Ok, kinda old article but I absolutely love reading this bozo's crap, it feeds my soul with much needed western copium and it's extra exquisite because it comes from a Brit who thinks his fucking ghoulish country can be "The Empire that once was". It provides great entertainment, the comment box is full of absolute morons like him, and his takes are Hearts of Iron IV level of bad. He is, after all, the author of this cheff kiss excellent article that didn't even have time to age at all, it just died immediately lmfao.

The Telegraph: British tanks have got the Russians rattled

In Ukraine, donated Challenger 2s are holding up far better than anything Moscow has managed to build.

Grainy footage is circulating of a British-built Challenger 2 tank, donated to Ukraine 18 months ago, allegedly meeting its end in Kursk under fire from a Russian attack drone.

If this is true, this would likely be the second British tank destroyed over a period when Moscow is thought to have lost around 2,000 of its own. Perhaps this disparity in performance is why the Russians are so vexed by the handful of Challengers offered to Kyiv. The release of the footage is clutching at some very slippery straws to try and suggest the Russians are in the ascendency in Kursk.

(There are no more than 20 Challenger IIs in Ukrainian service, and they aren't used in the frontlines like the Abrams)

That is, if it’s accurate. To me, the footage smells “off”. First, the tank is in what we call a ‘hull up” position showing the whole vehicle to any attacker. Anybody who has any experience of armoured warfare will know you show as little of your tank as possible to the enemy, in what we call a “hull down” position. Very inexperienced tank crews could make this mistake, but the Ukrainians have been manning these Challengers for 18 months and only two have been badly damaged as far as we understand, suggesting that they know what they’re doing.

In the video (provided here, so you don't have to give that mf free clicks) the tank is just parked near some trees, it's not in combat. The FPV drone hunted it down like it usually does. Striking tanks while on the move or being engaged by your forces is not as common as it seems like. So the entire "MUH HULL DOWN POSITIUNNN" bit is pure copium.

Second, while the footage is low quality there doesn’t seem to be any additional armour on the tank. Again, the other Challenger 2’s we’ve seen in active duty in Ukraine have been kitted out with “explosive-reactive” armour or drone cages.

Third, the drone is attacking the strongest part of the tank, the frontal 60 degrees of the turret. None of the drones we’ve seen in Ukraine so far should really be able to damage armour of this thickness; usually attacks are characterised by the drone attempting to manoeuvre around the tank and hit it in the rear, or through an open turret.

The FPV drone operator aimed for the upper hull, near the driver's hatch. It's clearly visible in the video. He knows his audience is stupid so there goes, or maybe he is?

Finally, there’s no surveillance drone supporting the attack variant, capturing the moment of explosion and conducting battle-damage assessment. This is pretty suspect; usually we get footage from the support unit showing the devastating impact on the unfortunate vehicle in question. The lack of any such footage suggests that perhaps the drone might have been a “dud”, scratching the paintwork but doing little more harm.

Frankly, without further evidence coming to light, my suspicions are that this footage is not quite what it’s purported to be; either less successful than claimed, or a propaganda con with the low quality of the footage helping to pass it off as genuine. On a personal level, I find it quite heartening that the Russians are so fixated with attempting to do down the Challenger 2: it shows that it’s holding up well in performance, quite likely better than anything they’ve managed to build.

Sure it has a significant propaganda value. We know Russia offers good rewards for those who destroy western equipment, but trying to spin it off as "Heh, they got our tank because they are jealous of us" is a bit weird. Imagine this: Britain heavily celebrated the sinking of the german battleship "Bismarck", in reality the battleship was pretty shitty compared to it's peers, and even if it wasn't destroyed it wouldn't have given Germany the victory, despite being able to oneshot HMS Hood. Imagine if Goebbels issued a statement like "Britain is so fixated on our battleship heh , joke's on them actually!". Pretty big L if you ask me.

If the footage is of a real vehicle, however, then it would appear that the Russians do have access to a genuine Challenger 2. This could be cause for concern as its successor – the imaginatively named Challenger 3 – is based on the same model, and there can be little doubt that Russian engineers will have stripped the captured unit down to its basics to learn whatever secrets they can.

Recent MoD briefs on the Challenger 3 suggest that it will be very different on a technical level, with new fire control systems and defensive aid suites. But this should surely be a wakeup call to the designers and engineers to take stock and re-evaluate their plans on the assumption that the Russians know more than we’d like them to. I have faith that this can be overcome; what Rheinmetall – the German manufacturer involved in the new build – doesn’t know about making tanks isn’t worth knowing!

Give War Thunder forums a few weeks and they'll release documents on "Challenger 3", another Wunderwaffe of theirs.

As I continue to work on my new book – tracing the development of tank warfare from Cambrai, the first tank battle, to Kursk today – it’s striking how fundamentally very little has changed. Just as the Germans were fixated by the MK4 tank in November 1917, so are the Russians with the Challenger 2 tank in 2024. I wouldn’t bet against the Challenger 3 continuing this noble lineage.

What fucking noble lineage lmfao

It's also important to point out that the Challenger 2 has a terrible record in Ukraine. Not only they are in the backline most of the time, but they also suffered losses without being able to inflict any upon the russians. It's abysmal. Leopard's record is mediocre at best in the war, but at least the vehicles are up there fighting and will, of course, take losses. However that british piece of junk...