Biden Sending 31 M1 Abrams Tanks to Ukraine, Russia Calls the Move ‘Blatant Provocation’
Germany and Poland are sending tanks, too.
President Joe Biden announced the U.S. would send 31 M1 tanks to Ukraine, following similar moves by European nations.
Biden told Russia not to view the tanks “as an offensive threat”:
In remarks at the White House on Wednesday, President Biden said the tanks would “enhance the Ukrainians’ capacity to defend its territory and achieve its strategic objectives.” He said the delivery of the tanks shouldn’t be seen by Russia as an offensive threat, contending that they are intended to help Ukraine defend itself.
“The Abrams tanks are the most capable tanks in the world, they’re also extremely complex to operate and maintain,” he said, adding later, “Delivering these tanks to the field is going to take time—time that we’ll use to make sure the Ukrainians are fully prepared to integrate the Abrams tanks into their defenses.”
Yeah, that won’t work because Russia already views any help for Ukraine as a threat:
“If the United States decides to supply tanks, it will be impossible to justify such step using arguments about ‘defensive weapons’,” Russia’s Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said on Telegram Wednesday.
“This would be another blatant provocation against the Russian Federation. No one should have illusions about who is the real aggressor in the current conflict,” he claimed.
Happening Now: President Biden delivers remarks on continued support for Ukraine. https://t.co/AQbQsiyJdp
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 25, 2023
On Tuesday, Germany told Poland it won’t block them from sending German-made Leopard tanks to Ukraine.
I don’t think anyone needs reminders why Poland is nervous about any kind of Russian aggression near its border.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced his decision to also give Ukraine Leopard 2 tanks. From CNBC:
“This decision follows our well-known line of supporting Ukraine to the best of our ability. We are acting in a closely coordinated manner internationally,” said the Chancellor in Berlin.
The goal is to quickly assemble two tank battalions with Leopard 2 tanks for Ukraine. As a first step, Germany will provide a company with 14 Leopard 2 A6 tanks from Bundeswehr stocks. Other European partners will also hand over Leopard-2 tanks. The training of the Ukrainian units is to begin quickly in Germany. In addition to training, the package will also include logistics, ammunition and system maintenance.
Germany will issue the appropriate transfer permits to partner countries that want to quickly deliver Leopard 2 tanks from their stocks to Ukraine.
Other European nations, especially those in NATO, could follow Germany and send their Leopard 2 tanks. Britain promised Ukraine “14 of its own Challengers.”
Biden said Scholz’s decision didn’t force him to change his view on the tanks: “I wanted to make sure we were all together.”
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The M1 tank is a multi-faceted weapons system. It’s not just the tanks that are required. So…. “dumb down” the tanks or go full on? This is more and more directly NATO/US versus Russia as the technological investment in Uklraine increases. This isn’t the Soviet Afghanistan counter offensive… this is The Warm War. No longer “Cold” and edging toward “Hot”. Maybe a pool is in order as to when…not if… nukes are used?
Biden’s puppet masters want him to be annother Roosevelt.
Or Obama, the Nobel Peace Price (sic) recipient, who started and financed World War Springs (e.g. second Iraq war) through an Iranian proxy, including the Slavic Spring by way of Kiev, in progress.
Franklin or Eleanor?
Maybe a pool is in order as to when…not if… nukes are used?
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more than anything, vlad wants to stay in power–can’t see him initiating the use of nukes–political and possibly literal suicide–can see some other player (perhaps china) introducing their use covertly and then all hell breaking loose
Maybe two generations of Russians in the future might blink but too many still around that saw what happened after the West “won” the last war. Since the fall of the Warsaw Pact Russia has been in a defensive posture…hence not the once powerful Soviet military that could attempt to punch through the Fulda Gap. The way things are going…. not good.
I say Putin uses tactical nukes when he finally musters his new army of 300-500K draftees and makes a drive from Belarus to Lviv to close off the Polish border. I don’t see how nukes do him any good without a large enough army to take and hold the territory. So maybe by Summer.
It has been explained bluntly to the Kremlin by NATO and the Pentagon that any use of nukes, tactical or dirty will be met with overwhelming conventional force against Moscow itself, one which will not be survivable. Enough with the Russian nuke blackmail. They have threatened it for too long and bought for too long..
“Tactical” nukes are as obsolete as crossbows. Precision munitions have taken over their role.
