I'm not sure that's an excellent excuse if it's meant as one. The moral high ground will lower pretty fast if Ukraine's long term poisoning is due to the UK, be it partially or completely.
There's a fair few of those around in use by militaries across the world. I'm led to believe that "obsolete" tanks can still be quite useful, especially if they are given the right upgrades, mostly to targeting systems. Even in the 21st century, you don't want to be somewhere that's coming under tank fire, even if the tank is older than your grandfather.
Sure, but the steady fielding of older and older tanks over the past year is a noted pattern for Russia, especially in light of its confirmed (likely undercounted) tank losses.
You can do a lot with craftpaper these days.
Oh, absolutely, in context, this is likely not to end well for the tankers and could be seen as a sign of desperation, but in a more general sense, pulling even really old equipment out of storage to replace heavy losses isn't that bad. Not ideal by any means, but doesn't have to be catastrophic, but will be in this case.
USSR: But those tanks were for an emergency and they were supposed to allow sustainment for 5 years!
"Yo, Jinping! Mate. Vlad, here. You wouldn't happen to have a few divisions worth of old tanks sitting around would you?"
Hmm...while making a modern MBT isn't something you can do in a hurry, if you're allowing for 1950s quality of tanks, in theory they might be able to start producing new versions of those (given the war is over a year old, if they saw the need early and starting preparations a while ago). Usual thing about how that might not be a bad idea if run by competent people, (emphasise not calling the w things tanks, but "fire support vehicles" or something), but it probably wouldn't be, and they'd need to be on the ball a bit to even get that rolling.
True though the downside is that there's finite factory capacity(and whatever time needed to retool) so whatever they're using for T-54's can't be used to make T-90's(which is honestly what they probably should be focusing on considering it's a 30 year old design). And of course logistical concerns because they have to make more parts to maintain those new T-54's and transport them.
The logistics, certainly, is an issue, I'm not sure about the factory capability. Now, sure, if they are making tanks, they obviously aren't using those factories for something else, but (without knowing much about Russia's manufacturing capabilities), you don't need a factory that's equipped to make more modern tanks if you are only making something from decades earlier. For example, modern MBT armour is a lot fancier than the simple steel plate that used to be used. By comparison, the British Sten Gun in WW2 could be make in a simple garage workshop, and didn't necessarily need to tie up space in a well equipped factory.
I think it's vastly more problematic than that. There still won't be the production facilities in existence, nor even for all the kit that goes in them, unless stuff for more modern tanks still in production can be retrofitted into a T-54/55. And if you need to build a whole new set of production facilities, why on earth build them for a 70-year-old, hopelessly obsolete model when you could just expand facilities for a 30-year-old model?
But if you plan to run parallel production lines you need more factories to do it, and thus more parts as well, which means you're complicating your logistics train now because you have to have a new set of parts to supply.
If (if) the Russians can build or expand factories for 30 year old stuff, then yeah, they shouldn't be mucking around with 70 year old stuff, but I'm not sure they can. The older stuff is probably a lot easier to get going in a hurry, they managed it (ok, even older designs) during WW2, pretty sure nobody could get things going as fast for modern tanks.
Oh sure, they should standardise ammo. Though, not being as effective against modern tanks is only a problem if that's what you are going to use them against, which you really shouldn't. Usual caveat about them trying that anyway.
In WW2 at least, tanks weren't generally used to oppose tanks: they were more used to make and exploit breakthroughs, or as a mobile response force in defence - this meant they were normally facing infantry formations. Where possible, tanks were generally to be opposed by anti-tank equipment (infantry-held, field guns and tank destroyers). I would imagine that to be the plan for restored T-54/55s, not to oppose modern tanks.
That would be the sensible way of doing it, however, given past events, not sure it would be the way things are done.
Well, you've certainly got a point there. The Russian military has not exactly demonstrated high levels of tactical and strategic accomplishment, or much regard for the preservation of its troops and equipment.
The thing is that the enemy has to cooperate with this tactic, and not, say, send their tanks after yours.
Well. Tanks have to work in units, and units can only be in one place at a time, so in theory aim the tank offensive somewhere where they won't face strong opposition. In a frontline as large as the Russia-Ukraine war, this should be doable - at least initially. Some sort of reaction force should arrive eventually, although this may take a few days. In smaller conflict zones (e.g. Arab-Israeli wars), tank on tank warfare was effectively guaranteed.
