Probably laser guided munitions with a drone illuminating the target. Notice the roadside tree rows? The kill projectile would need a very steep terminal trajectory to avoid pre-triggering.
If there was ever a time Canada should deploy its Leopards to eastern Europe it's now. Since we're not, I have to wonder if savings can be made by eliminating the unit and selling/gifting the CAF's approximately one hundred Leopards to Ukraine.
Leo 1's would require complete retraining for use by the Ukrainian military. They have a four-man crew with a loader. You may not think it but that is a real set of skills that no tanker in Ukraine would have due to the autoloaders on every Russian tank since the T-64. The operator maintenance, while similar because all tanks have the same needs, will be completely different in detail and they would need to learn the new procedures and manuals. That would be even more miserable at the unit level of maintenance. Then there is the difference in the fire control systems, and I am unfamiliar if the German tanks ever received the laser rangefinder upgrades that the Belgian and Canadian Leo's did. Lastly, they are armed with the L7 105mm rifle. While there is still huge stocks of that ammo available with it's use on things like the godforsaken Stryker Mobile Gun System, none of it is in Ukrainian stocks and would have to be supplied along with the vehicles.
probably you are correct:
ukroboronprom.com.ua
I actually do agree with almost everything you say. Personally the training of the tank crews whilst difficult is probably easier to do than the training of the engineers who will maintain them as special tools would be needed, spares from vision blocks, to tracks, to the complex engines and all the new electronics learnt and understood.
After the war, yes. Getting them integrated into NATO standard weapons and vehicles should be a high priority. The Leopard Ones would be an excellent purchase or "Loan" via some form of lend lease.
Only Poland have at least 700 T72 available....400 active duty and 300 in reactivation process started a year ago.
Indeed, that was pretty dumb of Poland on the MiGs. Someone in media relations in the Polish government or military thought it would be great virtue signaling to tell the world they're helping with the MiGs and the whole thing blew up. When the smart move was to keep it on the down low, paint them all in Ukrainian colours, bus their pilots to Poland and have them fly them home.
The problem with that is that Poland need to back-fill with US aircraft. It was the US who scuppered the deal by not providing replacement aircraft. There were multiple ways to get the aircraft to Ukraine without involving anyone else, but htat would have left Poland without cover.
actually im agree with gumbyk in this matter - parts of the deal who screwed this most were USDoD and USDoS, Polish politicians just added some dumb statements which were "cherry on the top of the cake"
A point that's probably not lost on Volodymir. Life imitating art.
