For a change, this is not a car spotting post but still one about vehicles, albeit military - Western Vehicular Worries in War in Ukraine As Western Military Might Exposed As Empty Myth
(Republished from FOWAG with permission (link at bottom)
Lessons of Ukraine War: Western Arms Are Waste and Wasted In Ukraine As a Prelude to Liberation and Pacification of the North Atlantic Axis
One result of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine that started over two years ago in February 2022, when the post-2014 coup Zelensky regime stubbornly refused to de-occupy large territories in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics even as Putin’s Russia, after much delay and vacillation, finally recognized them as independent states and was appealed to by them to assist in expelling the masses of the occupying Zelensky military and paramilitary forces long entrenched in the region, is the discovery of how inferior and substandard Western-made weaponry has turned out to be and likely has always been, though it is only now that we are beginning to find out for real thanks (if that is indeed the word) to the persisting Ukraine conflict, with a mass of pictorial and video evidence of destroyed Western origin weapon systems overwhelming and saturating the Internet, so much so that all of the Western government controlled major search engines are now obfuscating and censoring the pictures and videos in an attempt to throw the would-be impartial conflict researcher, analyst or observer or just a curious member of the public off the track with their rigged search results popping up all over the computer-, tablet- or cell phone screen to promote baseless Western propaganda.
Early on, and even for a long time before the start of the conflict, Western, and especially US-made, weapons had been held, touted and generally shamelessly proclaimed, without a shred of evidence, to be superior or even invincible and the prized game-changer capable of reversing the situation on any battlefield in any conflict on their own, by virtue of their mere appearance there as if by black magic or witchery.
In the Ukraine conflict, however, a long succession of the so-called Western Wunderwaffen (itself a telling term whose roots are in the failed WW2 Nazi mythology from a period when Nazi Germany was likewise making grabs at imaginary straws in her desire to survive at all cost) followed after each previous one had successively failed to make a meaningful impact and been destroyed in large quantities, and now the Western entities have basically nothing left in their arsenals that has not yet been destroyed in Ukraine in great numbers.
The Humvee
Let’s start at the bottom of the junk heap of Western weaponry – the US-designed and made HMMWV – High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, aka the hapless Humvee.
Though it is merely a truck and, according to some, the worst in the world, the reason we cannot overlook it in this analysis is that the Humvee is also an armed and armor-protected battlefield vehicle platform and a carrier of weapons systems and was and continues to be a ubiquitous symbol of US military might and worldwide reach, accordingly sometimes described as “the vehicular backbone of US forces around the world”, and has also been a regular feature of every (ill-advised) foreign campaign perpetrated by the US military since at least the late 1980s and the invasion of Panama, needless to say, all of them illegal wars of aggression under international law as properly understood as they were never approved by the UN Security Council.
But the Humvee has now ultimately become a symbol of disaster, defeat and repeated military failure.
Hundreds of destroyed Zelensky regime US-supplied Humvees are now populating the internet image searches and have been documented by various open-source intelligence enthusiasts (OSINTers) as destroyed in Ukraine - over 500 units, at the time of this writing, as the verified minimum based solely on readily and easily available photographic and videographic records, which likely resolves to the overall numbers of destroyed Zelensky regime Humvees that are in the region of over several thousand units, with scores also captured.
In early August 2024, the Zelensky military attempted a major brigade level inclusion into Russia’s Kursk region which resulted in a notable increase in destroyed Humvee sightings.
Although the Humvee has been long known for the poor protection that it affords to the crew and operators, even in its upgraded and extra armored-kit versions, still the nature of its total, though picturesque and often very atmospheric, destruction and the gruesome aftermath, in most cases, upon being hit, as has happened hundreds of times now in Ukraine, is a huge shock even to the seasoned observer, though not of course even nearly comparable to the shock that its occupants get when they are thus surprised.
Humvees also belie their grandiose appellation invoking “high mobility” by providing only rather limited mobility as their use is confined to tarmac or, at best, dry dirt-roads, and they cannot negotiate mud, plowed fields, grasslands or swampy grounds comprising the majority of the terrain in the Ukraine.
But lack of mobility is what every other Western weapon system suffers from too, so the Humvee is hardly alone in this and is definitely not the worst either.
