A bad workman always blames his tools

That sounds like it was completely turkey's own fault, not Germany's. They just sent a bunch of Tanks out to the battle Zone without any cover and without air support being possible because of weather. They treated them like they were super tanks.

if Russian tanks are decimated then they are bad tanks.. if European and American tanks are decimated then its the fault of strategy and military crew...

yesterday 2A6 was first destroyed in Ukraine by artyllery

Another lesson forgotten and then re-learned with blood: "All tank warfare since WWI demonstrates that tanks are vulnerable without ground troop support"...enemy forces can't be allowed to fire from point-blank range...

Well, technically wasn't the tank defeated but the strategy and who manned it.

German modern tanks are seriously overrated because of the memories of the Tiger of World War II.

Comment section loaded with tactical experts

No tank is indestructible. Even the Abrams and Merkava are able to be destroyed by using guerilla tactics.

This kinda reminds me of how Russia sent a bunch of T-80s without infantry support into Grozny during the first Chechen war, only for the tanks to suffer heavy losses, and for the Russians to develop a low opinion of the combat effectiveness of the T-80.

Who is here after the Leppard 2A6 got destroyed in Ukraine.

Yes, they have an excellent reputation until they appear on the battlefield ......

So the Turks took a tank designed for medium to long-range anti armored combat, sent it to urban warzone, the exact opposite to the intended environment for which it was designed, without propper equipment and with zero-to-none ground support.... and they wonder why it didn't win them the battle? Like.... wtf :D ? They are clearly not adressing the core reason of the defeat and I frankly don't know why should we take this fiasco as a case against the Leopard, rather than a case against a flawed Turkish military leadership which it clearly is.

They had an old Leopard 2A4 with a low-level armor package. They sent these tanks into an urban environment with little to no support for the tank forces, and expected to not get destroyed?

Russian tank destroyed in middle east: bad tank design German tank destroyed in middle east: bad user

Now we will see leopard 2 destroyed in Ukraine.

This video is kind of silly. Saying that Al-Bab was a loss even though the city was captured and they killed around a thousand IS militants is even sillier. There's a lot of context missing about the fighting, also Turkey never sent the tanks inside the city. Turkey also didn't use reactive armor because of fear that it would injure infantry near the tanks. None of the 10 tanks that were allegedly damaged were damaged inside the city. -Most of them that were damaged were being used as artillery pieces behind infantry positions and had been moved to the hospital which had been occupied by friendly infantry. The hospital was later taken back by an offensive by IS where Turkey abandoned 3 Leopards and retreated from the hospital 2 of which had their tracks damaged by rocket/mortar fire and another had been disabled by a SVBIED. -3 other leopards near the hospital had been hit by ATGM fire and disabled and then were subsequently hit by Turkish airstrikes to destroy them to avoid capture. -Another leopard that was "confirmed" as destroyed shouldn't have been, it was just used in IS drone footage but it later it showed that it had moved from February 7th satellite images. -2 more Leopards further west of the hospital were in entrenched positions firing at the southern part of Al-Bab when they were ambushed from the north west by IS militants with Konkurs launchers. 1 of these tanks were immediately destroyed after being hit in the rear turret where the ammunition was stored and the second tank was damaged and abandoned after being disabled by a second missile. -5 tanks were recovered from the battlefield and eventually repaired. 3 were fully destroyed. theres no photos showing the other 2 tanks to make it 10 damaged/destroyed. You can debate about the tactics blah blah blah but there are a lot of points on this video that are pretty wrong.

The fact is that the Leopard 2 A4 is old and also not meant for counter terrorism. An IFV like the Puma or CV90 are supposed to be used for these types of scenario

Polish analysts have said for a long time that the leopard 2 was very overhyped but procured it anyway

Leapord 2 tanks get destroyed by a rebel group armed with a few ATGMs. Same ones are now being sent to Ukraine against an opponent with a hell of a lot more than ATGMs. Yeah, this won’t end well

It's amazing how effective infantries can be. Shoulder launched heat seeking anti-air missiles + ATGMs, these are extremely low cost compare to other platforms, plus Toyota. Asymmetric warfare.

There’s a quote somewhere I read say: “The Main Battle Tank. Everyone can agree they are the most powerful, armoured beast in war. Making a soldier feared by the sight of one or a whole battalion of them. But, even a child with a rocket launcher can still destroy these beast if the leader of that country is an idiot, and the child is a smart desert rat.”

