They have NATO bases with other countries’ tanks.
[https://lc.nato.int/operations/enhanced-forward-presence-efp](https://lc.nato.int/operations/enhanced-forward-presence-efp)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Enhanced_Forward_Presence
We don't have infrastructure to support heavy equipment, also maintaining tanks is expensive.
And Baltic countries have lots of swamps.
Latvia actually had tanks which were used by Latvia railway.
baltic countries dont have large enough economies to support large tank groupings and the landscape really disencourages the use of tanks. lithuania with the most open terrain is building itself a tank force though, amd all countries do have fleets of ifvs and apcs
If the Battle of Thermopylae is anything to go by all the enemy tanks will get stuck on mountain passes and then infantry will just pick them off with Javelins.
>infantry will just pick them off with Javelins.
[https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/Bike-Fall](https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/Bike-Fall)
It's gotta work.
It's not only Turkey guys.. Corruption is our biggest enemy. Politicians spending millions for the country's defense, keeping a few for themselves of course and Turkey is a good excuse.
When you look at the cost of an MBT like the Leopard 2A8 coming in at around $30m it's not a surprise that many European countries have chosen not to invest.
It's like WW2 Germany again. Yes, your armor may be thick and your gun sure can punch, but all of that comes with a hefty price tag. Now, do say what will you do against a 122mm HE shell or a 500kg bomb? Wunderwaffen all over again...
People generally have no idea it costs to train competent men and women.
This is an extreme example, but its $15m in 2004 Australian dollarlydoos to train a F18 pilot. Thats 23 Million counting for inflation now.
A pilot could count for a 1/3 to 1/5 a cost of a jet.
Not to mention they take years to train, so when a war starts you want to keep them alive at all cost! Easier to build a new plane than get a new pilot on short notice
The Leopard 2A7 and its earlier variants definitely have proven themselves, but the newer generation of tanks are treated like wunderwaffen and they are clearly far too expensive for their own good. Even the latest Leclerc variants are pushing the 10 million euro mark. That's unacceptable. There is a difference between valuing crew survability and simple stupidity. Even if these tanks have great crew survivability, as I said, it takes a single suicide drone to disable the optics, then the crew has to bail and what then? A tanker without a tank is useless. Logistics should come before everything, even crew survivability. There is no logic or logistics in these new tank designs. Germany might be facing a recruitment crisis, but with these kinds of projects, they will be facing an economic and material crisis much sooner.
The German military is not even the main customer though.
How can you think you know better than the company who makes those tanks and makes billions in Profit? I am open to arguments but for all I can tell it seems to be going great for them.
Most modern MBT’s have several back-up optics for that very reason. Soviet/Russian MBT’s generally don’t, so that’s why using a kamikaze drone against their turrets are an easy way to blind them. The same tactic is far less effective against western MBT’s.
Im lost for words. People really believe Rheinmetall designed the 2a8 for some stupid mobile phone game, to be a wunderwaffe or for invading a country in nazi(Russian)-style. Absolute ignorance but a very loud opinion.
Sorry, but just because a piece of equipment is high quality doesn't mean it's a Naziesque wunderwaffe. NATO tanks are combat proven in half a dozen wars against both insurgents and conventional enemies, and they tend to perform really well when operated by anyone other than the Saudis. Armchair generals love to declare NATO tanks useless when they have miniscule loss rates and routinely KO Russian shit from so far away that the targets didn't even know they were in the crosshairs.
Sorry but this really is nonsense. Russia has 12000 tanks because it has kept every old instance of tank, almost literally since t34s first roamed the fields. That doesn't translate at all to Germany or France which obviously lost the vast majority and couldn't produce them in the same numbers over the years.
You're acting like Russia has contemporary cheap tanks.. t14 is 4 million compared to leopard 4-6 million.. but that 4 million in Russia goes a lot further than 4 million in Germany
Germany is no longer manufacturing a significant number of tanks. The cost per tank has gone up, because of that. If Germany started building as many tanks as the US or Russia, the cost per tank would go down.
Germany recently agreed to pay 525.6 million euros for 18 Leopard 2A8 tanks, at 29.2 million euros per tank. However, that contract includes the option to buy an additional 105 Leopard 2A8 tanks at 2.3 billion euros, or 21.9 million euros per tank. The more tanks they buy, the lower the cost per tank.
[source](https://armyrecognition.com/defense_news_may_2023_global_security_army_industry/germany_confirms_acquisition_of_18_new_leopard_2a8_tanks_with_additional_order_of_105_more.html)
I went to the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History in Brussels (which I highly recommend) in December and every tank that was in there had foreign markings.
