From their first use as land battleships in World War I, tanks are an attack weapon. They can be used in defense, but as my last post pointed out, the German force attacking France in 1940 was outnumbered and outgunned by the British and French tanks in defense. And France surrendered in five weeks.
Speculation is rampant on line and in the media that the Russians will attack in the spring before Ukraine can take delivery of the NATO tanks promised to them recently. They could be right, but nothing the Russians have done in the past month or the past year gives me much worry that the Russians will put together an overwhelming attack against Ukraine.
The military generic term for armor is MPF--Mobile Protected Firepower. This includes not only main battle tanks but armored personnel carriers like the Bradley Fighting Vehicle which the US is sending to Ukraine already. The Bradley is fast, is armed with a 25mm rapid-fire cannon and can carry an infantry squad into battle.
With a large number of MPFs and trained crews supported with fuel and ammo, the Ukrainian army can punch through the Russian lines and destroy their command posts and supply lines.
German Leopard 2 tanks are faster, more reliable and have vastly better gun sights and gun controls than the Russian tanks opposite them. More importantly, Ukraine has shown in other battles that they will know how to use armor. They will mass their tanks at a weak point in the Russian defense and break through.
I bought the t-shirt I am wearing (above) and the Deutsche Panzer Museum. It says, "Tanks are not Neutral." They are offensive weapons. I look forward to wearing this shirt while watching or listening to news about Ukrainian victories in the coming year.
A German soldier I was talking to in the museum said the shirt is also ironic. The German Army, like many armies and government organization, is trying to use more gender neutral language. German is a very gendered language and Panzer is a male-gendered word. The shirt is also a protest of making the word Panzer gender neutral.
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