Original subtitles

Are Leopards afraid of mud?

Now I hear a lot of claims that the Leopard II,

Challenger II and M1A1 Abrams tanks transferred to the Ukrainian side are not suitable for

Ukrainian soils and will get bogged down in them because of their heavy weight.

At the same time, the Russian, or rather Soviet, tanks are lighter and have advantages.

So they consider weight as a determinant factor in the question of cross-country

ability? No one mentions the peculiarities of the running gear, the design of the caterpillars,

the hooks (grousers), and they do not even mention the specific pressure on the ground.

Well, let's break it down.

The Soviet T-72 is initially a hopeless tank,

which was already backward at the time of its creation.

But, it was this tank, which had no future platform development possibilities,

that was chosen by the Soviet leadership as the main battle tank and became the main export unit.

In turn, the T-64, innovative for its time,

which had a development perspective, was relegated to the back burner.

One of the advantages of the T-64 was its high off-road capability.

The 36-ton tank had a total advantage over the 40-ton T-72 tank and the 37-ton T-62 tank,

which were no better than the T-80 tank. Could it be that the difference in weight had an effect on

these figures? No, the important factor was the running gear concept and track relief.

The T-64 chassis was designed with high cross-country capability in mind,

and the track and roller construction allowed the tank to overcome off-road

obstacles where all its Soviet counterparts had a very high chance of getting bogged down.

The undercarriage of the Western bestiary are used by other types of suspension and allow an

average of 60-ton machine to exert pressure on the ground 10-20% more than Soviet tanks.

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That is, a tank weighing on average 20 tons more,

exerts about the same pressure on the ground as a tank weighing one and a half times less.

At the same time, the Western tank has a more powerful engine,

which allows it not only to be more mobile, but also to distribute the force without strain.

But that's not all... If anyone thinks that German and British design bureaus developed the Leopard

2, Challenger 2 and M1A1 Abrams to drive on autobahns, he is a rampant idiot. Germany has

a lot of forests and swamps and the Leopard's running gear concept took this into account.

The tracks of these tanks have a number of modifications, among which there are some

very interesting variants of the ground track. So,

will the western tanks be afraid of the Ukrainian off-roads? At least no more than Russian tanks.

Russian T-72 and T-90 tanks slip on their tracks, which are useless for spring and autumn off-roads,

and tons of mud sticks to the running gear, and T-80 tanks are not much better either.

That is why the allied tanks cannot be worse in cross-country ability than the tanks of Russian

army, all of them will be stuck in Ukrainian swamps, just some of them are one meter farther.

Without a complete drying out of the ground you should not expect any serious action.

I'm wrapping up for today, but I'll see you all tomorrow.