If...
The problem with using old tanks with no expensive upgrades is that their situational awareness is utterly terrible by modern standards... so unless you have seriously crack crews, them getting the first shot is very unlikely, and no one sane will put crack crews into such shitty tanks.
In principle I agree. But a T-55 still beats a pickup with an MG on the roof, and there was no shortage of near point blank range shooting, heck I saw a vide of Ukr BTR sneaking up on Russian tank and shooting up it's rear with 30mm from, like, 20 meters.
A Bradley will slaughter it most of the time (we saw videos of what it did to much better Russian tanks with insufficient crew quality/SA upgrades), especially if it has TOW installed.
Videos of Bradleys launching TOWs are... I don't recall ever seeing any. Lots and lots of Javelin / NLAW ones, but no TOWs that I've seen.
If a T-55 is in a position to do direct fire, it is in a position to be direct fired upon by an array of modern AT weapons that the battlefield is saturated with. It won't be doing that for long.
It's actually quite common for Russian tanks to shoot up Ukrainian fortified positions with direct fire from tanks from outside Javelin range. NLAW has even less range, and Ukraine seems to have ran out of longer legged Stugna-P's. Russians use Lancet loitering munitions to clear out Ukrainian artillery and anti-tank positions, then drive up tanks to shoot stuff up with direct fire.
Either way, it's poor management of resources - if they need more artillery, they should have managed resources into making more of it, which could be done cheaper and better than improvising with old tanks that do it poorly.
From what our military blogosphere indicates, it seems old shit is used to keep the pressure up, while newer stuff is hoarded for an upcoming Russian offensive.
Also it seems Russia has problems making cannon barrels in quantity.
Slovakia sent considerably better upgraded T-55's, not sure how they are doing.
True... but then it wasn't like in Ukraine now, with infantry AT weapons that would be considered premium quality back then now saturating the battlefield so hard that there's enough for every armored vehicle and then some.
Thing is, situation with AT systems is not so good right now. Ukrainians happily shot everything that moved with Javelins and US had to tug the leash to make them stop doing that. But Stugna-P's come in as a tiny trickle due to French factory that made solid fuel for rocket engines
mysteriously blowing up, Javelins aren't available in unlimited supply either, and Russians have learned to recon anti-tank positions and keep their distance.
A Bradley will see it, engage it, and move on before the 55 gets a chance to react.
We saw what happens when even 72s went up against Bradley's in DS.
It didn't end well for them, even against just the bushmaster
Depending on distance. I have not seen
any TOW videos from Ukraine, and unlike Iraq Ukraine has
a lot of woodlands, there's plenty of combat videos in urban / patches of clearings in forrests at ranges crews could literally throw stones at each other, and while there
are some areas that allow 5km range shots, the average is very much the opposite.
I don't recall details right now for Ukraine, but Poland is pretty similar in most ways and the average tank on tank visibility distance (that is, distance at which a tank-sized object is visible to another tank-sized object given the height of observation systems being mounted on one) is
under 800 meters for all the parts that are not lakes or mountains.
Why? A shit biscuit upgraded is still a shit biscuit.
When the fact that any if the modern stuff given to Ukraine is so new it would make a 55 hitting it damn near impossible if someone is actively paying attention.
I don't need armor to defeat your armored advance.
When I can have Billy Bob and Joe carry man portable anti tank weaponry able to take out any and all armor you have, and they can be in places you will never see
Check my reply above.
