We were sending cold war era Garbonzo at the start
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the U.S. went on a secret buying spree to collect “a small number of Soviet missile defense systems so that they could be examined by U.S. intelligence experts and help with training American forces,” The Wall Street Journal reports. Now, the U.S. is sending some of those air defense systems to Ukraine to help Ukrainian forces shoot down Russian fighter jets and missiles. Ukrainian soldiers already know how to operate old Soviet weapons systems.
An Obsolete German Tank Seeks a Second Life on Ukraine’s Front Lines
The Cold War-era Leopard 1A5 may be old, but it is still effective, Germany says. The country is now training Ukrainian troops to operate the weapons.
The Leopard 1A5 is so old, in fact, that the German trainers had to rely on soldiers from the Dutch and Danish armies — where the model was used for longer — and former German tank drivers who trained back in the 1980s and 1990s. The last time the German army actually taught recruits on the system was in 2000.
Some of the trainers were civilians in their 50s or 60s who took a break from their day jobs to help. “They were really important in getting us going from a cold start,” said Colonel Maulbecker, who normally commands a battalion of modern tanks.
Ukraine is getting Soviet-era fighter jets from Poland after Germany approves transfer
The German government on Thursday authorized Poland to transfer five Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine, boosting Kyiv’s ability to challenge Russia by air.
Poland obtained the MiG-29 jets from Germany in the early 2000s, according to media reports. They were originally used by the armed forces in Communist-era East Germany.
And I can go on and on with that list. Even now Ukraine is still waiting for their F16s and it’s probably too late by now.
We Soviet equipment because Ukraine knew how to use it and has the expertise to support it. Most of our current equipment is Cold War. The m16 is from the Cold War. The m1 is from the Cold War. The f16 is from the Cold War. The m4 is from the Cold War.
The javelin and stinger are all Cold War.
I’m not sure why you are focused on the f16. It won’t change the war. I always see non/military people acting like the f-16 is a super weapon.
Ukraine knew how to use it and has the expertise to support it
Not necessarily. There’s a reason they needed training for those old tanks. Germany having to grab some random 60 year old civvies to give the training because it was all rotting away in warehouses exemplifies that nobody wanted to use that stuff anymore and we were glad to ditch it. There’s also plenty of old British and French tanks being used in Ukraine right now.
You are right there is stuff that the Ukrainians had before. But that’s also the problem. We didn’t want that cold war stuff ourselves, we already upgraded from it.
But when it comes to giving Ukraine our modern new equipment we got all stingy about it. It’s not just F16’s. No Reaper Drones, No modern tanks, even the anti air missiles are often old stuff. But we have new stuff! We just don’t want to give it to Ukraine because then “we have nothing to defend ourselves”.
Only recently have we really committed to giving Ukraine some newer weapons. But it’s likely already too late now.
The m1a1 is still a modern thank. It’s better than anything the Russians have. We gave them the patriot. Our current air defense system. What’s newer than the patriot? What’s newer than the stinger or javelin ?
You keep saying things that aren’t true. We are not giving them garbage. We are giving them things they can use and are still better than the Russian crap they have.
We did give them a lot of Russian gear because they didn’t need training to use it. We won’t give them certain weapons because they are restricted and only for countries we’ve vetted.
