Ukraine Leopards now doing indirect fire, too

Ukraine now employing Leopard tanks in indirect fire roles for infantry fire support, instead of Western style fire and maneuver.

Thus completing the Ukrainian evolution back into Soviet tactics. Russia has been doing this all along. And most of the resurrected T-55 and T-62 tanks are used similarly.

A few months ago, Western "analysts" were concern-trolling the Russians, by saying that using tank cannons as artillery will wear out the barrels too fast and cause all kinds of problems. Well, it turns out that tank cannon indirect fire was standard Soviet tactic, which has continued post-Soviet. We know that Russians do know how to regularly replace cannon and howitzer barrels based on battle usage. We don't know if they have enough barrels to keep up regular replacement. (Given the apparent ammunition semi-shortage, they probably don't have enough barrels either. But then, they're not firing as many, so it all kinds of work out.)

And a few months before that, Western analysts were again concern-trolling by talking about barrel failure from over-use. What they didn't realize, was that Russian howitzer barrels (not sure about cannon ones) are made with untensioned steel, whereas Western ones are made with tensioned steel. Therefore, Western howitzers will explosively fail from over-use, whereas Russian ones will simply get less accurate and less range.

So what this story says, more than anything, is that Ukraine is definitively ending their "Counter-Offensive". And that the vaunted "American/NATO" tactics are merely an alternative to Soviet ones, not terribly better or worse. And that, concern-trolling aside, Russian Army does kind of know what they are doing, and are sometimes fairly good at their jobs. This story is manifest evidence that most of what "Western analysts" were telling us is merely propaganda. (Useless propaganda at that, because their opinions have little effect on Russian performance.) And now it seems that the Russian "failures" during 2022 Spring is more a result of a more lethal battlefield (a la Nagorna-Karabakh) than Russian ineptitude or Ukrainian aptitude. (And relearning classic lessons like tanks cannot survive an unsupported attack, that all attacks must be infantry-led.)

Now that Europe has no more tanks to give out. (Nor many more American ones, due to production constraints and Taiwan demands.) So that means Ukraine will not do more armor assaults/exploitations in 2024, probably nor 2025. And Zelensky is complaining that his howitzer shells are going to Israel instead. (Which sounds like giving out excuses for upcoming failures.) This phase of the Ukraine War is likely coming to a close soon. Unless Russia gets some DPRK mercenaries, or many more DPRK rockets and shells, then the frontlineis unlikely to change much for the next few years.

And notice that Business Insider does not know which Ukrainian Leopard is doing the indirect fire, I or II. It cites a Swedish II, but shows a I picture. Can you really trust them for quoting analysts correctly.