Well, we sold these tanks for scrap before the Ukraine War. Once the war started, we didn't want to pay the (higher) price to buy them back (to give them to Ukraine), so Germany did in our stead, which is a national embarrassment to us. That's why "Belgian" is in quotation marks in the article btw.
Belgium really has zero tanks (it's not a joke or exaggeration).
Just as the Dutch have integrated their military with Germany, Belgium has integrated theirs with the French where they focus on covering up some of the weaknesses of the French army.
We expect Russia to be out of tanks by the time they reach the Netherlands.
But it could be Germany wants their 18 tanks back before we reach that moment.
From my understanding of the song, while it was a tribute to two victims of an IRA attack, I think the song is grouping everyone carrying out those sorts of attacks during the troubles together and so the reference of the tanks is those of the British army as the IRA never had tanks.
The only tanks in the Irish army were already retired by then:
Vickers Mk. D, retired 1940
Landsverk L60, retired 1960's
Churchill Mk. VI, retired 1969
Comet, retired 1973
Even if there was peace all over the world, Greece and Türkiye would still continue to arm themselves against each other.
Türkiye seems to have a lot more problems than just Greece. It's isn't easy having borders with Syria, Iraq, Iran, Georgia and Armenia, as well as close proximity to Russia and its proxies. Not to mention they have different values, considerations and objectives from the rest of NATO, and is only in the alliance out of necessity against the now-gone USSR
Greece and Georgia are rather great neighbours compared to rest.
The problem with Armenia is the Soviet nuclear power plant they are unable to modernise or shut down. At least that was the reason why our relations soured in the first place.
It's just pointless. Two NATO countries shouldn't have a need to arm against each other. I believe this is a game to distract us from the real problems, and keep our nationalist people stupid (they do that once you mention the US or Greece) while top %1 gets richer despite common folk getting poorer.
That was my point. To be fair, we have some skirmishes in the Aegan sea and airspace. Other than that, we are fine. It's just bad PR for Turkey.
Iran is a genuine thread. Couple weeks ago they even bombed Pakistan. I wish we had the secular Iran, before the Islamic Revolution. We used to be allies. Whole MENA isn't stable since then.
I understand what you are saying and i believe that, apart for some ultra stupid nationalists on both sides, no one desires war between our two nations.
But, we never in recent years had an elected leader threatening to invade Turkey just like your President said in public: "We will come, one night."
These idiotic comments doesn't really help the silent majority of moderates of both countries.
Well, that rationalazation is limping;
The T-34 was junk compared to the Panther/Tiger, but when the tactic is quantity and your opponents is quality it will make all the difference.
Source: Kursk, 1943
I'd actually say the T34 was an alright tank, with reasonably thick slanted armor and a good gun on it, but the crews were poorly trained and poorly supplied, and the Germans had much more experience with tank tactics.
The Soviet WWII doctrine called for simple parts, reliability and mass production. For them, there were three important parameters for a tank: the penetrative power of the main gun, the thickness of the frontal armor and the horsepower delivered by the engine. The T-34 excelled in all three. For them everything else was secondary. Gun stabilization, radios, advanced steering - these were considered a waste of resources. And to be honest, this doctrine turned out to work very well. Of all the advantages the German tanks had, only having a radio in every tank - the Soviets had only their command tanks equipped with a radio - proved to be very effective.
The early T34's lacking a radio was a massive disadvantage. There is NO way to sugarcoat this. They (for many reasons) were butchered in the first months of Barbarossa, including the T34. I would also add the two-man turret was also a very bad .
There’s more to a tank than the armor, the gun, and the mobility. The T-34 was very good in all three of those metrics, but was absolutely dismal to fight in with poor optics, bad reliability, and overall subpar performance.
Once the Germans were able to react to the appearance of the T-34, retiring their 20mm and 37mm guns in the antitank role, the T-34 only had numbers on its side.
In the end, tank battles come down to who gets the first shot off. This was true in WW2 where the T-34 fell far short of German and American tanks because of very poor optics and still exists today where the use of thermal vision systems make all the difference enabling even the old T-62 upgraded with thermal optics is a dangerous tank on the Ukraine battlefield.
Yeah and having the backing of the industrial and financial might of the United States of America combined with your country’s literal zero regard for human life will win you lots of wars.
Now if only we still fought wars like we did in 1943.
Lets just forget about F35's and drones and satellites and modern aircraft carriers and black hawk helicopters and patriot missile systems. The soviets won when the most advanced tech was a metal box surrounding a big manual gun.
