Hundreds of Kremlin battle tanks succumb to the use of drones or missile launchers and the debate on their role in future wars is opened
One of the iconic images that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has left so far is that of a group of civilians towing an enemy tank with a tractor. An episode from those early days of the war turned over time and the progress of the offensive into a symptom that something has failed in the strategy of a power that was supposed to be the second most vigorous in the world. Because, what happened to that endless column of armored vehicles that advanced threateningly towards kyiv, leading to the suspicion that the capital could be razed to the ground in hours? Have the T-90, the T-80 or the T-72, previously symbols of military power, become obsolete?
The machines that are commonly known as tanks were conceived by the British as vehicles to traverse any type of terrain and open a gap in the enemy ranks. Battering rams clearing the way for infantry troops. With hitherto unparalleled firepower and surprising speed for the time, they were first deployed on the Somme battlefront on September 15, 1916, during World War I. They left the cavalry behind and in the second global war they reached a vertiginous development.
According to US intelligence estimates, the Kremlin had 12,420 battle tanks and another 36,000 armored vehicles at the beginning of the occupation. A priori, an incontestable force. But, 37 days later, many military analysts agree that this has not been demonstrated in the theater of operations. Leaving aside the abandonment of units due to the action of inexperienced soldiers or lack of supplies, they have been systematically eliminated by the Ukrainian troops. According to Oryx, an open source website that follows the evolution of international arms movements, in the first three weeks of fighting alone, Russia lost at least 270 tanks. This figure would represent almost 10% of its active force on Ukrainian soil.
And it is that their known weaknesses, such as bazookas or anti-tank mines, is joined by the fact that in this contest they have been harassed by new weapons. Photographs of dozens of cars reduced to scrap metal by Bayraktar drones have become commonplace. Turkish devices have been credited as one of the most effective tools against the various types of battleships deployed by Moscow. The missiles have also hit them mercilessly. Of course, we are talking about the most sophisticated. Until the arrival of the Javelin, sent by the thousands from different Western countries, the kyiv Army used the Stugna-P. More rudimentary, locally made projectiles that are launched from a tripod and guided by lasers to hit the target.
from any position
The hostilities, in addition, have moved to urban areas, where the maneuverability of the tanks is greatly reduced. They are often at the mercy of ambushes and open fire from Javelins or NLAVs. The manufacturer of the latter, SAAB, details on its website that with them «you can attack from almost any position; from the top of a building to behind a tree or in a ditch (…) 45 degrees down or from the second floor of a building out of range of most tanks.”
The soldiers themselves describe its use very graphically: “Shoot and run.” A destructive simplicity that, according to analysts, has “empowered” the Ukrainian troops, to whom they also attribute the capture of a good number of units to incorporate them into their ranks. The debate about its usefulness in modern warfare is open. It is true that the number of tanks destroyed in Ukraine is small in relation to the contingent mobilized by Russia, but it is also true that never before has so much melted steel been seen.
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