Of the 31 Abrams tanks the U.S. sent to Ukraine
At $10 million apiece, tanks like the Abrams are not easily replaced.
They're missing what makes these hard to replace. It's not the sticker price -- "just" 1 billion could buy you 1000. It's that the U.S. currently lacks the production capacity to quickly manufacture replacements.
Unintentionally a great demonstration of the "industrial capital vs. finance capital" conflict in this war.
Exactly, the one thing the war showed is that the GDP metrics the west has been using to measure the size of an economy are completely worthless. Turns out that Russia alone has the industrial capacity to outproduce all of the west combined.
I wouldn't say that the GDP metrics are useless, though I don't think you mean that literally. But in this context, they aren't the point.
You're right, though 10mil is a lot when that financial capital that the Ukrainian military relies on is pretty sparse. Represents a nice ROI for Western powers who are definitely invested in providing maximal value for the Ukrainian military.
We know that tanks still work well when properly supported by other parts of he military so they don't get instantly blown up. This just means that Ukraine is not using the tanks they have with proper support. I wouldn't be surprised, after all, they have a severe manpower shortage.
Right, AFU is not capable of doing proper combined arms warfare at this point.
On the contrary. Tanks, like any other system, will take losses.
Being able to replace material losses while avoiding and replacing personnel losses is a key part of any long conflict.
Well, that is also true, but Ukraine has clearly suffered in its use of tanks if they are just being blown up when being taken out on the road. Both the tank species mentioned in the article (abrams and leopards) have been taken out of the picture mostly, either through underutilisation, or destruction.
abrams still around in pokrovsk area, and leopards around in several areas.
Rubbish, it was never dominant to begin with
It was dominant to the only other tanks it was faced against, like uhhhhh Iraqi T-55s
Which I'm sure had nothing to do with satellite targeting, air support, artillery and missiles and oh Iraqi army leadership getting bribed to flee
Of the 31 Abrams tanks the U.S. sent to Ukraine, six have been destroyed
Is it really that low? I was pretty sure it was at least double that many by now.
yeah, I'm pretty sure there are more than 6 documented cases
ok yeah it's most of them 😂 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ukraine-has-problem-20-out-31-m1-abrams-tanks-have-been-destroyed-212760