The M113
Another venerable military fighting vehicle, and even some twenty years the Humvee’s senior, that has been optimistically supplied for use in the Ukraine conflict in large numbers by the United States and her clients and has now been destroyed in almost equally large numbers is the M113 tracked armored personnel carrier produced by the FMC corporation for the US military.
Starting as far back as in the early 1960s, the M113 APC first saw action in Vietnam and used to be the mainstay of US Army armored cavalry formations in many wars (though, in the final analysis, all eventually lost by the US military with one or two minor exceptions) starting from Vietnam and up to the US military’s lost wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 21st century but is now likewise an embarrassment and a huge stain on the reputation of the US capitalist run military-industrial complex (what's left of it) and the American made weapons and engineering design and workmanship in general, with hundreds and maybe even thousands of US-supplied M113 APCs and derivatives spectacularly destroyed in Ukraine already, with more taken out almost every single day.
With the untold numbers of the M113, including all its many versions or variants, such as the Dutch YPR-765 and others, having been thusly destroyed by the Russian army and by groups of Ukrainian partisans by now, into hundreds if not thousands of units already, the destruction of this particular Western chariot is the biggest M113 destruction in the history of humanity since Vietnam, but the Ukrainian destruction of the M113 still continues on a near daily basis and more of the previously destroyed M113s are coming to light almost every single day.
Recently, on August 27, 2024, a rare M113 version – an M577 command post carrier was seen and destroyed in Russia’s Kursk region where Western weapons and armor assets are continuing to be destroyed at the fastest rate since the start of the hostilities as of this writing.
Pictures of destroyed M113s and variants, are very atmospheric and something to behold too – often spectacular art installations of torn and melted aluminum, pierced armor plates, huge holes in the sides, shed tracks and hollowed out boxy hulls gutted by raging fires – better not to peer inside any too closely; it likes to keel over too on the slightest of provocations being a tall, angular, square and bulky vehicle, easy to spot and hard to miss.
The M113 has also been known to evaporate and de-atomize completely following an explosion in its cargo bay, of which at least one video exists on the Internet.
Dubbed the “RPG Operator’s Dream”, the M113 easily falls prey to the ubiquitous 1950s RPG-7s but also to nearly everything else – from concentrated small-arms and machine gun fire, to IFV gun- and tank rounds, to artillery shells, guided missiles and, maybe most frequently, to cheap appropriately modified, or weaponized, commercial drones – almost anything is good to knock out, and often destroy outright, the subpar US-made vehicle that is the M113.
Though not yet officially retired or superannuated, the M113 is outdated of course but newer US designed- and made vehicles and US origin weapons systems have fared no better if not actually much worse, which brings us neatly to the M2 Bradley fighting vehicle.
The Bradley IFV
A much newer US-made weapons system and fighting vehicle, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle (BFV) is a tracked armored fighting vehicle deployed by the United States and her client states, developed by FMC Corporation and manufactured by BAE and with potential and intent for further development, upgrade and modernization.
Over 300 Bradley IFVs have been supplied to the Zelensky regime in Ukraine but as of this writing most of them, certainly over 190, were destroyed very soon after daring to appear anywhere near the frontline, and, though large numbers of M2 Bradley IFVs (ca. 150) were also destroyed in the protracted 2003-11 Iraq war, it is the first time in history of warfare that this vehicle was destroyed in such large quantities and over such a relatively short period of time of just about six months after its introduction to the conflict.
Tall, square and boxy vehicles, Bradley IFVs are easy to spot, engage and to knock out or destroy using quite a range of weaponry that elements of the Russian forces or Ukrainian partisans have at their disposal for the eventuality of chancing upon a Bradley IFV.
If you search the internet for relevant Bradley IFV destruction key words other than using the truth-suppressing major Western-controlled search engines (hint: try using Yandex search for a change though it is not entirely free from Western censorship either), you will see no shortage of photographic and videographic evidence of such Bradley IFV destruction.
From the footage and photographic evidence this writer has personally seen and sifted through in the course of his research preparatory to writing this exposition and analysis, the M2 Bradley appears to be another irredeemably inferior Western origin weapons system: a poorly engineered based on the wrong assumptions and faulty concepts, worse built and very fragile US-made fighting vehicle easily knocked out with small DIY explosives attached to cheap commercial drones, also easy to knock out or disable with heavy machine gun and even concentrated rifle fire; heavier or dedicated antitank-grade munitions or tank rounds themselves leave no chance, destroy these vehicles totally, also burns well with the slightest of provocations and melts down, pops off turrets too for good measure.
