Quote:
Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
Which is why it is odd that Germany is sending them Leopard 1s. They are a tank that requires complete retraining on, and it has an old 105mm main armament that can't penetrate newer T-72s.
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Longer term the West has to send Ukraine something armor, especially when it comes time to replace Ukrainian tank losses and for any potential offensive operations especially running into the summer when Russians are no longer limited to roads. Not sure how effective they will be given they probably won't be able to fire sabot rounds out of the 105mm or how Ukrainians will be trained on this. There are US forces in Poland currently training Ukrainian crews on how to use the artillery the US sent over so I'd expect similar by Germans when/if the time comes. At least they'll be able to knock of IFVs
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is holding that up at the moment so the Ukrainians don't even have them yet. Germans have given the Ukrainians $1B Euros to buy weapons, but won't transfer the existing tanks or Marder IFVs. Marders would be much more immediately useful to the Ukrainians atm. Easier to train and use those ones.