There's nothing like having a well trained tank crew and commanders that know the circumstances of the coming battle; “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Hahahaha and they were making fun of russian tanks destroyed in Ukraine 😂😂😂😂

My first problem with the presentation comes at 1.32 , when the presenter starts talking about the ''reputation for nigh invincibility'' . No such reputation has ever existed in military circles and this ''myth of a myth'' counts somewhat as a ''straw man'' IMO Overall, I really don't think this has much to do with the type or model of tank involved, rather this was more to do with the type and nature of the fighting. Moreover , we are in danger of exaggerating one , relatively small and clearly bungled, engagement into something of greater significance than is really the case.

Without reactive armor, every tank today is a coffin. Modern anti-tank weapons can get through any steel thickness today

Who is here after the Leopard 2 tanks get ambush and destroyed by Russians in zapariozye

Interesting how when Leopard 2 gets destroyed and the turret flies away it has reason, but when a russian T72 gets destroyed, they say the Tank is shit.

There is no such thing as invincibility. Almost everything can be destroyed 🔥

Leopard 2A4's outdated Battle Manage System (BMS) was also strategically important in order to not counter ATGMs.

Now Germany is refusing to give Ukraine the tank😂

Russia has the tools to sort out the leopards

I love how he said the leopard 2 wasn’t made for urban combat despite the common doctrine of armored combat being in more open terrain and not cities since the creation of the mbt. Also you can’t say leopard 2 without calling out their generation, especially when referring to the 2A4, because it’s incredibly less advanced than the others.

Expensive equipments, tanks, armored vehicles: 0 ATGM's mounted on Toyota pick up: 1

Next month in the Ukraine we will see the same results.

The KZfaq algorithm does it again lmao

What a load of bollocks! No-one (with some military insight), has labelled MBT’s as invincible! Nothing is!

Just wanted point a few things out. Leo2's are actually part of the first army which is located in European part of Turkey, Syrian border and operations within Syrian border are responsibility of the third army. A couple of leos were sent over to assess their asymetric warfare capabilities and to gain some combat experience on them. A year after this losses hundreds of leo2's and M60's went through modernisation with the experience gained in Syria

There is no tank can stop the antitank missiles. If your enemy has got them, tank personel has no chance! The tank is M1, Leclerc, challenger or Leopard. Its not important

The best tank is useless with the worst men...

Most of those 2A4 and "M60" tanks were out in semi open areas or in defilade, not inside the City. Also ATGMs were responsible for most kills.

6:10 that one actually was not from an atgm shot, but an air-to-ground guided bomb. Turkish jets destroyed the damaged tank to prevent ISIS from capturing it.

The Leopard was never meant to be used as a stationary fortification. It is called "Leopard" because it is supposed to be a agile, mobile predator, constantly moving and changing position. On top of that, it was designed for the "Combined Arms" Doctrine of combat, meaning a form of combat where infantry, tanks and artillery work closely together and the infantry protects the tanks from enemy anti tank weapons, while the tank protects the infantry from enemy tanks and other vehicles. That is why the Germans never used ERA (Explosive Reactive Armor), even though it was invented by a German engineer in the 60s. With the German doctrine being that infantry and tanks work closely together, "shoulder to shoulder" so to say, having parts of the tanks armor explode would pose too much of a hazard for their own infantry. So they refused to use ERA, even though it could have protected the tanks better. The Turks just parked the Leopards on hills and allowed their enemies to just shoot missiles at them till they were dead. No tank has a chance when used wrongly like that. Using a tank correctly requires a lot of skill, training, understanding and knowledge of the battlefield. There is another German doctrine that says that whenever possible, a tank commander should leave his tank before a battle and sneak forward to observe and explore the battlefield on foot, so he knows it before he starts an assault. The best protection for a tank is to stay on the move, find the enemy first, shoot first and not get hit. Armor is just a last ditch safety measure that might or might not work, if everything else has failed. You can watch old German tank crew training videos on KZfaq and you will notice that they don't even mention the tank's armor once in those videos. They act as if the tank had no armor. They teach the drivers to point the front of the tank towards the enemy, but not because there the armor is the strongest, but because that way the tank has the smallest silhouette and is hardest to see and to hit. Relying on armor in battle is like relying on your car's seat belt and airbag to get you from A to B safely, not your driving skills.