Russia is already winning big time. It doesn’t need nukes as long as the Ukrainians are willing to send their troops on suicide missions like the failed counteroffensive in Karkov and Kherson, and the Bakhmut meat grinder.
Russia doesn’t even have to waste diesel chasing the Ukrainians around the steppes. They voluntarily present themselves for slaughter in Donbas.
its that type of thinking that has the possibility of ensuring they do get used. fastest way to decommission a nuke is to use it.
“If the United States decides to supply tanks, it will be impossible to justify such step using arguments about ‘defensive weapons’,”
Russian double speak. Of course they are tanks for defense, defense against a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Imagine that. A nation wants an invader gone and is willing to fight and die to do it…
Imagine if that Nation had the forethought to invest in their own defense while simultaneously not choosing to provoke a confrontation with a neighbor that led to the most recent invasion. Imagine if that Nation had told the Western powers, no thanks, we prefer not to have our Nation’s Citizens die for your causes.
If Ukraine chooses to use their blood and treasure to fight good for them and best wishes. When they or anyone else demand others do the same then that’s an entirely different thing. The current situation in Ukraine reveals the truth; the govt of Ukraine is a client state of the West, particularly the US and UK. No serious person should have been surprised at the Russian invasion, it was clearly telegraphed and was the natural result of nearly a decade of Western duplicity. There are no white hats in this conflict, especially not the govt of the USA.
Russian invasion of Ukraine is a western cause? Yes. Time to close down the US military except to defend our borders and remove all troops from Europe and Japan and S Korea. We have decided that 70 years of promises mean nothing and US commitments are meaningless.
1. Ukraine is not a NATO member. We owe no duty to Ukraine.
2. Tell other Nations to bear the cost in blood and treasure for their own defense? Sounds good.
3. The cold war era formulations went out in the early 1990’s when the West won the cold war era and the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact dissolved.
That is either the perfect amount of sarcasm or the most foolish take yet. I’m not sure which.
No white hats and several miscalculations. DC didn’t believe Russia would attack. Russia believed a brief limited engagement against Kiev would be enough. All of Putin’s men said yessir when asked how well prepared their military was when needed. He has been lied to for decades which is now obvious to the world. Russia needed no “provocation” to invade Kiev. Crimea was simply annexed a few years ago with not so much as a ‘buy your leave’. The Eastern Oblasts were to be no different or so they thought. Nazis in the East was a flimsy excuse which didn’t flush and if none existed they would have been conjured up.
This Ukraine story didn’t begin a few years ago or after the break up of the USSR, it began just over a hundred years ago around 1914, which coincidentally is the European map Putin has in mind. It won’t happen. Neither will his idea of a RUBK alliance like he envisioned about 20 years ago. Putin made clear in late Sept. 2022 with his speech after ‘annexing’ the four eastern regions of Ukraine what his vision is today. https://www.geopolitika.ru/en/article/putin-proclaims-russian-idea.
He was clear. This attempt doesn’t end with eastern Ukraine.
Well before the 20th century, Imperial Russia wanted warm water ports. The desire remains for most of the same reasons. The West and Ukraine foolishly provided the justification or pretext depending upon on ones perspective. Either way Ukraine’s people and infrastructure are getting jacked. All at the behest of arrogant and overconfident folks who pretend consequences don’t follow actions.
The only winners in this mess will be western, read US, defense contractors. Oh, and their Congressional pimps, can’t forget them.
Biden is an idiot and sending the tanks are a huge misstep, but not because the Russians don’t like it:
“Throughout the war, Moscow provided Hanoi with 95 S-75 air defense missile systems, over 500 airplanes, 120 helicopters, more than 5,000 anti-aircraft guns and 2,000 tanks. In addition, more than 10,000 Soviet military specialists were dispatched to Vietnam: from missile crews, pilots and signalmen to tank crews and doctors.”
Giving Ukraine the tanks drags us further into the morass (as does providing someone in the UK yet ANOTHER massive tranche of cash). In all, this is yet another ill-defined, never-ending, wealth bleeding, mission to ‘defend’ a country we have no treaty to defend.
No. The problem is these particular tanks have turbine engines and can’t really be repaired anywhere in Europe.
The US Army pulls the engine and replaces it for anything wrong above unit level maintenance capabilities. New engine shows up on a low boy and takes the old one away. Pulled and replaced by unit level maintenance.