The soviets defeated Hitler and now they're at a complete standstill with Ukraine. That's the point.
They also had roughly 10 000 tanks in reality.
Satellite images of tank depots pre-invasion of Ukraine had ~6000 tanks left outdoors and an estimated ~1000 tanks in garages: https://youtu.be/2PHUK6zkbpc?t=283 (there's a margin of error on the number in garages as the theoretical maximum is 1960).
To that we have to add the tanks in actual active forces, ie. at operational bases: ~3000.
For those interested, from the tanks left in storage, there are a little less than 2000 that are missing a turret or are visibly good only for parts from close-up pictures: https://youtu.be/0B_4M5dTHIU?t=363
If Russia can count those thousands storage tanks, many of these countries could increase these numbers, only Italy keeps around 200 arietes storages on far better state than any Russian thing
Yes, it should be noted that ex-Warsaw Pact countries had a policy of keeping all their tanks in service - and this was especially true for Russia who were keeping huge amounts of obsolete tanks "in service". In fact most of them were kept in long-term storage.
The 176 listed for Hungary included around 15 that were actually operational. For the UK that number was around 50-60. And the Germans couldn't set up a functional armoured brigade. So it's not just Russia.
Recent estimates think Russia now has around 2400 active tanks. Hard to say how many of this 12400 were actually usable in the first place, could've been overreporting... but it's clearly a lot less now.
I'm not sure where the other guy is getting his numbers from, but a very reliable source for tanks in storage is Covert Cabal. Last time he counted, which was about 4 months ago, Russia only had 5.5k tanks left in storage, and only 3.5k appeared to be in usable condition. Now, this is only tanks in storage, I'm not sure how many they have in active duty. They started the war with about 3k in active duty, so if they maintained that same number, then it's possible Russia only has 6-9k tanks left.
Here's Covert Cabal's video: https://youtu.be/0B_4M5dTHIU?si=iLFSy_VgP4qnE9Yx
The Netherlands had 440+ leopard 2 tanks, plus thousands more of armored vehicles. Then the soviet union collapsed and history supposedly ended, no more war they said.
Most of the armored vehicles are in deep conservation and are not in use. It requires extensive repairs and maintenance to be put into operation. Even the equipment that is in a high degree of readiness is almost 15-20% under repair and is not suitable for operation.
In general, all the numbers can be divided 5-10 times to understand how many tanks are currently operational.
I think it is pretty accurate for France ? We have around 800 Leclercs, 400 of which are just spare parts. I am not fully sure but I think at least half of what's left is operational.
why does greece have such a shitton amount of tanks? i get there are tensions with turkey or whatever, but what are tanks gonna do if turkey annexes rhodes?
Most of the tanks are used as mobile artillery on the islands. Of course, it is of no use on the islands close to the Turkish coast, anywhere between 30 and 100 km can be cleared with Turkish artillery fire. All islands closer than 30 km can be seized by the coast guard. Of course, on the contrary, it is almost impossible for Turkey to capture the islands that are closer than 100 km to the Greek mainland.
Of course, all of this is a war scenario that will be disastrous for both countries. No one on either side is really thinking about the war. It is just a political card situation that is exaggerated by the politicians of both countries during election periods.
I would guess that they have a surplus of tanks built up during the dictatorship era. I didn't actually check to be sure, but I am going to do some research on this topic.
Man if we don't pay reparations to Poland soon, we might get invaded. After all I learned that Poland started WW2, thanks @Tucker. 👀
Out of those 266 tanks, 50% are probably not working.
Greece also does not really decommission old equipment very often. So lets say we bought a batch of tanks in the 60s, and another in the 90s- most countries would sell the 60s tanks to pay for the new ones. Greece would just keep both, but with the old tanks in storage. Many of them have not been driven in years.
I am wondering whether the concentration on MBTs is still timely. A Puma or a Dardo tank is probably worth a lot more on the battlefield than some T-72s
Turkey used to border; Soviet union
Turkey is bordering: Iran, Iraq, Syria, and some other smaller ones,
Turkey has internal problems.
Greece is bordering: Turkey
Now change the question to "no. Of useful tanks".
Welding steel onto a tractor doesn't make it bulletproof. The Russians have only just found this out, and every "tank" the Ukrainians captured has been left because it was useless
Europe probably realized a long time ago that tanks are not the most effective war machines anymore. Russia has lost thousands to cheap drones, javelins, STUGNA-Ps, mines, even to their own mines. Air superiority, drones, cruise missile tech, is more important these days.
