We are talking about the supply of new Western armored vehicles to UkraineThe UK will transfer 14 Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine in the coming weeks, and will also significantly strengthen its diplomatic activity in the world in order to increase the supply of weapons to Kiev from the allies.
This is stated in the published UK strategy for Ukraine. Polish President Andrzej Duda said that Warsaw will transfer a company of Leopard tanks to Ukraine as part of the support of the international coalition.
The Finnish authorities also announced the possibility of considering the transfer of Western-made tanks to Ukraine, if this step is supported by a "group of several countries." In June 2022, the newspaper Pais reported that Spain was ready to supply Kiev with Leopard-2 tanks, but Germany blocked the transfer.TASS collected information on the technical characteristics of heavy combat vehicles, comments from military and political experts on the proposed deliveries, as well as information about modern Russian tanks in the special operation zone in Ukraine.
Features of Western tanks
According to the website of the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom, the Challenger-2 main battle tank has been in service with the British Army since 1994. Firepower and security were priorities in the development, therefore, according to the British military department, the tank is slower than its rivals. The vehicle is protected by a multi-layered Dorchester-2 combined armor (Dorchester Level 2) with ceramic elements. The main armament of the tank is a 120 mm rifled gun, auxiliary — two 7.62 mm machine guns. With additional booking, the tank 's mass reaches 75 tons . The 1,200 hp diesel engine accelerates the car to 59 km/h on the highway and 40 km/h on rough terrain. The power reserve on internal fuel tanks is 550 km on the highway and 250 km off—road. The tank was used by the British army in operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Iraq, while it is claimed that not a single vehicle was destroyed by the enemy.
In May 2021, the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom announced the conclusion of a contract for the modernization of 148 of 227 Challenger-2 tanks to the Challenger-3 level by Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land. The upgraded tank will receive a 120-mm smoothbore cannon, an active protection system and advanced electronics. It is planned to put the tanks into operation in 2027. At the same time, the fate of the remaining 79 combat vehicles remained unknown. Experts believed that the tanks could be sold or disposed of.
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| Source: Photo: Global Look Press/Dirk Waem/Belga News Agency |
The German Leopard-2 main battle tank was produced in several modifications, the most modern of which is the A7+. In total, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann has produced over 3.5 thousand units of all variants of this machine. Poland, which is ready to transfer tanks to Ukraine, is armed with 142 Leopard-2 versions of A4 and 105 modifications of A5. According to the manufacturer and open sources, these variants of armored vehicles have a mass of about 60 tons, are armed with a 120 mm smoothbore cannon and a 7.62 mm machine gun, equipped with a 1,500-horsepower engine. Armor — combined, multi-layered. The maximum speed of the tank is more than 70 km/h, the power reserve is 450 km.
The crews of the Leopard-2 and Challenger-2 consist of four people, which is one more than in Russian cars. If in domestic tanks the reloading of the gun takes place with the help of an automatic loader, then in Western tanks a separate crew member is engaged in this.
"Any grenade launcher can handle it"
Sergey Suvorov, an expert in the field of armored vehicles, Candidate of military sciences, colonel of the reserve, in an interview with TASS shared his opinion about the Leopard-2. "The tank is like everyone else. There is a good fire control system with the possibility of duplicating the aiming from the commander, there is a thermal imaging sight, but the car is quite old, overall," he said, noting that the samples intended for delivery to Kiev were developed in the 1980s.
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| Leopard 2A4. |
| Source: www.defence24.pl |
According to him, Ukrainian crews will face a number of difficulties when retraining for new equipment. And if you can train tankers to shoot and drive quickly, then studying the maintenance of the tank, preparing the weapons complex for shooting, reconciliation and other operations will take more time. The specialist also noted that the readiness of the crew and command staff plays a more important role than the type of tank, and technically any of the Russian tanks used in the zone of a special military operation can destroy the above-mentioned Western vehicles. Suvorov drew attention to the fact that there is no dynamic protection on the Leopard-2A4 tank, which counteracts the defeat of cumulative ammunition. "Any grenade launcher, any ATGM (anti—tank guided missile - approx. TASS) copes with it," he said.
Suvorov recalled that these German tanks are in service with the Turkish army and were used in operations against Kurdish formations in Syria, as a result of which Turkey lost several Leopards. At the same time, according to the expert, the tanks were hit from grenade launchers.
"The appearance of new tanks in the Ukrainian army will not change anything, just the name will change — instead of the T-64 there will be a Leopard," Suvorov said. "And if three people die during the destruction of the T—64, then four will die here."
"There is such a concept — the optimal combination of combat properties of a tank. There are four of them: firepower, security, mobility and command controllability. They should be optimally combined. The Challenger has great protection, average firepower," the expert said, noting the high mass of the Briton, which reduces mobility, imposes restrictions on the type of bridges that the tank can pass, on the overall cross—country ability of a heavy vehicle.
Suvorov said that there is a cannon with separate loading on the British tank, that is, a crew member must manually insert a shell into the breech of the gun and send the shell first, and then the sleeve. "He still makes the first three shots at a normal pace, and then... The work of the loader can be compared with the work of the automatic loader, as a runner on the stairs — with an elevator. They will reach the second floor at the same time — maybe the runner will even run a little earlier, but the elevator usually comes first to the tenth floor, not to mention the 16th," the specialist said, noting the peculiarity of both the British and German tank.
The political aspect
"These new, as yet announced deliveries indicate that the possibilities of the collective West for the supply of Soviet—style weapons to Ukraine, created at the production facilities of Eastern Europe, built back in Soviet times, are coming to an end," Alexander Mikhailov, head of the Bureau of Military-Political Analysis, expressed his opinion in an interview with TASS. — All possible Eastern European arsenals have already been objectively cleared. That is, all this was disposed of on the territory of Ukraine in 11 months of the special operation. Now the situation is stalemate for the collective West: they need to continue supplies, explaining to their collective voters why so many dollars were spent to support Ukraine, and demonstrate to the whole world that the collective West is stronger than Russia after all."