US has 14 tanks per company 3 platoons of 4 each with one tank each for the CO CDR and XO. Basically we sent enough (32) to deploy 6 platoons worth with the remainder as spares for combat losses. Maybe could push that to 7 platoons but that doesn’t leave much room.
I don’t know that this tiny number of tanks drags us anywhere. It probably just wastes some perfectly good tanks we can use ourselves in the next war.
These tanks are way too few for now to matter. They are symbolic. Several hundred from NATO nations will be needed…
They are also getting another Co worth of Challenger tanks from UK and likely the ‘hundreds’ will be Leopards as lots of those around Europe, in service with plenty of folks to train the Ukrainians.
Of course the replacements for the donated Leopards will likely be purchased from the US so our Defense contractors and the Congressional perpetual war coalition wins.
A tiny skirmish in the South China Sea between a couple US destroyers and N Viet PT boats couldn’t possibly lead to a war that cost us 50,000 people. Until it did.
Time for the US people to relearn the terms ‘mission creep’ and ‘incrementalism’. Or the metaphor of the camel’s nose where the permitting of a small, seemingly innocuous act will open the door for larger, clearly undesirable actions.
You’re right. We should skip the incremental steps and go straight to properly arming Ukraine instead of dribbling out aid so we don’t need to send our own troops into harm’s way.
Yes, but why does America have to be involved?
So who is going to be manning these tanks? This is not a hop in and turn the key kind of thing.
We’ve been training some Ukrainian troops on the Patriot system at Fort Sill. They’ll likely do the same thing with the tanks.
If we’re going to train Ukrainian tank crews, they won’t be ready for battle until 2024 at best.
Western tanks will need to be operated by NATO mercenaries, er, contractors if they want to get to the front in time to be destroyed in Russia’s Spring Offensive.
Isn’t there a law to protect the USA from this president’s idiocracy? If we happen to go to war with China, we wouldn’t win it. A US Senator, yesterday commented that with our current supplies we would last about a week because of our reserve depletions. Biden has given a vast majority of our munitions to a country that is as corrupt as any nation on earth. The Ukraine is sucking us dry and it is evident that Biden and the Democrat party want to destroy our nation. Evil rules in Washington.
Yeah, it’s the Constitution. It says that only Congress can declare war. Of course, our congresspeople have cucked this authority off to the president long ago for lack of spine.
Similar to how Whoopie Goldberg said how Roman Polanski’s sodomizing a 13 year old girl wasn’t rape, rape. This isn’t war, war.
You’re right. This is merely a “Special Military Operation”.
You think Biden is calling the shots? He is an avi, nothing more..
I think it really depends on what version of the M1 they’re sending. The one we sell for export doesn’t have the Chobham armor and scaled back electronics.
It’s idiotic we are sending anything but a little post-it note to Zelenskyy that says GFY.
The training and logistics required for the M1 tank are substantial. Properly done it would take months to make this work. The Ukrainians are smart and motivated, but they need time to learn all this.
So either 1) the Russians give them time (maybe, they can’t do a new major attack until the mud dries in the spring, so we’re told) or 2) the Ukrainians hold back the people and tanks until they’re ready or 3) the M1 tanks and people go into the meat-grinder without preparation or 4) American or other western ‘volunteers’ take on the logistics, maintenance, and perhaps operation of the Abrams tanks.
I’ve read elsewhere that the Ukrainians actually have a preference for some of the older weapons systems (Russian T-72 tanks, MiG-29 aircraft, etc.) because they’ve trained with them and know how to use and maintain them. That matters in combat. They do seem to have adapted to the American HiMARS system rather quickly, so perhaps they’ll adapt to the M1 tank just as well.
But no mistake, this isn’t the keys to a Corvette.
For high-volume land systems, the Ukrainians’ captured Russian gear is way more interesting to me. The Ukranians have some training and logistics for that stuff already.
The top-tier systems make a difference vs. “peer” and “near peer” systems. I can make an argument for Challenger / Leopard / M1 vs. armored formations trying to break through, or exploit a break through. For massed force on fodder, less capable systems do about as well per unit, and way better per unit of support.
Do these current-gen NATO machines have the mobility to be a reaction force?
One battalion of M1s over a 300 kilometer front isn’t going to make much difference. HIMARS is high tech but pretty simple to operate. Drive to point A, enter the location where you want the rockets to land (point B), raise the launcher, press the big red button.
