Red1 said:

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I was a former Army Tank Officer so I will discuss the attributes of M1A2 tanks. I think perhaps some of you might be interested.

Notice how relatively quiet these tanks are. The suspension is so good that we call it the Cadillac ride. That is the reasons that the tanks can travel so quickly on relatively smooth terrain that would be rough for other vehicles.

It has two types of rounds:
- HEAT rounds uses a shaped charge that creates a jet stream of liquid metal that is traveling at ~25k miles an hour.
- Sabot rounds are kinetic rounds. They are darts perhaps 1.5 feet long, 1.5 inches in diameter, weigh around 20 lbs. and travel at one mile per second.

It also has a canister round (think big ass shotgun shell for use against infantry), MPAT (multi purpose anti-tank, and STAFF, which is a fire and forget round. We currently do not use the STAFF round.

The tank can hit a moving target while the tank is moving because of a ballistic computer. The computer requires inputs like wind velocity and direction, barometric pressure, humidity, ammunition lot number.

It only takes a wind reading perpendicular to the tanks, and wind only affects the round for the first three feet out of the tube, after that there is no crosswind affect. It does not take any humidity reading at all, but does take a air temp and ammo temp reading which is manually entered. It also does not care about lot numbers, only the type of round you have indexed into the computer.

The engine is a 1500 HP turbine engine. It can travel 45 MPH and 60 MPH if the governors are removed.

It is electronically governed at 37 mph, and the electronic governor can not be removed.

It weighs around 70 tons.

The gunner has a 7.62 M240 machine gun that is linked to the ballistic computer. As the tank commander I had a 50-caliber machine gun.

Yep, the newest ones have a CROWS system mounted on top of the doghouse for the TC. There is no longer the flex mount up there.

We are starting to put Israeli made Trophy Systems on the tanks. The system detects incoming rounds and shoots a large shotgun blast at the round a few meters from the tank.

The effective range is 3000 meters, but I think the classified range is further.

The max effective range for the M1A2 is 5000 meters for the main gun, and 900 meters for the coax. The laser rangefinder will give a range out to 9990 meters, but will only give a ballistic solution to 5000 regardless of ammo type or weapon selected. The .50 is 1800 meters or tracer burnout.

Many of our tactics are similar to infantry tactics but with much more speed. That is a challenge.

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Militaries should conduct shaping operations. Shaping operations are essentially tasks that are conducted to prepare for future success. If I am reading the tea leaves properly, the Ukrainians are conducting shaping operations South of the Dnipro River. It is a major river and I believe the 42nd Russian Division is trapped behind the river. The Ukrainians have:

- Destroyed bridges over the Dnipro River.
- Destroyed Supply and Ammo Depots.
- Destroyed Command Posts.

Essentially the Ukrainians have conducted shaping operations around the 42nd Division for what I believe is in preparation for a counterattack. The CPT Obvious Statement is battles and wars are lost due to attrition to key assets and resources. In WWII when the Japanese lost all her aircraft carriers in the Pacific it sealed the deal. Japan did not have the naval air power to attack our fleets nor defend her fleets. We owned the air and thus the sea. The Germans lost most of her experienced pilots. She had rows upon rows of shiny planes but nobody to fly them with experience. Throwing inexperienced pilots into the cockpits did nothing for the Germans because they were easily shot down.

The Ukrainians are attempting to cause attrition to the 42nd Division. I don't have the metrics revealing Russian attrition, but I will strongly assume causing attrition is of the highest priority. There is no point in Ukrainians to slug it out with the Russian division until it is weakened materially. These are the Principles of War Ukraine should use when counterattacking:

- Mass at the right point of attack.
- Surprise.
- Maneuver.
- Offensive.

I don't know enough about the Ukrainian military to understand what counterattacking will look like. I am going to assume the Ukrainians will try to fix the Russians and flank them with another force. I can't reconcile the ideal situation with reality. However, if the Ukrainians can fix and flank with enough violence the Russians could be in major trouble. Imagine you are a commander fighting a lethal force and finding out there is an enemy force that can hit you from any direction. You will probably become more tentative. If the Russians retreat in fear and confusion, it is probably game over. It is difficult to be a disciplined fighting force when fleeing.

I hope this comes to fruition.

Often ideology is the Center of Gravity of groups, people, and military. The military term, Center of Gravity, is defined as a true strength thus ideologies are very important because it often leads to actions. The ideology of the American Colonists was freedom from English control. The ideology of that freedom created a strong cause for the Americans. Many wars have been fought due to ideologies and the causes they created. It was in the Civil War, Revolutionary War, WWII, Afghanistan and all the other wars. You can dissect many wars to determine ideologies that drove the wars. The Taliban ideology is Sharia Law.

Sometimes ideology is problematic in the sense a defeated people will continue to cling on to their ideology, and sometimes it takes many generations to change it. A good example is the Civil War and what transpired many decades after the war.

Later I will tie in ideology and revolutions.

I believe the Ukrainians are counterattacking. The 42nd Russian Division is trapped on the West side of the Dnipro River, and its a major river. I read the SECDEF and Biden gave the Ukrainians weapons more suitable for counterattacking. However, they were not specific. There are reports of Ukraine breaching Russian defenses.

Here are some thoughts:

- The 42nd is trapped on the West side of the Dnipro River. I believe the bridges used for logistics, retreat, and reinforcements have been destroyed. The 42nd is isolated.
- The Russians might have to defend a front that could be 200 miles or more. The division has approximately 25,000 soldiers. That is not large enough to defend such a large front, and gives Ukrainian forces lot of room to maneuver in the area of operations which should mean flanking the Russians.
- I don't know if the Russians are capable of conducting a mobile defense. The significance of this is if the Ukrainians have mobility, and freedom to maneuver, they can surprise the Russians. The Ukrainians can mass forces at critical points and have greater numbers.