Helicopter launched anti-tank missiles are especially cruel on these heaps on tracks as are dedicated anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM).
As to the combat effectiveness of the Bradley fighting vehicle, in this type of action that we are seeing in the Ukraine theater, it is very low indeed; maybe it is only suitable, and was apparently designed, for lazy colonial-style warfare in far-flung corners of the world against under-armed opponents or civilians - the only type of action the US military has seen in many decades though still was ultimately defeated in every campaign since their last minor military success which was the afore-mentioned 1989 invasion of Panama perpetrated on the orders of the late Bush Senior.
Various other Bradley versions, derivatives or lookalikes like the German Marder, the Swedish skit CV90 or the Canadian origin Stryker IFVs have performed at least equally abysmally, with most of them likewise destroyed on their first outing to the frontline, and need hardly be specifically mentioned here. Suffice it to say that, like the Bradley IFV, they have been destroyed in numbers only slightly below those in which they were supplied, with virtually no survivors of even the shortest stint in the actual war zone.
A significant number of M1132 Stryker IFVs outfitted with LWMRs (light-weight mine rollers) were also seen and destroyed in the Zelensky regime’s latest offensive failure to date – in Russia’s Kursk Region, ca. August – September 2024.
Western tanks are the worst of the lot
After years of post-Cold War propaganda and hype regarding Western tanks, largely based on willful misrepresentation and misinterpretation of the lessons and results of the 1991 and 2003-2011 Gulf and Iraq wars, not to mention outright lies and propaganda disseminated by the United States Department of “Defense” downplaying and denying US military losses in tanks, it is safe to say that Western origin tanks have not made a good name for themselves in the Ukraine, as is now finally clear to all, even the most obtuse and unimaginative.
German Leopard series tanks have been supplied in most numbers, including advanced Swedish versions such as the Strv 122, up to 300 tanks to date; and again many if not all of them have been destroyed on their first attempt at something resembling real action when they attempted to face the opposing forces. Some made quite a splash in the news early on in the so-called and now failed Zelensky regime counteroffensive of the summer of 2023 and for the wrong reason too, from the viewpoint of their manufacturers and sellers, as they were knocked out or destroyed en mass.
Again, photographic and video graphic evidence that abounds even in Western media outlets is proof that they are very bad tanks: unreliable mastodons with insufficient or poor-quality armor, weak engines, drivetrains, suspensions and tread-track systems, barrels can be knocked off with small arms fire - they are rather prone to fires, weaponized commercial drones carrying RPG-7 grenades strike top down and knock them out and scorch the innards – and with artillery, tank rounds or anti-tank missiles there is never even a doubt as to their failure to survive anywhere near the actual battlefield.
This should come as no surprise at all as very few countries in the world have a full-cycle tank building capability and even fewer have ever managed to produce anything worthwhile.
Germany is still one of such tank-building nations but the Germans are well known for manufacturing and using inferior tanks as they did in most of World War Two, until they finally (but very belatedly) succeeded in copying the Russian T-34 as Panther V, and it appears they are now back to square one with the Leopard which is an irredeemably inferior tank for reasons too numerous to enumerate here, suffice it to say it has many weak points making it easy to knock out even using 30 mm BMP IFV gun rounds delivered in a quick succession to the side or heavy machine gun fire or even weaponized commercial drones as happened multiple times, and in the only two tank duels the T-72 triumphed over the Leopard both times.
Leopard tanks are no strangers to bad press and bad BDA (battle damage assessment) -- on one previous occasion of their attempted use in something resembling real fighting, maybe the first for the type, though nothing like what we are seeing now in Ukraine, a number of them were totally destroyed in Syria ca. 2013 both by ISIS and Kurd militias wielding Russian RPG-7s and Konkurs ATGMs, so burning or torn-apart Leopard tanks is nothing new, they burned and blew up spectacularly before but it is the M1 Abrams tank that is likely the worst tank in the world and has been destroyed in greatest numbers across the entire Middle East, and in the Arab world, with scores US military admitted losses of Abrams tanks which likely means hundreds destroyed in actual fact.
Actually, the Americans have a long but checkered history when it comes to manufacturing tanks.
It is quite prudent to say they have only ever managed to produce three types of tanks: bad tanks, worse than bad tanks and worst tanks.