Tank gunnery and platoon coordination still requires training and skill.
14 Challengers is hardly enough to secure Kiev
Well we did strip the USMC of all of their M1 tanks. Maybe those Marines will be looking to foreign contracting?
“The training and logistics required for the M1 tank are substantial.”
Therefore, what?
Don’t give the Ukrainians what they need to keep their independence, because we should have given the Ukrainians what they need to keep their independence six months ago?
If one follows your “logic”, only what can be effective instantly is of any value whatsoever.
That would mean U.S. forces, air and ground.
That would mean WW3.
Thus, let’s “allow” the Ukrainians to defend themselves.
OK?
You got it right: OK, let Europe defend itself. This is in no way the responsibility of the US. US out of NATO.
Finally, let us gut the Dept of Defense, remove all foreign bases. Why are we defending Europe and Asia for 70 years if we are going to run away at the first hint of being needed?
Are you being sincere? If so, I’ll give you a thumbs up. High time the US stopped being Boss of the World
Those bases, troops and equipment in Europe are there as part of the US NATO commitment. Ukraine isn’t a NATO member.
Your point is moot.
Someone suggested they send Stacey Abrams. She’s heavier than a tank.
That would be the M1A3 variant powered by grifting and cheeseburgers.
But can she shoot? Most likely, she will just become a big fuel-air bomb when hit by an RPG. Imagine a cloud of tons of fat droplets catching on fire. Wow.
And she wouldn’t need a new nameplate.
Heh, an AR-15 is an offensive weapon but a tank is a defensive weapon. I wonder if these guys ever listen to themselves.
Or this:
“Biden told Russia not to view the tanks “as an offensive threat”
“This is not an assault,” blared the loudspeakers, as the not-a-tanks punctured and collapsed the walls of Mount Carmel in Waco and injected flammable solvents into the burning structure.
But Putin is neither as defenseless as the Koresh crew nor as credulous as the US MSM.
Putin was credulous enough to think he would be welcomed as a liberator by the people of Ukraine and have complete control if it in a few days. His generals and spies lied to him, the numbers of equipment and personnel training was all a lie, just numbers on a paper by corruption from top to bottom. Putin is surrounded by yes men that tell him what he wants to hear.
Millions of Russian-speaking Ukrainians DID welcome Putin as a liberator.
Russia’s thunder-run to Kiev was supposed to scare Zelensky into keeping his promises from the Minsk Accords. Which it almost did, when Zelensky agreed in principle to Putin’s demands In Istanbul.
But then Boris Johnson went to Kiev and made Zelensky an offer he couldn’t refuse…
They say just what they mean. Just like Humpty Dumpty in “Through the Looking Glass”.
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
The Washington establishment wanted to go to war with Iran over assistance they were giving insurgents in Iraq during our futile war there. So is anybody surprised by the notion that the Russians might feel the same way about this?
A North Atlantic, “All for one; one for all!” mutual defense pact is looking like quite the idea right not, to counter armed Russian territorial aggression n annexation, extending their empire.
Surprising someone didn’t think of an alliance like that before. Like, say, after Russia as USSR extended their empire by invading and occupying, right after WW-II.
“We must all get annexed together, or assuredly we will all get annexed separately.”
It’s “offensive” when you drive it across the border, to kill other people in their homes, and annex other countries territory.
It’s “defensive” when you’re shooting from home at people who came from elsewhere to take over at the point of a gun, and tell you what to do.
Goven what the Russian Empire is doing to it’s vassal states in provisioning this expansion, it’s looking like the Ukrainians chose the better — as in less bad — option. It sucks being a Soviet — sorry, Russian — satellite.
Choosing to become a US/UK client State isn’t working out for Ukraine either at least on the peace and prosperity front, unless you include the utterly corrupt members of the Ukrainian govt…..they seem fairly prosperous some spectacularly so.
It’s almost like the better choice is mostly making your own way, on our own initiative, perhaps trading, but not client to, other folks.
One wonders what the “Make them clients, n fix them.” do-gooders have to say about that.
Well the Russians will be getting some M-1s to test, tear apart piece by piece.
This is a massive escalation. The Abrams tank absolutely wiped the floor with Iraq’s inventory of Russian T-72 tanks during Desert Storm. The current Russian tank inventory is still vastly comprised of T-72’s. The war in Ukraine is exactly the war that the Abrams tank was designed for.
