Europe supplied hundreds of tanks (T72, T55,) and near 400 howitzers  near all selfpropeled hovitzers and hundreds of BMP1 ,2  and clones , most of the M113 you see in Ukraine are European stocks 

Even in terms of MLRS  Europe supplied at least as many M270s  as US supplied HIMARS  and hundret + older soviet grads

All the SAM systems , AD radars, SPAAGs (soviet and wester),

Those 50 Bradley are matched with 50 Marders 

Denmark and Estonia gave up all of their artillery. 

Europe has supplied 4 to 5 times more armor than US  ,US armor supply is mostly Humwes and Mraps .Even in terms of MRAPS Eropeans supplied more.

Europe is being played as dumbs fucks in power are to stupid or corrupt to see it Brits and Poles are also being the most useful idiots in this game.Brits you can understand are not part of EU so don't give a fuck .

US estimates of the arms sales windfall so far to Europe is well past 21 billion $ just stull already ordered ,every new rund of euro supplies means more orders in US . That is why US is suplying jack shit in terms of mayor weapons systems to Ukraine better to sell to dumb euros than give away to basket case Ukraine

ROK can't fill the short-term gaps US can by delivering from inventory its not like US has some huge manufacturing capability either , but from what i read from Poland the emergency buy in ROK screwed the local industry, as all the stuff will be built in Korea, not in Poland, Krab SPG is practically dead, all are going to ukraine and being replaced with all made in Korea , only the follow on orders mybe sometimes in the future will get Polish co-manufacturing. And i am prety certian Polish order alone will keep ROK production lines busy for years.

On the other hand given that these Leopards2 are mostly A4 , i don't know what miracles folks expect from 20 or 50 of them with hastily trained Ukrainian crews

A4 is armored worse than most T72 , has a better canon , and might have better optronics than the older unupgraded T72s but probably not much else

Mr. T (MrT4) said:

Europe supplied hundreds of tanks (T72, T55,) and near 400 howitzers  near all selfpropeled hovitzers and hundreds of BMP1 ,2  and clones

So this could either be:

a) an ingenious plan hatched by Joe Biden designed to hook europe on US based tanks and IFVs, which make up some of the US Military industrial Complex's least important systems and a rounding error on US GDP, all to make Europe even less self sufficient as the US desperately looks to pivot to Asia...

or

b) A reflection that Ukraine needed Soviet based armor because they are trained on Soviet systems, and all the Soviet gear was in former Soviet states in Europe

....

"US estimates of the arms sales windfall so far to Europe is well past 21 billion $ just stull already ordered ,every new rund of euro supplies means more orders in US."

The US has sent $27.4 Billion to Ukraine in military assistance so far, so this is hardly some financial windfall. 

It's also a paltry sum for the US military industrial complex given the US Defense Budget was $817 Billion last year. And US GDP was $25 Trillion. 

The budget in the US for Food Stamps in 2022 was $159 Billion.

I'm not saying this to flex on Europe here. The point is that claims that the Ukraine War is some Big $$ Genius grift to enrich the US falls flat upon closer scrutiny. 

This is just not that much money for us.

EU has spent near 50 billion on Ukraine .US gas sales alone to EU after blowing up the Noprthstream are more than any aid to Ukraine plus ,this is not money being spent in Ukraine but mostly in a couple of zipcodes in Virginia. 

A. Brandon is a puppet that for most of the time hardly knows who he is , long term policy goals is not stuff of one admin but more a product of permanent state apparatus.

B. Doesn't correspond to the pressure to supply Leopards instead of M1 that are on hand in thousands, considerable numbers of the howitzers and self propeled howitzers supplied by EU were western not soviet gear so option B is irrelevant. Supplying soviet tanks was just a way to empty east European arsenals and ultimately German stocks. Before Ukraine T72 was pracicaly main battle tank of NATO Europe

Its not about rounding errors or only money , its about power and influence,, except for the French that don't see themselves under US thumb ,most of EU leaders are fairly gullible and it helps when unelected Eurocrats neuter most of them.

You underestimate the MIC , 800billion on US military is spent any way  and off that 140-150 billion or so is in procurement rest is other fixed costs, this is extra 150 billion $ per year on Ukraine related games is a huge windfall  for MIC , same reasons it was profitable to wash taxpayer money trough Afghanistan and or Iraq same Virginia zip codes is where that money was spent. So you see its actually not that small peanuts when you look at procurement .