The biggest mistake of our army was to expect that there would be an army against it, as in Cyprus, in Syria, so they wanted to fight with heavy armored vehicles, but there were only militants firing RPG or ATCM in the region, which caused us to lose heavy armored vehicles, but the Leopard 2A4s we lost were destroyed by our air forces and prevented them from falling into the hands of the enemy.

Well with a bit of research you would know its the leopard 2a4 which atgms are really affective against the turret of the leo 2a4, the leopard 2a5-2a6 are basically imunes to atgm if it hits the turret, the hull on the front of the leopard 2a4 -2a6 can withstand 2-3 hits , while the leopard 2a7V is basically inmune from the front The leopard 2a4 was defeated because it was outdated and almost all of the destroyed ones where hit on the turret not hull

This is the kind of content we get when people with pleasant voice-overs try to talk about things that are clearly out of their depth.

Love watch Leopard fanboy get triggered by this video and seing they’re panzer becoming BBQ against Cold War tech

Hmm now they're heading to Ukraine again and Kornet ATGM is waiting eagerly 👌

0:45 Yeah, they suffered such a great defeat, that they captured the city and are still inside the city and the surrpunding area. This video was obviously made just to show Turkey like a third world country that cannot even defeat ISIS and YPG/PYD in conventional warfare.

In Russia we say: "Equipment in the hands of a savage - a pile of scrap metal"

Every tank can be destroyed.

At what poing did this piece of trash get all the hype it had. Its just overpriced garbage.

Same excuse as T series of Russian did in Chechnya 1st.

There is no such thing as "Worlds Most Powerful Tank", It's all about the crew,

Excellent video. Studying warfare history every day, had never known about this engagment of Leopards. Thank you !

All the UN and German fanboys in the comments.

There are some miss informations in the video. Al bab was the second most important stronghold of isis, they defended it with their lives and kept reinforcing it during the siege.( a corridor was created for them in the south for the safe passage from Racca) but eventually they were defeated and Al bab was captured by Turkish forces on February/16/2017 about 5 months after operation started. 10 leopard tanks were destroyed during the operation and only 1 sabra tank was damaged. Al bab defeat was a big blow to isis and it was their first major lost in Syria. Turkish army still controls Al bab to this date.

The destroyed tanks, like the one with the turret missing, was apparently hit by the Turkish Air force. I remember following the events and the ISIS fighters were bragging capturing the tanks as some of the crew was killed while resting outside the tank, a video from the same location later showed the tank in pieces.

Now Russian army will destroy rest of Leopards .

If these tanks started the fight in Ukraine, russians will simply use their anti tank missiles and drones instead of getting into full scale classic tank battle like kursk

Al bab is captured and now in Turkey control. These tanks are vulnarable to Atgm as all tanks of cold war era which are not upgraded with self protection systems. Turkey is is modernizing its leopard fleet with new armor and self protection systems. In todays warfare, infantry is more predecious than tanks, nobody does not want to lose men. Infantry can no do anything againts atgms other than being target, since atgm attack can be launched from several km away. I find your analyses inadequate and biased.

Don't matter if you got the best tank in the world if your manning them with imbeciles, any weapon system is only as good as the crew manning the weapon system.

rpg 7 from 1980 can destroy this bullshit tank

This is the "game changer" that the West is bending over backwards to deliver to Ukraine???! 🤣

Turkish Leo2's are actually first batch Leo2A0's from 1979 which were upgraded later to the 2A4 standard. They are currently upgrading them after incidents in Syria. And yes, there were strategical and operational problems.

