Tanks are useful in Ukraine, russia just sucks at making Main Battle Tanks.

“Western” tank design shits on this trash for several reasons but the most important is that russian tank design has never really cared about actually keeping tank crews alive, so their tank crews all die whenever they go to war, thus for russia in general being a tanker is inherently a temporary, lowskill job like most other things in the russian military.

“Western” tanks on the otherhand are designed to keep their crew alive so all the investment into those humans to train them best how to use a tank isn’t obliterated when the tank is hit by a shot and all the ammo and propellant cooks off, annihilating the crew and sending the turret into the sky. It is one thing to fight a tank, it is entirely another to fight a tank with a veteran tank crew who have survived intense combat.

The emphasis on a competent degree of reverse speed is also a good example of this, I cannot understand how russians have convinced themselves not having a quick reverse speed on a tank isn’t necessary for a main battle tank to perform basic tactical functions as a tank. It is obvious even in the abstract if you have played a semi-realistic tank video game that the idea of having a slow reverse speed is suicidal in tank combat.

If I had to choose between a tank with russian reverse speed and no tank I would pick no tank every time, if you watch the way Abrams tanks fire in range training you can see the basic “advance just into view, fire a handful of shots, reverse” loop is a core functionality of the tank that makes it far more survivable as a tool than just having heavier armor than the target could ever ensure.

For russia to have spent decades building tanks and just ignoring these things is pathetic honestly and none of the excuses people give for these glaring issues with russian tanks hold water in my opinion. Great the reverse gear is an agricultural gear for getting out of mud, cool I am sure Ukrainian AT crews appreciate that functionality supremely when a russian tank has overcommitted even a nanometer too far and they are now sitting ducks because to quickly flee they must turn around and leave weak armor exposed or just raw dog it and reverse at a snail’s crawl.

edit I don’t mean anything precise when I say western tank, I consider a south korean k2 a “western tank”, I only mean the description very loosely

As an armchair general, I see very little use for tanks. When everything from planes, helicopters, LAVs, landmines, javelin equiped soldiers as well as specialized drones can easily take them out, they are just expensive tombstones.

I think their only use is for rapidly advancing through broken battle lines for flanking which is not a thing in the Ukraine war.

Growing up playing video games with the Bradley in it used to make me think… this thing is kind of a monster, it doesn’t really feel like an APC, it feels like an angrier version of a tank that exchanged heavier armor and a larger gun for a set of attributes that allows it to be more bloodthirsty than a tank… and then seeing that yes in real life the Bradley is in fact a monster like that has been wild.

I just figured it was American-centric wargame developers always making the Bradley a beast “because 'Murica the best” but nope… the Bradley is just a terrifying machine to fight that can shit out a full crew of infantry and then send you straight to hell with its gun. It seems like you have to physically coax the Bradley away from the frontline after it has dropped troops off as the driver, it just instinctually wants to turn around and charge the enemy autocannon blazing.

Russia has nothing even close to the Bradley IFV while Europe is building a new generation of Bradley inspired IFVs that will likely outclass any Main Battle Tanks russia can field in a meaningful amount for the forseeable future… while being able to carry AT infantry crews in the back to boot (with Manpads or AT drones).