It looks more like a massive lawn dart than I thought
You had me in the first half, not gonna lie.
Essentially, most of the tanks and weapons Ukraine receives are older “vintage” materiel. Even their German Leopard 2’s aren’t compatible with the most modern armor piercing rounds.
But good on Rheinmettal for producing whatever Ukraine needs.
TL; DR: Some tanks are that old, that they can´t shoot state of the art ammunition because the fire control system doesn´t recognize them. In theory they should have been all upgraded decades ago to be able to shoot new ammunition, but apparently Poland has never done that to some or all of their tanks and they send them to Ukraine. So they can only shoot ammunition that is almost 40 years old and can´t even penetrate the “newest” T-72.
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EDIT: At least according to Wikipedia Poland has upgraded some of their Leopard 2´s to their own “2PL” Standard and they also have 2A5´s. So they send the bad ones to Ukraine.
>The main armament of the tank remained the Rheinmetall Rh-120 smoothbore gun in the L/44 version, but it was modified to adapt to the use of new types of ammunition, i.e. DM63 armor-piercing shell and programmable DM11 ammunition. Left and right resistors, return, recoil indicator and container for shell bottom were replaced, in order to use DM11 ammunition, a programming system was introduced in the cannon’s falling-block action, as well as a fire control system and electronic cannon trigger assembly. **A new on-board computer was installed with new ballistic tables.** MG-3 machine guns were not exchanged for another model. The two plane gun stabilizer system of the cannon and turret drives were changed from hydraulic to purely electric.
just saying, this would have been frontpage news in all of EE and r/ukraine with Kuleba/Melnyk saying how that is proof Germany is pro-Putin if it was Germany that sent not working tanks on purpose.
absolutely disgraceful from the country that cried the loudest about sending tanks to Ukraine.
Is a weapon ever really obsolete? A rock or a big stick still works when needed.
DM33 is still capable to penetrate over 500mm of RHA.
This ammo is however not optimized against reactive armour like newer DM53 and above.
8 comments
It looks more like a massive lawn dart than I thought
You had me in the first half, not gonna lie.
Essentially, most of the tanks and weapons Ukraine receives are older “vintage” materiel. Even their German Leopard 2’s aren’t compatible with the most modern armor piercing rounds.
But good on Rheinmettal for producing whatever Ukraine needs.
TL; DR: Some tanks are that old, that they can´t shoot state of the art ammunition because the fire control system doesn´t recognize them. In theory they should have been all upgraded decades ago to be able to shoot new ammunition, but apparently Poland has never done that to some or all of their tanks and they send them to Ukraine. So they can only shoot ammunition that is almost 40 years old and can´t even penetrate the “newest” T-72.
​
EDIT: At least according to Wikipedia Poland has upgraded some of their Leopard 2´s to their own “2PL” Standard and they also have 2A5´s. So they send the bad ones to Ukraine.
>The main armament of the tank remained the Rheinmetall Rh-120 smoothbore gun in the L/44 version, but it was modified to adapt to the use of new types of ammunition, i.e. DM63 armor-piercing shell and programmable DM11 ammunition. Left and right resistors, return, recoil indicator and container for shell bottom were replaced, in order to use DM11 ammunition, a programming system was introduced in the cannon’s falling-block action, as well as a fire control system and electronic cannon trigger assembly. **A new on-board computer was installed with new ballistic tables.** MG-3 machine guns were not exchanged for another model. The two plane gun stabilizer system of the cannon and turret drives were changed from hydraulic to purely electric.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_2PL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_2PL)
Can they be obsolete, if they are needed?
just saying, this would have been frontpage news in all of EE and r/ukraine with Kuleba/Melnyk saying how that is proof Germany is pro-Putin if it was Germany that sent not working tanks on purpose.
absolutely disgraceful from the country that cried the loudest about sending tanks to Ukraine.
Is a weapon ever really obsolete? A rock or a big stick still works when needed.
DM33 is still capable to penetrate over 500mm of RHA.
This ammo is however not optimized against reactive armour like newer DM53 and above.