TLDR: Tanks were only disabled by ISIS, this destruction of Leo’s were done by Turkish Air Force on purpose so they wont be captured by ISIS, Leo’s were used with infantry support by due to bad weather (fog) and VBIED’s, tanks were sacrificed to protect the withdrawal of infantry. I am a Turkish guy and know about this story so let me correct some crucial mistakes in the video and provide info for the people in the comments. The Leo’s lacked reactive armors and counter measures for ATGM’s that is correct and this is the number one fault of the MoD and the Armed Forces rather than personnel on the field so I give credit to the video on that. The missing issue is the “necessity”, how many modern MBT’s the Turkish Armed Forces has and how many theater of operations it has explains this necessity. Protection of borders, Northern Iraq, North Cyprus, other parts of the Syrian theater… so TAF were compelled to use whatever they had which means in other words TAF is not equipped well enough too. However, I challenge the claim of not using Leo’s in Urban Warfare. If Germany is invaded in an hypothetical sense, are we not going to see Berlin or Hamburg defended or retaken by Bundeswehr? Or even in an invasion of another country, how do we expect Bundeswehr to capture the cities only by infantry? The answer is also in the video but it is somehow now applied to the Turkish case, the answer is you will use your armored units wherever it is necessary including urban but with infantry support. TAF conducted Urban operations in 2015 at the south eastern regions of Turkey during the height of terrorist activity, Leo’s were there and the terrorist organization had plenty of ATGM’s too. Why didnt TAF observe such issues at that time then? This shows that both TAF and the personnel on the field is well informed of how to use these MBT’s, the real issue about the December 2016 clashes is about something else thats why. The reports at the time indicated (later accounts of personnel on the field too) the clashes happened when this certain district was tried to be recaptured by the ISIS via the use of heavy foggy weather and infiltration tactics. Many VBIED (which is trucks full of explosives) were used, the fog and decrease in the range of sight caused many infantry casualties, they were withdrawn to sustain the situation and the tank were used to protect the withdrawal, the hospital (high ground and high building) in the district changed hand 16 times that day. So in this perspective, tanks sacrificed themselves to protect the infantry and in this regards they did a tremendous job, kudos to German engineers the tank is still strong even when it is armored to the 1980’s standards. The last and biggest mistake in the video that was not mentioned is: the Leo’s that were disabled in the field were ordered to be unmanned and later on Turkish Air Force targeted their OWN tanks so that ISIS would not be able to use them. Thats why the hulls are out and the tanks look devastated, the arsenal of ISIS or even Syrian Army lacks the weapons to devastate these machines that badly, it is only possible via the Fighters and Bombers. This tactic was used by the Americans and thought in NATO through them. Ask me any questions as long as you act civilized and if you want to have sources to read I will provide you some Turkish personnel’s twitter accounts on what happened that day, or I will provide you some examples to compare like 2015 SDF attack in Bashika camp (ATGM vs M60T Sabra which had active protection systems) 2015 Urban operations, 2017-8-9 Syria Interventions by TAF’s with Leo’s.

too many leopards destroyed in ukraine the leopard is not as powerful as it is exaggerated.

Leopards, Abrams and Challengers are in for a fiery reception from Russian KORNET E anti tank, anti aircraft weapons . 🍿 and 🥤.

Okey But,In fact: Battle of Al-Bab,Didn't the Turkish and FSA win that operation.They already capture that city. The Turkish were loss around 59 solders and 10 leapord 2 only. ISIS were loss around 1,348 in al-bab.

You guys all speak like you were there and know everything. Take it from someone who was actually there; Euphrates shield was not a defeat, it simply took longer than anticipated. Attack on al-Bab was recalled not because it was a defeat, but because Turkish army realized ISIS was backed up by Syrian army, and did not want to risk advancing further. Casualties by then was at a 1/10 ratio and any higher was not acceptable. Army was recalled and a new play was devised. Just a year later, Turkish army broke through. Leopards were misused. M60's weren't. Army expected al-Bab to have no heavy ordinance. They had American ATGM missiles. Who they bought them from, is "mystery". After all, where can you get american made ATGM's? Certainly not America. USA certainly did not share that intelligence. After a year's setback, Euphrates Shield was successful, then European countries started crying and branding it as a defeat, because Turkey gaining a foothold in Syria would damage their long term profits by having to share a slice of it with Turkey. They Threatened to impose sanctions. Up to day, they are still trying to keep Turkey from out of the Syria. Losing an unacceptable number of leopard 2A4's is definitely a humiliation. Main reason for that is, Turkey expected Leopards to perform similarly to M60's. Which they didn't. M60's were highly optimized for urban warfare. 2A4's weren't. Additionally, Germany has been refusing to sell the latest upgrade package on Leo 2's and modernize them. This is why Turkey has been making it's own Altay tanks because once again Nato "Allies" refuse to cooperate. Just like the situation where USA refused to sell patriots to Turkey for 20 years so Turkey went to Russia to get a better and cheaper system. It's not "this or that. They sucked so they lost bla bla." Everyone speaks, very little holds sway. I would ask you to share your sources, but you won't even read this comment fully, so.. Yeah.