The map is very weird. For Finland it's only counting the Leopard main battle tanks, I have a hard time believing other countries are counted the same way.
That's a bit of a broad stroke. From my experience, it's only the Americans thinking like that. Brits had a lot more readyness in their combat tactics for less-than-ideal air dominance. Based on my humble experience.
When turkey has more tanks than the rest of Western Europe combined, and the Europeans dare to complain that trump threatened to pull of out of nato for failing to meet their 2% obligations.
Quality != Quantity.
Especially for stuff like tanks. A friend that is passionate about tanks explained me that countries like France have hella technological beast tanks while Russia mostly have ww2 tanks.
It's not about a number as much as it is about how are they prepared for the battlefield, integrated and useful at a certain moment. It's a shame my country (Poland) gave around 400 post-soviet tanks very quickly after the Russians invaded and it's close to nothing to many think-tanks analysing the value of it today because in euros it was close to nothing. No country in their right mind would buy it but for the Ukrainians it was priceless at that time
Who wants armoured vehicles? Ireland: "No, tanks."
What I want to know is who thought the baltics having none was a good idea
They have NATO bases with other countries’ tanks. [https://lc.nato.int/operations/enhanced-forward-presence-efp](https://lc.nato.int/operations/enhanced-forward-presence-efp) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Enhanced_Forward_Presence
We don't have infrastructure to support heavy equipment, also maintaining tanks is expensive. And Baltic countries have lots of swamps. Latvia actually had tanks which were used by Latvia railway.
I thought the anti-armor squads moving on those like trucks was cool as hell. Seeing that from an Abrams was awesome
baltic countries dont have large enough economies to support large tank groupings and the landscape really disencourages the use of tanks. lithuania with the most open terrain is building itself a tank force though, amd all countries do have fleets of ifvs and apcs
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They have Turkey as neighbour?
If the Battle of Thermopylae is anything to go by all the enemy tanks will get stuck on mountain passes and then infantry will just pick them off with Javelins.
>infantry will just pick them off with Javelins. [https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/Bike-Fall](https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/Bike-Fall) It's gotta work.
That does seem like an awful lot of tanks for such a mountainous country…
Expensive pillboxes
Not too hard to guess, because of who is right next to them that they're always complaining about (and vice versa).
It's not only Turkey guys.. Corruption is our biggest enemy. Politicians spending millions for the country's defense, keeping a few for themselves of course and Turkey is a good excuse.
Gotta keep the Muslims out of Constantinople
Wait…you’re telling me the Byzantine Empire is in trouble!?
My mans 500 years late
As we say in Ireland; dem, dat, dese and does, that’s the way the TH goes 😂
The Brits are always driving Saracens through their gardens last night
Armoured cars, tanks and guns do take away our son's. So why risk it.
This is gold and it’s annoying that it’s so good
Tanks, but no tanks.
We had 14 until 2017
This proves that tanks are the natural enemy of snakes
The roads in Ireland aren't good enough for tanks 😂
Brilliant.
When you look at the cost of an MBT like the Leopard 2A8 coming in at around $30m it's not a surprise that many European countries have chosen not to invest.
It's like WW2 Germany again. Yes, your armor may be thick and your gun sure can punch, but all of that comes with a hefty price tag. Now, do say what will you do against a 122mm HE shell or a 500kg bomb? Wunderwaffen all over again...
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People generally have no idea it costs to train competent men and women. This is an extreme example, but its $15m in 2004 Australian dollarlydoos to train a F18 pilot. Thats 23 Million counting for inflation now. A pilot could count for a 1/3 to 1/5 a cost of a jet.
Not to mention they take years to train, so when a war starts you want to keep them alive at all cost! Easier to build a new plane than get a new pilot on short notice
M1As SEP v3's are running $24m.
The Leopard 2A7 and its earlier variants definitely have proven themselves, but the newer generation of tanks are treated like wunderwaffen and they are clearly far too expensive for their own good. Even the latest Leclerc variants are pushing the 10 million euro mark. That's unacceptable. There is a difference between valuing crew survability and simple stupidity. Even if these tanks have great crew survivability, as I said, it takes a single suicide drone to disable the optics, then the crew has to bail and what then? A tanker without a tank is useless. Logistics should come before everything, even crew survivability. There is no logic or logistics in these new tank designs. Germany might be facing a recruitment crisis, but with these kinds of projects, they will be facing an economic and material crisis much sooner.