Mikhailov noted that Western countries, with the help of the media, have been convincing for a whole year that Russia is about to lose in this conflict, you just need to make a little more effort. However, the opposite is happening: Russia retains the advantage, has conquered 100 thousand square kilometers of territory, it includes four new regions that are being freed from the remnants of Ukrainian units.
"Accordingly, there is a need to clean up already European national arsenals from armored vehicles. Another plan of the Americans is being implemented here, which fit into the general outline of this big game — that when Europe gives Ukraine everything that remains from the Warsaw Pact era, it will start supplying its own weapons, which are produced by the European defense complex," the expert believes. "Of course, neither the Germans, nor the British, nor other arms manufacturers in Europe — France, Italy, Poland — do not want to demonstrate the inconsistency of their weapons, because they will definitely burn on the territory of Ukraine, because they will be hit by our anti—tank weapons."
According to Mikhailov, the continuation of the scenario will be the need for European countries to purchase American weapons, from which only the United States will benefit.
Mikhailov expressed the opinion that British tanks will be used far from the line of clashes (for example, in Western Ukraine) as a "demonstration company", training vehicles, as well as for shooting propaganda plots. "No one wants there, in the West, to have business cards of their defense industry (military-industrial complex — approx. TASS) burned down first of all," he said.
The head of the Bureau of Military-Political Analysis believes that the announced deliveries will not affect the course of the special operation in any way. "To change the course of events, we need to supply tanks by the thousands," he said. "During the military operation, Russia destroyed more than 3 thousand. Ukrainian tanks. <...> Front line — 1,200 km . What can a tank company do? She will fight for a day or two, in a week our valiant servicemen will burn them," Mikhailov expressed his opinion.
"Naturally, every armored vehicle, every ammunition that the West supplies to the territory of Ukraine is a problem for the Russian group, which is reflected in the losses of personnel and military equipment, but to change the course of the military campaign, more armored vehicles are needed, which simply do not exist," the expert said.
The same opinion was expressed by the British newspaper The Guardian. The publication noted with reference to experts from the London International Institute for Strategic Studies that Ukraine needs at least 100 tanks for a counteroffensive. At the same time, the UK, as the newspaper added, cannot dramatically increase their supplies due to the small number in its own armed forces. The Guardian noted that 13 NATO countries have more than 2.3 thousand Leopard-2 tanks, but their condition may be far from combat readiness.
Raphael Loss, project coordinator of the European Council on Foreign Relations, in an article in the German magazine Spiegel calls for considering the transfer of British tanks to Ukraine as a political signal of support, but does not know whether this step will be enough to "break the deadlock." Loss believes that the Challenger-2 is definitely superior to the tanks used by Ukraine to date.
"The advantages in combat value are outweighed by logistical problems — for example, with the supply of spare parts," he says, noting that from a third to half of armored vehicles usually need repair and maintenance during operation.
The author of an article in the American magazine Military Watch Magazine believes that the UK decided to transfer the "Challengers" to Kiev because their production has been discontinued for a long time, and the export potential is low, unlike the German "Leopards" or American "Abrams". This means that you should not be afraid of image losses in the event of the destruction of these machines in the special operation zone.
German Cabinet spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said during a briefing that the German government has not yet received specific requests for the re-export of tanks produced in Germany. Such deliveries cannot be carried out without Berlin's permission.
T-90M — "tank of the Great Victory"
If British and German tanks appear in the zone of a special military operation, they will encounter the Russian T-90M "Breakthrough" tank — the most advanced vehicle of the T-90 family, the most adapted to action in modern combat conditions. It is equipped with all—course protection, a modern all-day highly automated fire control system, it has implemented a set of measures to increase the survivability and protection of the crew, a new, more powerful engine of 1,130 hp is installed. The main armament of the Breakthrough is a 125 mm smoothbore cannon capable of firing new high-power ammunition, as well as guided missiles, striking enemy tanks at a range of up to 5 km . The new multi-channel sight ensures the use of weapons at any time of the day. The T-90M is capable of exchanging data with other machines in real time, which has become one of the main features of the upgraded machine.
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| T-90M tank. |
| Source: © Sergey Bobylev/TASS |
According to the tankers, in a few months of application, the "Breakthrough" has proven itself well. The servicemen note that the tank withstands hits due to composite armor, and high maneuverability allows you to move quickly on the battlefield.
The participants of the special operation dubbed the T-90M the "tank of the Great Victory" by analogy with the legendary T-34, which participated in the Great Patriotic War.
"It is improved: the crew is reliably protected, the tank commander, that is, I'm already sitting inside, I don't have to get out into the street, reload the [machine gun] "Cord" and fire — I do it all from the inside," Ruslan, the tank commander, shares his impressions. — Surveillance devices have been improved, I have a panorama, I can look at 360 degrees, and I don't have to turn my head, I can see everything on the computer. I can also communicate with neighboring tanks without getting in touch, just write them the coordinates, drive up there, and we work together. Our T-90 was blown up by an anti-tank mine, the caterpillar was not damaged, only the skating rink was torn off, and it left the combat zone on its own, the whole crew is intact."
The conveyors of the Nizhny Tagil Uralvagonzavod, which produces tank equipment, have been switched to round-the-clock operation. On January 12, the company announced that it had sent the next batch of T-90M to the Russian Defense Ministry.
Viktor Bodrov, Georgy Sultanov
