RT.com — Feb 19, 2023
After pledging to supply Ukraine with modern heavy tanks, many Western nations have now discovered that a significant part of their weaponry is not fit to take part in any conflict, The UK’s Secretary of Defence Ben Wallace has said.
In a Saturday interview with Der Spiegel, Wallace noted that Germany organized a meeting with its NATO allies this week to discuss tank deliveries. “That’s when the problems became obvious. The political decision is there… The politicians sent their military to the depots only to find that their tanks are not operational or repaired for delivery to Ukraine,” he said.
According to Wallace, NATO has to face the painful truth that “our armies have been more or less hollowed out over the last 30 years… There are numbers of how many tanks each country has. But then there is the reality that tells us that far too few of them are operational,” he noted.
When asked whether the tanks would arrive in Ukraine on time, the British defense chief made a call to “give the other partners a little more time,” describing Western-made armor as “not a silver bullet to win the war instantly” and highlighting the importance of training Kiev’s troops.
Wallace went on to say that similar issues apply to ammunition. “In terms of ammunition stocks, too, we found that our peacetime plans were not sufficient. We didn’t count on a real war, so the target numbers for the ammunition were too low,” he said.
In January, the UK, Germany and the US decided to supply Kiev with modern heavy armor – Challenger 2, Leopard 2 and M1 Abrams tanks respectively. Germany has also approved the re-export of Leopard 2s from third countries to Ukraine, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz pointing out recently that many nations who’d asked Berlin for re-export permission have failed to deliver the tanks.
Russia has repeatedly warned the West against supplying Ukraine with arms, saying it would only prolong the hostilities. Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has claimed that Western tanks sent to Kiev “will burn” and will fail to change the outcome of the conflict.
Benny Wally’s admission that “…our armies have been more or less hollowed out over the last 30 years”….
only CONFIRMS Scott Ritter’s assessment that Britain “has a BIG MOUTH… but NO functioning military… an Army that, in spite of its nice uniforms & parades, would be WiPED OUT by Russia in ONE WEEK…”
And having a BIG MOUTH – with NOTHING to back it up – has ALWAYS been an invitation for a good a$$-kicking… as THICK Brits are about to find out… if they don’t learn to just STFU!!
🙄
“We didn’t count on a real war.” Tell the millions who died in NATO slaughter and pillage they didn’t die in a real war. What he really means is they didn’t count on a war against an equal or better opponent.
Without the neo-liberal model of ‘Just in time, just enough’ they could have armed themselves properly to the point of being unbeatable. If they hadn’t all been so damned greedy.
I was just thinking how hilarious it’d be if Putin rolled over ZATO…
and Charlie had to flee before he got “crowned”.. literally & figuratively!
😅😂🤣
a friend just emailed me this
So lets get this straight-
if you illegally cross the Korean border
you get 12 years hard labour.
If you cross the Afghanistan border illegally you get arrested and 5 years in prison.
If you cross from Palestine to israel illegaly you get shot.
Two americans recently crossed illegally into iran and got 8 years
But if you cross illegaly into England
you get a job food stamps drivers licence
free health benefits then housing and child care
but an immediate £150 a night hotel room
with hot and cold running water and available prostitutes if necessary.
No wonder we are in such debt and
we are such mugs for putting up with racist criminal politicians
WONDERFUL ! everything goes according
my desires ! i thank politicians flying above
reality .
Well, we have not needed weapons since we got all the Blacks and Trannies; we focussed on what is important
Imagine if Israel goes to war against Hezbollah. I already hear America is depleting Israeli ammunition stock piles to give to Ukraine.
Wonder if American occupation forces in Syria are running low on ammunition?
No doubt they are running out of God’s patience.
Oh dear.. deary me…
…who would have thought that all those percentages of GDP..yes GDP… all those lovely billions for years and years..decade after decade..(trillions in the case of the USA)…
have all disappeared…
..and when sapper johnny goes to un-mothball an antique challenger tank (that wasn’t sold to the Arabs so the British ‘establishment’ could line it’s dirty pockets) in some MOD depot (museum)…
all that’s left is a hulking rusting pile of shit… with an lOU stuck to to the turret…and which is now merely a rats nest…a home to rodents…just like Whitehall…
and has been for decades…
NB:
and just in case you are curious..
