I noted this line in an email from the FT this morning:
If Nato's tanks were called to respond to an invasion by Moscow's forces across the EU's eastern border, they would get stuck in tunnels, cause bridges to collapse and get snarled up in border protocols, Apostolos Tzitzikostas told the Financial Times.
The related article is here, but it does quite spectacularly miss the point.
The point is that if the above is true, then so is the following:
If Russia's tanks were to invade the EU's eastern border, they would get stuck in tunnels, cause bridges to collapse and get snarled up.
So, why is it that the EU wants to spend €17 billion to upgrade infrastructure to ensure Russian tanks can get easier access during the course of an invasion? I am struggling with the logic of that.
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I think it reveals where the investment is going and who is leading it – the arms industry and political hawks? Or the EU thinks it has already won the future war? War: there is always money for war.
In the meantime I note there has been another accident on Germany’s DB as its rail infrastructure falls apart. Will the next idea be to change the Berne gauge to the Russian broad gauge?
Pwrhaps because they would prefer to prevent the Russian invasion reaching the bridges and tunnels?
Leave the tanks on the border, then. After all, why have them anywhere else?
Drones are in the air, but not most supply lines. Tanks are not the main issue. The logistics of modern warfare is a complex problem for operational research; but you need a large capacity for mass movement of of resources, and for maximum flexibility. I confess that I am not an expert on warfare; my point was to try and avoid everyone going down this rabbit-hole. Candidly, I do not think this discussion, or the comments, will age well. Much of it reads like Chateaux Generalship
Ageing does not matter.
The decision is now.
As you say, roads run both east and west, and are neutral as to who travels on them.
I doubt border protocols would be too much of a barrier to tanks responding to a Russian invasion, even if there was an officious customs official at their post. As Kenny Everett ably demonstrated years ago, you can park anywhere you like with a Sherman tank, including on top of other vehicles.
Do we really want or need columns of tanks driving hundreds of miles on Central European highways? Put them on trains to a railhead.
And do we really expect significant tank-on-tank warfare in the third decade of the 21st century? We are not in the 1950s any more. The Russians have lost many hundreds and thousands of armoured vehicles in Ukraine without them making a decisive impact. Infantry armed with anti-tank missiles, ground-attack aircraft, anti-tank mines, drones, and artillery, and fixed defences (ditches, barriers, etc) are likely to be just as if not more effective as defences than other tanks. Not least, our tanks will be vulnerable to Russians using the same techniques. A column of tanks on a highway (or a railway) or – even just crossing a field – makes a great target.
Tanks do make a big difference in places like Gaza where the population don’t have any effective means to resist.
Generals always fight the last war.
Or, in this case, the one before that.
It seems the EU has still no heard of drones.
the main Russian tank is the T-90 width 3.86 metres
The main Nato tank is the Leopard 2 which is 3.7metres wide but it is almost 20 tonnes heavier but they do move about Europe
Article behind paywall. I wonder about this.
Western tanks are substantially heavier than their Russian counterparts. The Russians reduce the size and weight so that they can use most bridges.
This goes back to the Second World War, and we obviously didn’t learn from the issues the Germans had with the weight of their tanks.
The classic was the Conqueror, which couldn’t go over most British bridges, which is why it had a comparatively short service life compared to, say, the Centurion.
The immortal phrase “brain the size of a planet” from Douglas Adams comes to mind. Thank you Richard for tirelessly cutting through the c*** bombarding us daily.
This is a bit of complete non-news by the FT this morning.
1. Russian MBTs are small and lighter than western tanks and in theory would have more options of which routes they could take, giving them a tactical advantage. This was recognised during the cold war.
2. As Andrew said The Russian armoured force has been smashed by the Ukrainians, NATO would have air supremacy and the tank has lost its battlefield supremacy due to cheap drones. So the chance of a mass armoured attack by Russia is about 0%.
Agreed
Speaking as someone who has learnt more about military hardware since Russia invaded Ukraine from the various OSINT people I follow, I can safely say that the idea that lighter tanks are a good idea because they can cross bridges is disproven every day as the Ukrainians destroy Russian tanks before they get anywhere near a bridge (that’s if the bridge hasn’t already been destroyed). Even Russia’s newest tank – the T90 – is no match for a drone with an anti tank shell attached – which is why there are hardly any T90s now being used (the Russians are now reduced to using T60s – from the 1950s – drawn from what was a massive store of old military equipment.
There are problems with NATO tanks, of course, given their weight. One being that they’re difficult to use if the ground is too soft/muddy, as id the case in Ukraine at various times of the year. But their additional armour – hence the weight has proven a great benefit when hit by drones.
But anyway, as someone mentioned above in a comment. We’ve now entered the age of drone, robotic and AI warfare – and there’s no going back. For example, 80% of the Russian casualties on the frontline are caused by drone strikes – not being shot, as used to be the case (not sure of the figure for Ukraine, but it isn’t as high as they don’t employ “meat” assaults as the Russians do (not being much bothered about how many men they lose). And increasingly drones (of all sizes) are being controlled by AI not humans.