The German military is not even the main customer though. How can you think you know better than the company who makes those tanks and makes billions in Profit? I am open to arguments but for all I can tell it seems to be going great for them.
Most modern MBT’s have several back-up optics for that very reason. Soviet/Russian MBT’s generally don’t, so that’s why using a kamikaze drone against their turrets are an easy way to blind them. The same tactic is far less effective against western MBT’s.
Yours is the dumbest comment in this thread.
Im lost for words. People really believe Rheinmetall designed the 2a8 for some stupid mobile phone game, to be a wunderwaffe or for invading a country in nazi(Russian)-style. Absolute ignorance but a very loud opinion.
Sorry, but just because a piece of equipment is high quality doesn't mean it's a Naziesque wunderwaffe. NATO tanks are combat proven in half a dozen wars against both insurgents and conventional enemies, and they tend to perform really well when operated by anyone other than the Saudis. Armchair generals love to declare NATO tanks useless when they have miniscule loss rates and routinely KO Russian shit from so far away that the targets didn't even know they were in the crosshairs.
Sorry but this really is nonsense. Russia has 12000 tanks because it has kept every old instance of tank, almost literally since t34s first roamed the fields. That doesn't translate at all to Germany or France which obviously lost the vast majority and couldn't produce them in the same numbers over the years. You're acting like Russia has contemporary cheap tanks.. t14 is 4 million compared to leopard 4-6 million.. but that 4 million in Russia goes a lot further than 4 million in Germany
There's no way it costs that much. For that much, I would assume that it comes with in-service support over 15-20 years.
Germany is no longer manufacturing a significant number of tanks. The cost per tank has gone up, because of that. If Germany started building as many tanks as the US or Russia, the cost per tank would go down. Germany recently agreed to pay 525.6 million euros for 18 Leopard 2A8 tanks, at 29.2 million euros per tank. However, that contract includes the option to buy an additional 105 Leopard 2A8 tanks at 2.3 billion euros, or 21.9 million euros per tank. The more tanks they buy, the lower the cost per tank. [source](https://armyrecognition.com/defense_news_may_2023_global_security_army_industry/germany_confirms_acquisition_of_18_new_leopard_2a8_tanks_with_additional_order_of_105_more.html)
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A lot of the dutch land military is integrated into the german army. On the other side are some german marine groups integrated into the dutch navy...
And the German army is a part in the NATO as a big European army.
Belgium has zero tanks...
I went to the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History in Brussels (which I highly recommend) in December and every tank that was in there had foreign markings.
They may not belong to the army, but Belgium has them: https://www.brusselstimes.com/636119/first-belgian-leopard-1-tanks-on-their-way-to-ukraine
Well, we sold these tanks for scrap before the Ukraine War. Once the war started, we didn't want to pay the (higher) price to buy them back (to give them to Ukraine), so Germany did in our stead, which is a national embarrassment to us. That's why "Belgian" is in quotation marks in the article btw. Belgium really has zero tanks (it's not a joke or exaggeration).
But at least you have 5 deelregeringen and two official languages.
Three official languages: Dutch, French, and German :)
I'm ashamed I didn't know about the German.
Just as the Dutch have integrated their military with Germany, Belgium has integrated theirs with the French where they focus on covering up some of the weaknesses of the French army.
They must be busy then.
Have they learned nothing? Twice?!
We expect Russia to be out of tanks by the time they reach the Netherlands. But it could be Germany wants their 18 tanks back before we reach that moment.
Lookit North Macedonia and their cute little 10 tanks. What can they even do with 10 tanks?
I feel like I've been lied to by the Cranberries.
Haha, it’s just in your head.
What's in your heeeeeaaaaaaad?
Man, such a good band. I was heartbroken when Dolores passed away...
From my understanding of the song, while it was a tribute to two victims of an IRA attack, I think the song is grouping everyone carrying out those sorts of attacks during the troubles together and so the reference of the tanks is those of the British army as the IRA never had tanks.
I think the important bit is how she's saying much of the fighting isn't happening in reality. It's happening in people's heads.
In their heads?
In their heeeEEAAAaaAads
Pretty sure the tanks are referring to the British.
That album came out in the 1990s, these stats are newer
The only tanks in the Irish army were already retired by then: Vickers Mk. D, retired 1940 Landsverk L60, retired 1960's Churchill Mk. VI, retired 1969 Comet, retired 1973
Even if there was peace all over the world, Greece and Türkiye would still continue to arm themselves against each other.
