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Wrong ammunition, wrong armor: The US Abrams is making itself unpopular among Ukrainian tank drivers. They almost speak of suicide missions.
Kiev – “The other day we fired 17 shots into a house and it was still standing,” says “Joker.” The tank man answers in a calm tone, but the video from the US news channel CNN clearly shows his tense facial muscles. He seems contrite about the inadequate equipment with which the 47th mechanized brigade of Ukraine has to fight against Vladimir Putin’s troops. He is driving the vehicle that defeated Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein: an M1A1 Abrams of the US Army. “Joker” feels let down.
“There is a lack of mass,” was the sober conclusion. In mid-June last year, the German Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies (GIDS) at a symposium, the importance of Western battle tanks for the successful outcome of the Ukraine war was questioned. Now, almost a year later, the defenders’ tank crews are disillusioned. “Why do we have so few of them, and why does the supply take so long?” asks “Joker” in response to a question from CNN-Reporter Nick Paton Walsh. But “Joker” is even more depressed – he now feels almost like he is on a suicide mission in the vehicle.
Criticism from Ukraine: Too much condensation, too thin armor, too little suitable ammunition
Condensation would drip onto the electrical system, the armor would be too thin to withstand drone attacks, and the ammunition would be wrong for the use the Abrams is being forced into, he says. He fires ammunition for tank combat, but at artillery targets – where it would then fail to have any effect. The magazine Soldier & Technology had warned at the beginning of the war against starting a war in a former partner country of the Warsaw Pact with NATO-means without being aware of the possible consequences: “In contrast to the card game Tank Quartet, weapon systems in the armed forces are not viewed as singular technical objects, but as an elementary part of a whole that is used in the context of combined arms combat or combined forces operations,” writes Waldemar Geiger.
“An observation drone spotted the tank east of the Russian-captured town of Stepove, in front of Berdychi, which is held by the Ukrainians. From there, it probably rolled to a firing position. This mission in itself was daring, not to say suicidal.”
Firepower, armor protection and mobility are the three pillars of the armored weapon – if they are used accordingly: An Abrams as an immobile weapon loses a third of its value; Geiger speaks of “operational value”. The Abrams is considered the primary target of Russian missiles and can hardly defend itself against them without movement or support. Drone attacks are a problem for them, says “Joker”; the armor is not designed for that. They had to reinforce the armor by hand and, for example, attach cages to the top to protect against the drones.
The tank saw its first combat deployment against Iraq in the Second Gulf War in 1991, the magazine recalls Swiss soldier: “In the duel between the M1A1 Abrams and the T-72 Ural, the American tanks proved superior in terms of accuracy and first hit probability, especially at distances of over 1,800 meters. The terrain conditions in the Iraqi desert enabled tank attacks on a broad front with maximum weapon deployment. The success of the ground offensive showed that, in addition to strong tank units supported by modern helicopters, precision artillery fire was of central importance,” writes Marc Lenzin.
Putin’s far-sighted reconnaissance Every meter is a suicide mission for the Abrams
The then US commander-in-chief, General Norman Schwarzkopf, commanded what the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyj, currently lacks: the rolling stock for combined arms combat and the associated space to convert the mobility of a tank into firepower. The Ukrainian army withdrew its Abrams tanks from the front at the end of April to avoid further heavy losses, according to the magazine Military watch reported: Ukrainian sources have expressed regret that the Abrams can hardly operate anywhere without being discovered. Even relocations seem to have become difficult at the moment.
In February, the star of the presumably first Abrams shot down: it was brought down by a cheap drone. “An observation drone spotted the tank east of the Russian-captured town of Stepove, in front of Berdychi, which is held by the Ukrainians. From there it probably rolled to a firing position. This mission in itself was daring, not to say suicidal,” said Gernot Kramper, describing the dilemma.
Delivered tanks: For NATO, the sum is not a security risk
The US government had 31 tanks in Ukraine promised and now delivered. Using the example of the number of Leopard tanks delivered to Ukraine, Dr. Ralf Kirsten described the amount of Western support as far from sufficient: “The delivery of four percent of the Alliance’s tank stocks is negligible per se,” stressed the colonel in the General Staff. The same applies to the Abrams, given that the US Army has more than 2,500 Abrams of various types. In his opinion, the operational readiness of Western armed forces will remain intact despite the arms deliveries.
For Ukraine, the shortage is fatal: “With a front line of around 2,000 kilometers and a combat strip of a tank battalion of around five kilometers wide, there is only a very limited area of action here,” says Kirsten. The Ukrainian mechanized brigades are often thrown together and do not represent a coordinated interaction of armored infantry, artillery, reconnaissance, engineers and other branches of the military,” as Kirsten explains the principles of the armed forces explained.
However, the complaints of “Joker” and his comrades about their equipment also stem from the logic of a dynamic war. Soldier & Technology describes the challenges facing the Ukrainian soldiers and their Western instructors: The Ukrainians were indeed instructed in how to operate the vehicles, but had their deficits at the tactical level because the units were deployed and fighting in the unit had to be left to the Ukrainians themselves, as Waldemar Geiger wrote about the beginnings of the training at the beginning of the war.
“Speed before thoroughness is the motto, as Ukraine needs the systems sooner rather than later. Consequently, the Ukrainian armed forces would then have to find out for themselves during the ongoing battle how the respective systems can be used most effectively in order to achieve the highest possible operational value.”
When the Abrams tanks were designed, the air threat came primarily from helicopters. In the Ukraine war, the drone engages the tank in the kind of combat it wants to avoid, causing the star points out: “The commander of a battle tank never wants to show the enemy the side and certainly not the back, but always the heavily armored front,” writes Gernot Kramper. In Ukraine, however, the drone targets the tank from above. Here, too, the mass makes the difference.
During the first year of the war, the former Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Salushnyj had made a number of statements to the British Economist said that he needed 300 tanks. And in mid-June last year, Colonel Kirsten told the GIDS: “In order to bring about a turning point in the war in Ukraine, at least four times as many tanks would have to be promised and at least eight times as many delivered as before.” All of this has come true.
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