most of that money…the money that wasn’t trousered by the Banking cartel and the ‘City’… to develop ‘markets’ policed by the mercenaries masquerading as the British army…
Was of course used to develop surveillance tech and injectable toxins to kill their own citizens…
If Russia was a real threat to anything such as living in a more oppressive and dishonest regimes than in the West, then you would have to agree that alleged unpreparedness is a result of living in a virtual realty of make believe, and despite all of our communications systems even the power brokers and all of their minions are so compromised with the dishonest aspects of human nature and their privilege to lie to one another, that they do not even know if they have any real tanks or fighter jets, or if they just exist in digital or paper form, much the same as the currencies they create for us out of nothing.
why are we involved any way ?
we are now a third world nation
the dumping ground for the worlds toerags communists homosexuals and lefties
we should stay out of other folks problems
Peter Petherington: this hollowing out was all planned by the Joos. So was Britain’s bankruptcy, all planned I tell you.
The British do have a big military. They’ve had countless terrorists working for them, be that in Africa, Syria, Iraq, and UKraine. Why would you need more than a home order and ceremonial army, when they are useless given the rules they must follow. They’ve only got away Iraq and Afghanistan by the skin of their teeth, by being super corrupt. This is why no one want to join up. Abusive culture, terrible conditions, & if you see combat, you’re very likely to be executed or raped, and then shot by your own men.
@Peter Petherington, absolutely right, the same goes for the French army about which many top officers have been pulling the alarm bells ever since the Dönmeh Joo Sarkoshit forced it to reintegrate NATO as a vassal, after 43 years of independence and nuclear autonomy, made possible by de Gaulle in 1966.
Ian Bone was ahead of his time.Uk needs a Class War. Working Class destroy the Upper Class inbred parasites
Oh, my! What a massive change of tone and stance from Ben Wallace! This does bode well. 🙂
Well done Ben Wallace, but what an absolute bunch of garbage your colleagues are!
Where to from here?
The Bog of Eternal Stench or the knackers yard.
What a cnutry…
Shock horror the British Establishment have just realised they can’t fight an industrial war the imbecile Ellwood said a few weeks ago we have to build more tanks and ships what a clown the factories and shipyards are a distant memory.
Tobias Ellwood the dirty nonce of Dolphin Square. He’ll say anything to stop the photos Mi6 have of him coming out. The Kompromat photos.
The photos of him molesting children.
He even looks like a dirty nonce ffs.
Without superior fire power………basic One shot rifles, Pistols,
The North American Indian tribes would have held their own against, Brit, French & Spanish armies.as in…with the same weapons.
Spears, Arraz, Sword-n-sheild.
Zulu’s would have ‘walked it’ against Red coats with the same weapons.
NZ same, The Maori would have literally eaten any invader ALIVE, had it been nothing more than clubs, fists & guts..
We all know it.
When it was equal tackle, The Corsairs from the Barbary coast raided when & where they liked, The resistance was quite frankly as ‘Weak as Peace’.
Tough guys eh, with night vision, modern coms, air power.
& still the Afghans held out to overcome a multitude of ‘allied’ invaders.
without superior weaponry, The East India company, or Hudson Bay Co, would never have existed, Java would never have been under Dutch rule.
The Jimmy Grants are still for now just about the minority, But for years, they’ve done as they want,
If ‘we’ had anything about us, They should be too flayed to even contemplate absconding & raping OUR little ones.
As it is, ‘We’ are so meek & mild, We can barely look them in the eye.
‘They’ saunter around as if they own the joint,
THEY DO.
And we talk about Tank availability & ammunition supplies. In a conflict that is more or less another wipe out of Caucasian v Caucasian. That I might add, has nothing to do with us anyway.
Some terrific comments above guys,
Peter, Pether’..the top two comments say it all.
For decades, the Brits have ridden on American coatails, hiding behind US hard power. The Brits believed that their expertise in subversion would be sufficient to achieve their goals.
Well it looks as though ZOGUK ended up in The Bog of Eternal Stench after all!
Sunak has been told by Bojo and Truss to send jets to The Ukraine. 2 out of 3 Prime Ministers with Police records and fines and 1 who has the shortest tenure of the post in recent times.
What could possibly go wrong?!
YCNMTSU…
Peter PRICK Petherington about as knowledgable as kamala harris & equally irrelevant…. Such BIGMOUTH arrogance so typical of a gobshite yank with loud clothes & even louder wife of 18 stone🤣
Btw I’m not a Brit but American.