Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus
Bad News:
Recent reports claim that North Korea is sending combat troops to Ukraine. Some have already appeared on the front line in the Kursk bulge. On the plus side, there are already unconfirmed reports that some of the North Korean troops have already deserted. Considering how far they are from home, where these deserters are going off to is a big question. A better option would probably be defection (by surrendering to Ukrainian forces).
Good News:
Australia is sending 49 surplus M1A1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. Forbes reports that these vehicles will go to the 47th Mechanized Brigade, Ukraine's current M1 operator. About half of the first batch of Abrams have been destroyed or damaged/pulled from the fighting. Ukrainian Abrams are modified with Soviet-era reactive armor and anti-drone cages.
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While not a modification per se, the Ukrainian Abrams also have American reactive armor. What I've seen pictures of is Kontakt-1* on the glacis and M19 ARAT on the hull sides, with no ERA on the turret and no second layer of ARAT (M32) on the hull sides. Based on what I've seen written about them, using Paul's pages they'd be M1A1 SA, with an extra 80 AV vs Heat on the HF and 100 AV vs Heat on the HS**, using the book rules for ERA for everything other than the additional armor value. Normally I'd just consider a cage to add Sp to the relevant armor, but the Abrams already has that for TS, so all it would do is add Sp to TR.
*This could be Nizh instead of Kontakt. Ukraine has started loading Kontakt containers with Nizh modules because the Nizh containers were hard to reload. If it's Nizh, it only adds around 75 AV vs Heat, but also adds 25 AV vs kinetic penetrators, which Kontakt-1 doesn't help against at all.
**A Ukrainian write-up finally gave me the first estimate I've seen of ARAT's effectiveness, which was that M19 adds 500-550mm of RHA-equivalent protection against HEAT. I still don't have any estimates for M32, and I don't know how good that estimate for the M19 is, but it sounds plausible and is better than not having an estimate at all.