Mr. T (MrT4) said:

EU has spent near 50 billion on Ukraine .US gas sales alone to EU after blowing up the Noprthstream are more than any aid to Ukraine plus ,this is not money being spent in Ukraine but mostly in a couple of zipcodes in Virginia.  B. Doesn't correspond to the pressure to supply Leopards instead of M1 that are on hand in thousands, considerable numbers of the howitzers and self propeled howitzers supplied by EU were western not soviet gear so option B is irrelevant. Supplying soviet tanks was just a way to empty east European arsenals and ultimately German stocks. Before Ukraine T72 was pracicaly main battle tank of NATO Europe Its not about rounding errors or only money , its about power and influence,, except for the French that don't see themselves under US thumb ,most of EU leaders are fairly gullible and it helps when unelected Eurocrats neuter most of them.

It's a natural but often fallacious human desire to ascribe a plan to random good chance. 

That the US is benefiting from the war --> the US must be executing some ingenious plan. 

In reality, the US happens to have a shitload of natural gas and weapons, which by dumb luck happen to now be in tremendous demand due to a war launched by another country. 

The US is the worlds largest natural gas producer because of Shale Fracking (of which Europe could have done itself) which began in earnest in 2010-2014.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Why-Europe-Wont-Exploit-Its-Huge-Gas-Reserves.htm

But the US has warned against EU reliance on Russian natural gas for decades, back when the US had no natural gas to sell (and was infact itself just recovering from our own energy crisis spurned by reliance on unreliable energy partners...)

The pressure to supply Leapord's is because the M1 Abrams is an insane fuel hog that uses over 2x the fuel of the Leapord or really any other tank:

Europe is providing all the SPG because the US SPG's are profoundly mediocre, and have the shortest range of any modern SPG - and Ukraine needs range above all else.

Even if Europe loses all its SPGs in Ukraine, no one is going to be rushing out to buy some mediocre Paladins. 

.....

I guess the most important question is, what do you think Europe / the EU should be doing differently in regards to Ukraine rather than falling for the current diabolical plan of Dark Brandon?

gatnerd said:

That the US is benefiting from the war --> the US must be executing some ingenious plan. In reality, the US happens to have a shitload of natural gas and weapons, which by dumb luck happen to now be in tremendous demand due to a war launched by another country.

yes, of cause it was only a sheer luck that US actively supported Maidan uprising against the democratically elected government, fully knowing that the forces they are bringing to the power are anti-Russian to the extreme and their declared intent to joint the NATO will force Russia to react in a rather predictable way.

And before you'd say that it's not Russian business,  imagine the revolt in Mexico, funded by China, and the new government planning the military alliance with uncle Xi. Or Russian ambassador joining and proactively supporting the Jan 6th Washington DC "riots".

What would the Uncle Sam do, and why everyone else should act differently?

Or remember the Solomon Islands story last year? and those tiny islands are not even close to American borders

US threatens military action if China sets up Solomon Islands base: ‘Would very naturally respond’

all this debacle was entirely avoidable, all this tragic loss of life, loss of Ukrainian territory etc, if US would leave the Ukraine alone to solve their existential problems in their traditional ways, and in dialogue with its immediate neighbors from all sides, without interventions from the other side of the globe.

mpopenker said:

will force Russia to react in a rather predictable way.

Thats the thing though - Russia reacted in a totally unpredictable and surprising way in 2014, with really an elegant and genius overnight capture of Crimea, and subsequent creation of buffer statelets in the Donbass. 

A master class in 'grey zone' hybrid warfare that that caught the US with its pants down, and everyone had to begrudgingly admire for its audacity and success.

In a stroke and at very low cost, Ukraine was permanently kept out of NATO, Russias access to Crimea was permanently restored, and the US was made to look impotent. 

100% awesome move for Russia.

....then years later this 2/24 shit, which basically completely blew all that success up, for no explicable reason. 

The US had backed off on Ukraine, providing only the most token of support (I think 400 Javelins and some small unit training) and the US was completely uninterested in pursuing the matter further, having just a) come out of Covid b) had a disasterous exit from Afghanistan c) been eager to 'Pivot to Asia' to confront its real challenger China. 

