I know this isn’t really the main point, but no kidding the Ukranians can’t logistically support these things. The Abrams is a notorious fuel hog. They only reason the US is able to make use of them is because we can afford to field fleets of dedicated fuel trucks alongside them.
The Abrams requires something like 300 gallons of fuel (ideally jet fuel) for every eight hours of operation, depending on conditions. I understand that the Ukranians are already experiencing vehicle shortages. They almost certainly won’t have the capacity to deploy dedicated fuel trucks in sufficient numbers to sustain an armored force large enough to matter. And, even if they did, the Russians’ apparent air superiority (or near-superiority, I’m not clear on that) would allow them to kill the trucks with impunity, which has been the most effective tactic for halting an armored assault since WW2.
I may just have an incorrect picture of the situation, but there’s a reason the Abrams never does much good for the people we export them to.
Abrams also can’t handle the Ukrainian terrain very well; it was designed with open space in mind, but Ukraine has so many hills, streams/rivers, trees…it would become a slightly more mobile AT emplacement lol
My understanding is that Soviet tanks are built significantly lighter and smaller than the Abrahms because the Soviets weren’t capitalism brained dipshits and actually considered what weights the bridges and roads their tanks were intended to operate on could stand. Also, apparently the US only has like one or five bridgelayers capable of deploying bridges the abrahms can cross. The thing will not have good manuervability in Eastern Europe while mobility was made an important design constraint for Soviet armor.
It also weighs 70 tonnes, 80 with the addon packages, so good luck crossing bridges.
I hadn’t even thought of that, but you’re precisely right. I mean, generally, we’ve been using the Abrams in roles for which it was never intended for decades. The Abrams was designed decades ago for a massive armored clash in the Fulda Gap that never came to be.
Now granted, no tanks do well in irregular terrain like that, but the Abrams is basically only deployable in any effective capacity by the US. The Ukranians would see very little benefit from them even if the country was as flat as Kansas.