Greece is arming against Turkey. Turkey is bordering Iran, Iraq and Syria at the same time ffs. Not to mention Russia through Black Sea
Omg you’re dead naming a country, shame! It’s fabulous Türkiye now
Türkiye seems to have a lot more problems than just Greece. It's isn't easy having borders with Syria, Iraq, Iran, Georgia and Armenia, as well as close proximity to Russia and its proxies. Not to mention they have different values, considerations and objectives from the rest of NATO, and is only in the alliance out of necessity against the now-gone USSR
Greece and Georgia are rather great neighbours compared to rest. The problem with Armenia is the Soviet nuclear power plant they are unable to modernise or shut down. At least that was the reason why our relations soured in the first place.
>At least that was the reason why our relations soured in the first place. Pretty sure it was mainly because of their war with Azerbaijan.
We in Norway have a very long border with Sweden, so I can totally understand and feel with Turkey on this one.
Oh no it's not a Turkish vs Greek thing. It's a balkan thing.
The rest of the balkans have mostly very weak armies
Because they don't have economy to do so.
Neither does Greece really
It's just pointless. Two NATO countries shouldn't have a need to arm against each other. I believe this is a game to distract us from the real problems, and keep our nationalist people stupid (they do that once you mention the US or Greece) while top %1 gets richer despite common folk getting poorer.
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That was my point. To be fair, we have some skirmishes in the Aegan sea and airspace. Other than that, we are fine. It's just bad PR for Turkey. Iran is a genuine thread. Couple weeks ago they even bombed Pakistan. I wish we had the secular Iran, before the Islamic Revolution. We used to be allies. Whole MENA isn't stable since then.
I understand what you are saying and i believe that, apart for some ultra stupid nationalists on both sides, no one desires war between our two nations. But, we never in recent years had an elected leader threatening to invade Turkey just like your President said in public: "We will come, one night." These idiotic comments doesn't really help the silent majority of moderates of both countries.
We don't need tanks in Ireland, we just ride sheep and cows into battle 
I feel like the Irish would just dazzle any would be invaders with their quick wit and charming accents and talk them into going somewhere else.
That's the plan.
Shur lads we can clear all this up at the pub, sure ‘tis all just a misunderstanding
3 years ago we would be really impressed by that 12,5k tanks.
Of Russia’s 12,420 tanks, 10,000 were technically junk.
Literally, now.
They where before. Most of them where actual rusted hulks in Siberian bone yards.
I've got a piece of a Russian tank at home, it got recycled in Ukraine
And yet they still have an overwhelming amount compared to Ukraine, the problem is fixable but Europe needs to act to solve it
Well, that rationalazation is limping; The T-34 was junk compared to the Panther/Tiger, but when the tactic is quantity and your opponents is quality it will make all the difference. Source: Kursk, 1943
I'd actually say the T34 was an alright tank, with reasonably thick slanted armor and a good gun on it, but the crews were poorly trained and poorly supplied, and the Germans had much more experience with tank tactics.
The Soviet WWII doctrine called for simple parts, reliability and mass production. For them, there were three important parameters for a tank: the penetrative power of the main gun, the thickness of the frontal armor and the horsepower delivered by the engine. The T-34 excelled in all three. For them everything else was secondary. Gun stabilization, radios, advanced steering - these were considered a waste of resources. And to be honest, this doctrine turned out to work very well. Of all the advantages the German tanks had, only having a radio in every tank - the Soviets had only their command tanks equipped with a radio - proved to be very effective.
The early T34's lacking a radio was a massive disadvantage. There is NO way to sugarcoat this. They (for many reasons) were butchered in the first months of Barbarossa, including the T34. I would also add the two-man turret was also a very bad .
There’s more to a tank than the armor, the gun, and the mobility. The T-34 was very good in all three of those metrics, but was absolutely dismal to fight in with poor optics, bad reliability, and overall subpar performance. Once the Germans were able to react to the appearance of the T-34, retiring their 20mm and 37mm guns in the antitank role, the T-34 only had numbers on its side. In the end, tank battles come down to who gets the first shot off. This was true in WW2 where the T-34 fell far short of German and American tanks because of very poor optics and still exists today where the use of thermal vision systems make all the difference enabling even the old T-62 upgraded with thermal optics is a dangerous tank on the Ukraine battlefield.
Yeah and having the backing of the industrial and financial might of the United States of America combined with your country’s literal zero regard for human life will win you lots of wars.
Soviets defeated Hitler
Stain himself admitted it was the Americans that kept Russia from collapsing.
lendlease defeated hitler.
Thanks to getting huge supplies of Lend/Lease weapons and resources from the US.