At what point does Putin view this as an ‘existential threat?’ Somebody remind me again, what has he threatened to do in such a circumstance?
Present day Russian T-72s are nothing like Saddam’s. They have been highly modernized.
It’s like comparing a 1960’s B-52 with one flying today.
I’m sure the Russians will just have a whale of a Time blowing them up too.
They already killed four Bradleys before they even made it to Ukraine! The Abrams have no chance!
Russia commits aggressive war against Ukraine.
Ukraine defends itself in a “blatant provocation”.
Russia is using Democrat language?
Or vice versa?
Hey Zelensky, I don’t have any tanks for sale and I am all out of ARVN M-16s. However I have a mess of used Iraqi and Afghani Army M-16s with the same guarantee. NEW CONDITION, NEVER FIRED, DROPPED ONCE. Great for selling on the black market. Real money makers. buy for 700.oo sell for 1442.00………………..US Government price.
This is an act of war against Russia, which would be justified in retaliating directly against the US. In short, provocation for direct conflict by our demented “leader”.
The Ukraine is a European issue and should be dealt with by them. No US blood and no further US treasure for Ukraine.
“Strelnikov” was the name used by a Russian Bolshevik in Dr. Zhivago.
And here you are, arguing that Russia should be permitted to conquer Ukraine.
You must be so proud!
Russia is the bad guy who invaded another country. No moral high-ground can be claimed there.
Wow, the warhawks are out today.
Russia provided weapons and the personnel to operate them to both N Korea and N Vietnam while they were in direct armed conflict with the US.
Does that mean Russia committed acts of war against the US?
Help me out here, in the grand scheme of things will 31 tanks have an impact.
From what I have read the US has produced over 2300 of these tanks.
http://military-today.com/tanks/m1_abrams.htm
Russia invading another country is a provocation. Countries helping out an invaded ally is not a provocation. Russia is said to have thousands of tanks, I don’t think this is as big a deal as people make it out to be.
Ukraine and the US are not allies. Ukraine is not part of NATO. What “ally” are you thinking of?
NATO is far from the only instance of formal “alliance.”
Besides, I have been reliably informed that expressed “understandings” from decades ago are binding on military actions no. One surmises that more recent “understandings” would be similarly so.
Besides, besides, current interest undeclared earlier makes the process lame, whether for treaty, alliance, agreement, or understanding. “We can’t do anything we didn’t think of before stuff happened.” is an interesting, short lived formula, I think.
I really don’t see what the big deal is with a handful of tanks. This war will drag on for as long as it takes for Russia to win. This is more of a propaganda move than anything that is real on the battlefield. I don’t see what difference it will make in the greater scheme of things. Right now the war is in a holding pattern and will stay there for some time. When Russia musters its new army of 500K draftees, they will invade from Belarus in a drive to Lviv and close off the Polish border, and they will make massive use of tactical nukes in that drive. The Russians haven’t used tactical nukes yet because nukes won’t do them any good without a large enough army to take the territory on the ground. They need the big army first..
“I really don’t see what the big deal is with a handful of tanks.”
Right on cue, MSN: “Now that Ukraine is finally getting the tanks it wants, it’s already looking for the next big thing — fighter jets.”
Right on cue? The Ukrainians have been requesting aircraft since the beginning and Ukrainian pilots have been training on the F-16 for several months. Imagine being one of those poor bastards: you want to finish training and kill the Russians trying to take your country, but are stuck waiting for some dementia-addled geriatric to run out of excuses for not letting you loose.
Nuclear fear-mongering and cowardice falls right into promoting the Communist Party goals.
1st Goal U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2nd Goal U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3rd Goal Develop the illusion that total disarmament by the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
*From “The Naked Communist”, pp 259-262, Author W. Cleon Skousen, Nov. 1961.
———–
The war could drag on until Russia wins, but that will not be because of Russian battlefield prowess and capability. It would be due to Western cowardice, weakness, short attention spans, and short term thinking causing “leaders” to throw Ukraine to the wolves.
How many countries should we let Putin invade? The Baltics? Moldova? Poland? Let China have Taiwan, Japan and Korea?
Time to abolish the entire US armed forces and prepare for having zero international trade. That should make us all better off.
Depending on what you choose to count, starting from when, we’re up to 3 to 7, so far.
