. All of this ‘stuff’ works within a doctrinal and logistics ecosystem that is immensely larger than a great piece of equipment and it’s crew, regardless of how well trained they are.
It is clear that doctrinal and logistical ecosystem does not exist in Ukraine, and is in fact being supplied from DC from 10,000 miles away through a broadband connection.
I thought other countries sent tanks from inventory, but the US ordered new tanks so had to wait for them to be built. I don’t know whether you’d call that slow-rolling or just placing a different priority on self defense as the customarily lickspittle approach some of our European allies take to the defense biz.
I guess six of one half a dozen… Ukraine could have used the tanks in the Spring but if they can count on a steady supply of armament arriving over time, that helps as well.
I read somewhere Ukraine has abandoned it’s NATO tactics training and is reverting to what it has more experience with. So other than a friggin thick plate of armor I don’t know if the fancy gubbins in an Abrams is going to be a game changer. Hard to imagine a lot of cross unit coordination with the ragtag assortment of weapons over there and Soviet era tactics.
No, M1A1s would be old stock, not newly assembled tanks. They probably did need mild referb, and the replacement of any parts we don’t want falling into Soviet hands, but I can’t imagine we manufactured new versions of a tank that last rolled off the assembly line in 1992.
Then again, Biden DoD has issued contradictory stories about the tanks, so who knows?
Still don’t understand why we ordinary folks should give a damn which Slavic narcissist dictator is in charge of Ukraine. Yeah, Putin is a war criminal, which is meaningless in reality. Who’s going to put him on trial? And if his counterpart in Kiev were in Putin’s place he likely would have done the same things. The only reason we are over there wasting billions is to protect the Biden crime empire. All the other proffered reasons are just rationalizations, IMO. What a Charlie Fox.
This and the story about the non-maintained “war ready stock” artillery and HMMWVs and such from the depot in Kuwait raise sharp questions about US practices for keeping existing military equipment as reserve stockpiles. If everything stored is not maintained such that it needs to go either through full up depot maintenance, or even back to the manufacturer for tar down and rebuild, before it can be used by anyone, what is the use case where it is valuable to us?
Just storing stuff poorly because the Soviets stored stuff, while we contract the upkeep to the lowest bidder and don’t robustly inspect, is dumb. We’d be better of scrapping it all, or selling it off as foreign military sales to allies who want our old stuff, and working on funding production capacity that can surge.Or better yet store it properly, more along the lines of the planes in eth boneyard at Davis Monthan in AZ, preserved and sealed with defined reconstitution plans tested and in place.
No money or material to Ukraine.
An illegitimate government laundering money for US and UK politicians.
“ I am – shall I say – non-plussed about the Ukrainian army’s combined arms skill.”
Absent air superiority, Ukraine will be unable to mimic NATO tactics. Accordingly, they will have to slog through minefields and trenches the way they were trained under Russian war doctrine.
Malthus, even with air superiority I’m dubious. In two of the clips I’ve seen the breaching assault stalled because the Bradleys were bunching up to rescue each other’s crews after mine and ATGM hits. Huge no no. They could’ve had a big belly B-52 Strike on standby and it wouldn’t have mattered because they got bogged down saving their buddies instead of accomplishing the mission.
I don’t want to go too far down the armchair general hole because none of us are there or can say with even 50% certainty what happened just watching videos, but I can’t say with a straight face having air dominance and a NATO doctrinal support structure with all the bells and whistles would matter.
I think there are troop quality issues.
I think there are morale issues….huge ones.
I think there’s a huge training and curriculum issue.
Ukraine’s problem is a personnel problem now. Best kit in the world isn’t going to solve that.
What does solve that is NATO troops in country, which as we all know is the mother of all escalations, attendant with the sum of our worse fears.
” NATO troops in country”
Forgot to caveat this, I acknowledge they’re already there, I was speaking about full strength, openly acknowledged NATO combat formations in country with the intent of seeking out direct actions against Russian forces. Not mercy. Not NGOs. And not advisors.
Trenches and mine fields suck the big one. NATO and the US ndver had to play against the new types of mines. There is always the trade-off of blood and time. Infantry trenches, anti-tank trenches and obstacles are a real pain.
Most of the theft and grift occurs before the cash or hardware leaves the US. Corruption is probably the worst in Russia or the US. Those on the East-Side at least have the excuse of a history under the Commies. The million dollar yachts and horrendous dachas in Russia were paid for with the blood of Russian conscripts. The Eastern Churches are nationalistic. The Russian Orthodox Church is run by the Patriarch Kirill, is a regular lunchtime buddy of Putler. He is defacto KGB and deserves a bullet, not sympathy. I agree that war-ready storage is a joke. The Congress spends the money on grift and ghetto bribes rather than on preparedness. That and surgeries and hormone shots for the mentally ill trannies and defectives that are being recruited and excused from deployment. The drop in enlistment or re-enlistment of “normies” is no surprise. We are fortunate that Putler made his play while we still have some “normies” in uniform. The Russians have a terrible failure rate in their guided missiles and bombs. That is a good reason that they target large masses of civilians. When you are targeting Granny and the kiddies at the market, a big boom and lots of shrapnel is good enough. The Russkie’s were apparently startled at the effectiveness of the Tomahawks in Syria. over night, orders were given and 60 of 60 launched (some of which had been ” in the can” since the Burks had been launched). One had a wonky altimeter and splashed in the Sea of Rome. The others hit their targets at the empty Syrian airbase. The Media has been quiet, but I’d bet that every Russian S-400 installation, and every officer’s outhouse was “visited” by the “Hawks”. At 400+ MPH and 100 feet, by time you hear the noise, it is gone, unless it had your name in its computer. Then you are gone. The Russkies can rattle their nukes, but they know that the “Hawks”, or their modern eauivalent, can put 1,000 pounds of unpleasantness under the toilet paper roll, or in the middle of the sofa. Fuck the dumb grunts, blowing the office or the chilluns is serious business. And the crazy Yank ” mo- fos” made it clear that Moscow will not even see it coming.
The Moskva showed that the Russkies are in worse shape than the US. I read that conscripts are “culled” by the Service branches. KGB/FSB, Border guards, Spetznaz, get first pick. The Navy is fairly high in that heirarchy, but you can’t teach Swabby a lot in the year available. Ships is complex machines. The Sea-Whiz (CIWS, Close In Weapons System) consisting of at least 6 30mm Gatling Guns never even fired at the incoming missiles. The missiles hit high above the water line. Photos show that the cruiser settled evenly, indicating that bulkheads in the lower engineering spaces were open. Under tow, the water surged and the cruiser turned turtle. You can’t teach them much in a year’s enlistment. The Infantry are the dregs of Russia and I suspect that their officers aren’t much better.
There is a lot more to the Ukrainian story. Don’t be distracted by President Depends, or the Russian propaganda. The RightWing/GOPe/RINOs gave up their standing long ago. Team Russia knows only murder/ torture/rape/ theft, just like the Swamp creatures in the District. Helping the Ukrainians is a good start. It is a better use of resources than grifting the DemocRATicals dealing with the swarm of Illegal Aliens. One problem at a time. Better the cash is used to crush Putsky’s oligarchs than simply stolen to feed the degenerate swarm.
Compton, California is the model. The Illegals are the army designed to drive the Ghetto people out into the surround. There will be plenty of battles to fight in your local community. I hope we do as well as the Ukrainians.
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From what I heard, these M1A1 tanks were brand-new, purpose-built for Ukraine, because they needed to NOT have certain built-in capabilities that we didn’t want to risk falling into Russian hands.
This was the reason for not simply sending some we have waiting in our stockpile.
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