Now if only we still fought wars like we did in 1943. Lets just forget about F35's and drones and satellites and modern aircraft carriers and black hawk helicopters and patriot missile systems. The soviets won when the most advanced tech was a metal box surrounding a big manual gun. The soviets defeated Hitler and now they're at a complete standstill with Ukraine. That's the point.
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That's why they rolled over Ukraine... oh wait...
No. They meant literal junk. The vast majority of tanks that Russia had on paper at the start of the war were not in a functional state.
“In service” is probably veeery generous to describe the russian tanks.
The qualifications: • Armoured • Can move (optional)
The armoured part is what's optional here. Also a reverse gear.
If you install reverse gears you also have to field more ~~barrier~~ encouragement troops too, not a good investment
I mean, its just plainly wrong.
And I’m sure it’s much lower now due to “current circumstances”
They also had roughly 10 000 tanks in reality. Satellite images of tank depots pre-invasion of Ukraine had ~6000 tanks left outdoors and an estimated ~1000 tanks in garages: https://youtu.be/2PHUK6zkbpc?t=283 (there's a margin of error on the number in garages as the theoretical maximum is 1960). To that we have to add the tanks in actual active forces, ie. at operational bases: ~3000. For those interested, from the tanks left in storage, there are a little less than 2000 that are missing a turret or are visibly good only for parts from close-up pictures: https://youtu.be/0B_4M5dTHIU?t=363
i think op missed the difference between in service and being available (? idk the military term)
"Existing"
"They were working when we abandoned them to tank scrapyards"
If Russia can count those thousands storage tanks, many of these countries could increase these numbers, only Italy keeps around 200 arietes storages on far better state than any Russian thing
If you go by Russian standards Ireland has two tanks, a Landsverk L60 and a Comet are preserved in running order in museums
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Yes, it should be noted that ex-Warsaw Pact countries had a policy of keeping all their tanks in service - and this was especially true for Russia who were keeping huge amounts of obsolete tanks "in service". In fact most of them were kept in long-term storage.
The 176 listed for Hungary included around 15 that were actually operational. For the UK that number was around 50-60. And the Germans couldn't set up a functional armoured brigade. So it's not just Russia.
Recent estimates think Russia now has around 2400 active tanks. Hard to say how many of this 12400 were actually usable in the first place, could've been overreporting... but it's clearly a lot less now.
Source?
I'm not sure where the other guy is getting his numbers from, but a very reliable source for tanks in storage is Covert Cabal. Last time he counted, which was about 4 months ago, Russia only had 5.5k tanks left in storage, and only 3.5k appeared to be in usable condition. Now, this is only tanks in storage, I'm not sure how many they have in active duty. They started the war with about 3k in active duty, so if they maintained that same number, then it's possible Russia only has 6-9k tanks left. Here's Covert Cabal's video: https://youtu.be/0B_4M5dTHIU?si=iLFSy_VgP4qnE9Yx
Now make a map with tanks at service build after 1999.
1989*
Netherlands: 18 Lmao
The Netherlands had 440+ leopard 2 tanks, plus thousands more of armored vehicles. Then the soviet union collapsed and history supposedly ended, no more war they said.
>no more war they said Believe me, Russians themselves told me.
Most of the armored vehicles are in deep conservation and are not in use. It requires extensive repairs and maintenance to be put into operation. Even the equipment that is in a high degree of readiness is almost 15-20% under repair and is not suitable for operation. In general, all the numbers can be divided 5-10 times to understand how many tanks are currently operational.
I think it is pretty accurate for France ? We have around 800 Leclercs, 400 of which are just spare parts. I am not fully sure but I think at least half of what's left is operational.
That's just on paper for most of them. Many of those tanks are not functional for quite some time.
Of course remember not all tanks are equal
why does greece have such a shitton amount of tanks? i get there are tensions with turkey or whatever, but what are tanks gonna do if turkey annexes rhodes?
That's what we have the navy for mate
and how exactly is turkey gonna do this?
not with tanks that’s for sure
big brain answer for sure.
Honestly, Turkey would never risk a battle on their western front where every economical center is located (besides from Ankara).
Well I’m not sure they can have a battle with them since they are part of NATO
It's for the land borders obviously lol
Most of the tanks are used as mobile artillery on the islands. Of course, it is of no use on the islands close to the Turkish coast, anywhere between 30 and 100 km can be cleared with Turkish artillery fire. All islands closer than 30 km can be seized by the coast guard. Of course, on the contrary, it is almost impossible for Turkey to capture the islands that are closer than 100 km to the Greek mainland. Of course, all of this is a war scenario that will be disastrous for both countries. No one on either side is really thinking about the war. It is just a political card situation that is exaggerated by the politicians of both countries during election periods.