Add into this mix the fact that more than half the Russian Black Sea fleet was destroyed by sea drones, and that last week the Chinese held military exercises with troops and robot dogs (armed) supporting them and I think we can see where this is going.
Note: to anyone who hasn’t watched the Terminator films the premise that underpins them of a war between drones/robots/machines controlled by an AI network called Skynet, and humans, is increasingly likely in my opinion.
Thanks
The chance of any attack by Russia is 0%. The threat is inflated by warhawks and the arms industry. We may one day get to a state of missile exchange, but I don’t see why Russia would invade and risk existential defeat when we are so susceptible to political and cultural interference, cyber warfare, and sabotage. The current political tactic of “flooding the zone with shit” is Russian in origin. Russia has been incredibly successful in aligning with the American Right Wing, to the point where Tulsi Gabbard could be a Russian asset. Our own politicians are for sale, as we all know. An invasion would be suicide, but I think what we are experiencing is a form of war. No tanks in the streets, just trolls under bridges undermining our society.
Russian tanks tend to be lighter and smaller than Europe/US tanks, so they are more mobile in marginal situations. After all, WW2 taught them how tanks work on the muddy steppes, and they have to cross smaller bridges in Russia.
I’m minded of the time I used to work for a tank research place beside the M3 (summer job as a sponsored student). There was a bridge across the M3 connecting a testing ground to the research place, which tanks could use to cross over. How nervous would you be if you drove under at the point a tank was on the bridge?
The new drone warfare paradigm has significantly reduced the tactical efficacy of the main battle tank because drones can attack from above and so hit the tank’s weak point.
Guerilla warfare is now even more overwhelmingly effective against conventional forces, as the Ukrainians have demonstrated.
Would it be too cynical to suggest that the EU has agreed to more funding for ‘defense’ to keep the Americans quiet, but craftily smuggled in provisions that really enable them to just improve European infrastructure ?
Which Russian tanks? The Ukraine war has burned through circa 10,000 Russian tanks – they can make a few hundred (200? 300? per year).
The war in Ukraine is largely drone-based & evolving rapidly (in that area). Tanks mostly absent from the battlefield in Ukraine.
Most tanks are transported by rail over any significant distance – roads mostly relevant near the front. So I guess – where will the front be? Finland? the Baltics (Estonia etc), Poland …not easy tank territory – even if you have them (just need to see what happened in the Russo-Finnish war of 1939-1940).
Other factor – take a look at a road after a tank has been along it (ref: Ukraine 2022). The family staying with us: most roads used by tanks were unusaable afterwards.
I wondered why my MP was asking about tanks, a written question, last week.
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2025-07-18.69090.h&s=speaker%3A26420#g69090.q0
Jobs in the north east, apparently. Sad that that’s all he can think about asking at the moment.
Think of it like this, Russia starts invading east Poland. The local forces slow down the Russian advance but may be outnumbered. Forces from across France, Germany, and Poland have to travel to east Poland, if they go by road they get there a few days earlier than by fields. I think we can all agree a few days when your life could be snuffed out as a civilian matters a great deal.
We haven’t even talked about other military vehicles that might need to travel to the conflict zone or that if you don’t travel by road you must travel another way and usually that land is used for something.
You mention leaving tanks on the border, to many nations that’s as good as declaring war and leaving tanks from France in baltic states ready is likely to cause geo-political problems too. There’s also the very obvious aspect of in war things get destroyed and must be remade and sent back into the destruction zone. It’s easier to do that by road and rail, this is why these are key sabotage points.
Do you really think we will have an invasion without notice, or noticing the risk? Why?
I believe that governments across Europe will refuse to believe we are going to get an invasion till it happens. Look at the 1930s, and more recently Ukraine but also other countries bordering Russia.
In such a case yes we need the infrastructure to not only transport forces to the zone of conflict quickly but to transport new forces in a protracted conflict.
Logistics and infrastructure can be a big factor in deciding how a fight and war goes. At the very least good infrastructure can be used for other things if it’s capable of supporting tanks, heavier industrial machines, alternative routes and more capacity for economic development. Unlike bombs.
OK
We will have to disagree.
It’s all war propaganda, of course. Seems to be “Schrödinger’s Russia”: simultaneously, “Russia is losing very badly to the regime installed by the US-backed coup in Ukraine!”, and, “The Russians are very dangerous because once they’ve lost that war against Ukraine, they’ll invade the EU!”
Agreed
My father was decidedly under impressed by German roads which he thought were awful but the autobahns were marvellous and he thundered along them at speed.
Trouble was that it was 1944/5 and he was in the 8th Army heading for Berlin.
There may be a message here somewhere
🙂
My father in law was building the bridges across the rivers for your father to drive across. He actually met Montgomery who complimented them on finishing a bridge a day early, and asked him how many cigarettes he wanted. My father in law said he didn’t smoke, whereupon Montgomery said the engineers he was in charge of would not appreciate coming back and finding out he had turned down lots of cigarettes, so gave him them anyway, 4000 of them.
The Challenger tanks my MP was asking about are being built in cooperation with Germany, between now and 2030.