While 2014 made sense, 2/24 makes no sense from either a tactical, strategic, security, or political standpoint. 

What to your eye prompted the decision in the months before 2/24 that is was now imperative to 'finish the job' and try and conquer the rest of Ukraine? 

What around 2/24 seems like a US plan to lure Russia into a 'Bear Trap' as part of some larger genius plan to crush Russia and dominate the EU natural gas and weapons market? 

Mr. T (MrT4) said:

On the other hand given that these Leopards2 are mostly A4 , i don't know what miracles folks expect from 20 or 50 of them with hastily trained Ukrainian crews

For starters a tank is allways better than no tank.
The Leopards are available. A4 has the advantage that it is lighter than the later versions and more mobile as well as easier to maintain. Which is quite important.

Just looking at a spec sheet and judging is armchair general behaviour to the extreme.
The Leopard 2 has several advantages over T72. Regardless if upgraded or not. The Ukrainians make good use of T-64 tanks. If you give them similar or better tanks they will make good use for them too. War is a numbers game. Its far less important to have the perfect piece of kit than to have an adequate piece of kit in large numbers.

The Leopard has been designed with conscript crews in mind. Its very easy to train people to use it. Only takes a couple of weeks. What takes long is training tactics and battlefield basics. The Ukrainian crews have this allready. So its just a matter or showing them how to operate a Leopard. A month of intense training will do.

There are several faulty assumptions in your reasoning.

Yes of course the US industry will try increase their market share. As do the defense industries of other countries. Rheinmetall for example had a record year. That is what companies do: try to seize an opportunity.

But its not as simple as you make it sound. For starters the old Soviet style equipment or old German equipment is or has been in use because it is cheap. The US might replace it with cheap or free (curently its mostly free) suplus of their own. This does not mean they will get any contract though. Because the countries in question either don't have any money to spend on weapons or do not want to. In some cases both. If they would need to replace US surplus they would not automatically buy US stuff. They would go for the cheapest they can get. Which most likely would not be US. ITAR also is a thing. Most European countries try to avoid it whenever possible. There also is the possibility of bad experience when using surplus equipment and avoiding this source in the future.
The US also doesn't have infinite production capacity. Their defense industry is book for the years if not decade to come as well. The US industry faces more or less the same problems as the European industry trying to increase capacity. Which BTW the Europeans are doing as well. German defense firms are hiring like crazy and start to set up new plants and production. But they are still doing it in a controlled maner not to overstrain themself should the war suddenly end and the funding disappear again.

What we allready can say is that Korea is definetly a winner of this war. Because they have capacity can deliver on short notice and provide decent quality at acceptable prices with allmost no strings attached. We will have to wait and see if the European and US defense industry can deliver comparable products to comparable prices. Or most smaller european countries will buy the budget package from Asia.

There is no free lunch iarms no matter who suplies it ,our neigbour Croatia has taken some (89 includin some as spare parts donours) of these 'free'  Bradleys , ended up with half a 757mio$ in upgrades and servicing by BAE contractors for 76Bradelys so while these 'nearly free' Bradleys cost cca 150mio$ with US subsidizing 50mio$,, all up they are looking at 850mio $ and change for 76 updated ones .

Its only free if you let it rust in a yard. All these ringtausch Leopards will eventually get modernized 5-10mio s a pop and most of the $ will ultimately get paid to German firms that make stuff for  Leopard. If these countries are not first forced to ship these Leopards to Ukraine. 

What you suggest in regards of ITAR is true but you are now looking at countries that are completely disarmed in some areas and no supplier able to fill the needs in short term, i imagine ROK is maxed out with Norwegian and Polish orders. Indeed US industry similarly to European has no capacity but you can bet your money will be magnitudes faster to ramp up, but the difference is stocks, It was relatively easy to ''make'' Leopards as long as there were stocks of them in the parking lot.

When the decision comes M1 will be sent and no one will be bothered with fuel consumption. Ukraine operates T80 with similar fuel burn.

this company alone cut up cca 19.000 armored vehicles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRNqbnolV4c&t=4s

Bayonets don't seem to find use in Ukraine at all i  dont remember seeing them mounted by anyone.

https://t.me/milinfolive/95979

Rare and impressive video of BMP Terminator - high ROF:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TankPorn/comments/10k1lel/bmpt_terminator/