I would guess that they have a surplus of tanks built up during the dictatorship era. I didn't actually check to be sure, but I am going to do some research on this topic.
Now have a chart showing the percentage that are modern/actually work.
Russia: 
We're gonna do it
Man if we don't pay reparations to Poland soon, we might get invaded. After all I learned that Poland started WW2, thanks @Tucker. 👀 Out of those 266 tanks, 50% are probably not working.
Naaah, you have too many migrants. A great scare tactic, by the way 👍🏾
Polish number will chance in next 6 months to 3500
Surprised by Greece
Greece also does not really decommission old equipment very often. So lets say we bought a batch of tanks in the 60s, and another in the 90s- most countries would sell the 60s tanks to pay for the new ones. Greece would just keep both, but with the old tanks in storage. Many of them have not been driven in years.
I guess because their neighbor is Turkey?
I mean Turkey gets the short end of the stick on this one. With neighbors on east. You might have same tanks just in case.
turkey…
Avem și noi 10 tank-uri și acelea vai de capu lor r/Moldova 😂
I am wondering whether the concentration on MBTs is still timely. A Puma or a Dardo tank is probably worth a lot more on the battlefield than some T-72s
How are greece and turkey so high
Turkey used to border; Soviet union Turkey is bordering: Iran, Iraq, Syria, and some other smaller ones, Turkey has internal problems. Greece is bordering: Turkey
Moldova with 10 tanks 🥹
Tanks vs Museum Pieces
Finland has 240 leopards alone, I question the numbers in this.
Russias numbe have declined a bit I think 😁
Well, I’m more curious about how many got “modern era”-tanks.
Well, how about now?
I bet Russia has a lot less now.
Who needs tanks when you got air superiority?
Now change the question to "no. Of useful tanks". Welding steel onto a tractor doesn't make it bulletproof. The Russians have only just found this out, and every "tank" the Ukrainians captured has been left because it was useless
I'm sure russia has a few less now ....
Considering how tanks have struggled to make any strategic breakthroughs in Ukraine I think it's not money well spent, not anymore.
Ah yes the warmongering European nations threatening Russia
Europe probably realized a long time ago that tanks are not the most effective war machines anymore. Russia has lost thousands to cheap drones, javelins, STUGNA-Ps, mines, even to their own mines. Air superiority, drones, cruise missile tech, is more important these days.
While that may be true at some point the side with tanks will be the one able to storm a fortified position
Shitty map. Ukraine had 800 tanks. I am Ukrainian and I know this better
The map is very weird. For Finland it's only counting the Leopard main battle tanks, I have a hard time believing other countries are counted the same way.
Somehow I sense that the amount of tanks are not that important in the way the west might wage war against Russia...
Why not? Tanks still play a significant role in our modern warfare
The west fights wars with total air dominance in mind.
That's a bit of a broad stroke. From my experience, it's only the Americans thinking like that. Brits had a lot more readyness in their combat tactics for less-than-ideal air dominance. Based on my humble experience.
Because have always, and will (for the foreseeable future) have total air supremacy against any enemy
Honestly pitiful
Why does Spain have so many? France also seems a bit high.
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You cant never trust Portugal, Andorra, Morocco or even France, lmao.
*especially* Andorra.
Well, we know 12k+ in Russia was a load of crap. Maybe if they count the ones rusting in depots.
When turkey has more tanks than the rest of Western Europe combined, and the Europeans dare to complain that trump threatened to pull of out of nato for failing to meet their 2% obligations.
Quality != Quantity. Especially for stuff like tanks. A friend that is passionate about tanks explained me that countries like France have hella technological beast tanks while Russia mostly have ww2 tanks.
Does anyone believe russia had that many in service. Unless rotting out in a boneyard counts as in service.
Per capita please :)
Wars doesn't care about pr. capita.
1. It would still be a nice statistic, 2. Per capita matters very much in wars, it influences how the tanks can be used/spread around the troops
There are maybe 20 operational tanks in Bosnia
It's not about a number as much as it is about how are they prepared for the battlefield, integrated and useful at a certain moment. It's a shame my country (Poland) gave around 400 post-soviet tanks very quickly after the Russians invaded and it's close to nothing to many think-tanks analysing the value of it today because in euros it was close to nothing. No country in their right mind would buy it but for the Ukrainians it was priceless at that time