And today we listen in mainstream media that sending leopard tanks to Ukraine will be a game changer. It won't be and this video shows that

Any tank can be destroyed Nothing is Invincible This video is a bit pointless Buts hey it’s American 🤷‍♂️

Turkey always get the crap version of the weapons. Without reactive armor it was an easy game for them to take out the leopards with guided anti tank missiles. After this lesson, Turkey used the m60t sabra versions - they were modernised by Israel and got reactive armor. There are many videos of them surviving direct hits by ATM.

The same shit occasionally happens with saudi Abrams and western sources always determine this as an unskillfull usage of weaponry, but when the same shit happens with russian weapon systems in hands of unqualified middle east operators (syrians, lybians, iraqies etc.) they label this weapon as obsolete/outdated in relation to western counterparts.

The Leopard II tank is a relic of the Cold War It doesn't fit in modern warfare

What's intresting is that the Turkish M60 Tanks did amazingly well in the insuring battles. Make of this what you will.

Calling the Leo 2 A4 "one of the best and most modern combat tools" is pure garbage. The Turks went to war with second hand tanks with obsolete armor. They could have performed better had they been used tactically better.

So not the tank's fault at all, not even it's design features or flaws. Literally solely due to poor battlefield tactics and management by the Turkish army entirely these handful of Leopard 2s got knocked out. Got it.

Ask the developers and architects how dozen of tall buildings crumble down massively in Turkey during recent earthquake.

fun fact no tank survive when anti tank missile comes this is the best example where the best tank gets destroyed easily while on the other hand people talk about the russian tank how it blows up now why all not talking about that i wounder

Factors resulting to tank obliterated: • Used without infantry support • Obsolete equipment • Overconfidence • Bad tank crew • Used in areas with not enough intel

Tanks are extremely vulnerable without infantry and air cover, this has been known since the world wars. This is not a hardware failure. Plus, as many people pointed out, where did ISIS get massive quantities of NATO made ATGMs? Even the taliban pointed out there's something weird with the group.

Technology doesn't replace good tactics. Combine arms will alway win the day.

The thumbnail is misleading. It shows a TOW, while these Leopard 2A4s and their accompaning vehicles were destroyed by Russian Konkurs and Kornet ATGMs and mines/IEDs.

If you learned about KV-1 in 1941, you would not made same kind of mistake. It is not hard to find dozen such examples. No tank is heavy enough to be indestructable.

Ah yes, sending tanks from the 80s and 90s into an asymmetrical fight against modern anti-tank weapons without support? What were they smoking. Best thing is, they actually blamed the tank and us Germans for it. Pure incompetence

Now they are going to send these tanks to Ukraine.🤣🤣🤣🤣

One of the best Channel, kudos team Military TV.

They sent an older variant of the tank, into an unfavourable terrain, in bad weather, with a green grew, supported by local militia who had never trained to fight alongside heavy armour. Only one of these factors are enough to lose an engagement. No doubt the political climate in Turkey also demanded a military defeat to humiliate the government in power at the time, which was against the military power of the country. So basically the generals in Turkey sought to orchestrate a defeat and blame it on the Erdoğan government to oust it in a coup. Basically this was never about the tank.

The success of a battle, is not only dependent on technology, or crew training. Strategy, tactics, battle field conditions, and weather also plays a major role.

How about showing us how Yemeni militants destroyed the M1 abrams tanks of the Saudi Arabia.

The best tank of the world is useless when the badest soldiers handle it...

Even the Germans in ww2 knew that in order for any tank to be effective it has to be supported by infantry and air support, at a minimum. This was like having Cristiano Ronaldo play alone against another team and wondering why you lost.

Calling a tank "invincible" is like saying the titanic was unsinkable.

Send this Uber Tank to Ukraine, this will definitely help to win ! (sarcasm off)

There is no such thing as an invulnerable tank.

The red coats had a few old centurions with massive mortars and heavily all round up armour in Gulf 1 for just this said eventually.

People like to criticize russian mbt's for being easily destroyed by atgms but when it happens to abrams or leopards, they blame the crew and environment and never the tank. People need to realise that tanks arent immortal to anti tank weapons and dont care how much armor you have.

Turns out all tanks are invincible when you don't fight people with anti tank weapons.

Der 2A4 ist doch schon total veraltet.. außerdem ist ein Panzer immer nur so gut wie die Crew die ihn bedient