This is monumentally stupid. The first gen Abrams is still a better tank with its electronics/aiming computer, powertrain, and armor than anything else out there.
Russia and Ukraine have been divorced and remarried a dozen time over through the centuries, it will never end
The Abrams is one of the worlds best tanks but the Russians have plenty of anti-tank missiles to use.
And what an intelligence coup it might be if the Russian’s knocked out a Abrams tank without completely destroying it and managed to get their hands on it.
This is a massive escalation. It’s like we are waving a red flag in front of a bull on the hope the bull charges us so we have a justification to shoot it.
Would the Russians seriously consider sinking any ship carrying these tanks? Or shooting down planes that carry them? I’ve seen articles that suggest a cargo plane can carry two but other articles say one. Even if it’s one that’s just 31 cargo planes. We’ve got more than enough.
That’s a lot of red flags to wave at the Russian bull.
Self-defense is not an escalation. Ever.
Attacking our ships or planes would be an act of war against NATO. Putin isn’t that stupid, unfortunately.
We’ve deployed Abrams in multiple wars already. They aren’t going to find something new.
Just make sure the M1 Stacy Abrams tank is at the front of the line leading the way into battle.
Ukraine is a viper’s nest of corruption, and a convenient excuse to launder money. Hence Pedo Joe’s keen interest in throwing unending amounts of money at it, and Congress’s willingness to keep the charade going.
All the horseshit about supporting “freedom fighters in Ukraine” is pure fantasy and propaganda. Here we are, nearly a year later and people are still falling for this nonsense.
These tanks are going to require U.S. trainers and advisors on the ground in Ukraine. Any former military who served in the sixties and seventies see any similarities? Biden is a failed President and the one way he knows to recover from that is a war. He will get us in following the tradition of Dem presidents Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. As a draft dodger who recieved five deferments from the Vietnam era draft, he will gladly send your sons and grandsons to die in Europe to establish his legacy.
I haven’t seen this anywhere yet, but in an afternoon interview. John Kirby said that the US was not sending tanks from current inventory. Rather, the US would seek a private enterprise to build some 30 brand new tanks for Ukraine. He even said something like “Even as we speak, people in the Pentagon are sharpening their pencils for start the paperwork required.” it sounded like Kirby is saying that some foreign contractor might build the tanks under license (is this licensing being done now for other foreign nations? I think so) with the US paying the bills. Which sounds a lot like “Ukraine will get their new Abrams in a few years down the road”. Anyone familiar with Pentagon procurement might even suggest a lot longer than that. In other words, the US approves Abrams for Ukraine, mostly to bludgeon Germany and others to send MBT’s too, while at the same time delaying any such delivery for some indefinite time. Thoughts?
Current inventory is referring to current units. We have literally thousands of M1 in storage. The training can be done in Grafenwoehr and Hoenfels training areas. US personal for use as trainers aren’t a big problem. If I had to guess that training may have already begun very quietly.
Bottom line is the tanks will be available quite soon. The US and UK agreement to send their own main battle tanks does pressure GER but mostly the Germans will be signing off on export to Ukraine from other European nations who also use Leopards. That is the best bet for the Ukrainian govt. Widely available, lots of trained personnel exist to maintain them and perhaps to operate them.
An armored force is nice but using it effectively on a modern battlefield takes a lot of experience. Best bet is mass and then support any breakthrough. Sucks due to likely high casualty rate for tank crews but without combined arms experience at BDE level then mass is the best play. Modern precision artillery and anti tank missiles are unforgiving v inexperienced armor. Without true combined arms ops with infantry clearing out anti tank crews with missiles or artillery spotters supported by some air assets it can real ugly real quick.
The other issue is logistics to support them. Fuel required is crazy, it’s gallons per mile not miles to the gallon. Maintenance personnel and recovery equipment has to be brought close as well. Kill the support personnel and destroy their equipment and the tanks are as good as gone as an offensive force.
A couple of observations. One, it will be 8 months to a year before the first Abrams rolls of the ship for Ukraine. The crews will be trained here as well as the maintenance people. Two, Putin is running out of time with manpower and his backers. He has just raised the draft age to 30 from 27 years. The oligarchs are not happy with their loss of revenue and they are looking for a way out. This war with the West’s help can be won if we can keep the Uks fighting. Even maniacal Putin will never use nukes.