Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
How were such large numbers of serviceable armoured vehicles captured? APC's (as a rule) tend to get destroyed pretty much outright when hit by anything substantial and tanks don't fare too well either when knocked out.
Also, to my knowledge, tank crews are supposed to destroy their vehicles by utilising a number of methods if knocked out and likely to be captured before the engineers can recover them.
It is more likely that only a single battalion could be outfitted with NATO vehicles, many of which would sport battle damage and/or be cobbled together from a number of other damaged and stripped vehicles. I'd also be inclined to raise the percentage of British vehicles as they were heavily involved in the fighting and I believe penetrated the furthest into the USSR in 1997 prior to the PACT counter offensive.
|
My gut feeling is that numbers captured would be higher than we expect. Consider the Arab-Israeli wars and the numbers of vehicles captured there. What crews are supposed to do when they abandon their vehicles and what really happens is often different, especially with the poorer trained replacements. Consider that the Russians had REGIMENTS of Panthers in WW2.
APCs do suffer badly when hit but there are plenty of ways that they can be lost.
Good point with the British kit, I'll use that for another regiment. I envision about three or four such regiments using foreign equipment. On the NATO side I imagine the Germans will inherit the bulk as they already have reservists trained on it!