The main battle tanks of Western production were received for equipping the armored forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine At the end of last week, Poland handed over the first four Leopard 2 tanks to the armed forces of Ukraine. Today, on February 28, Yan Gagin, adviser to the head of the DPR Pushilin, reported that Leopard 2 tanks had already been spotted in the Artemovsk area.
How Kiev will use German machines, and how the immediate plans of the parties to the armed conflict look like in general, the military observer of the Newspaper understood.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.
The most intense fighting on the line of contact is currently underway in Artemovsk (Ukrainian name - Bakhmut). In the remaining sections, there are no significant changes in the position of the parties. It was in the area of Bakhmut, according to some reports, that the appearance of the first German Leopard 2A6 main battle tanks was first noticed (near the village of Chas Yar). The machines have not yet taken part in the battles.
Today, representatives of the Russian expert community periodically present materials in which they analyze the tactical and technical characteristics of modern main battle tanks. For comparison, the British Challenger 2, the American M1 Abrams, the German Leopard 2 and the Russian T-72B3 and T-80 are taken. Absolutely everything is compared: armor and mine protection, fire control systems, guns, shells, guided missiles, power plants, power reserve and much, much more.
All this is very entertaining and curious, but the main answer to the question - whose tank is better - will still be given only by fighting. In other words, convincing statistics of the combat use of certain machines. While there is no such data, any comparisons look somewhat conditional and out of touch with life.
The question arises - how do the APU intend to use tanks received from the West in battles? After all, they will not send their Leopard 2 into battle platoon and porotno. Tanks are then easy to lose without any more or less significant effect (as you know, there are no non-killed armored combat vehicles in principle). Therefore, a convincing answer to such a question implies, at a minimum, an analysis of the immediate plans and strategic aspirations of the Ukrainian side as a whole.
Image source: Alina Jus/"Newspaper.Ru"
Apparently, the armed forces of Ukraine in the near future intend to inflict significant losses in personnel, weapons and military equipment to the Russian army in defensive battles and battles, and thereby weaken the possible offensive potential of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation as much as possible, or even better - to reduce it to zero altogether.
During this stage, the AFU plans to receive all planned Western military aid packages in full. First of all, this applies not so much to armored combat vehicles, which have been talked about so much lately, as to long-range weapons with a firing range of 150-160 km (this especially applies to small-diameter ground-launched bombs and JDAM-ER type ammunition). It is the long-range high-precision weapons that will create conditions for the transition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to a counteroffensive, according to Kiev. I have previously written in detail about such means of destruction "Газета.Ru ".
After fulfilling the first two points, the Armed Forces of Ukraine plan to launch a series of counterattacks at the operational and tactical level, defeat the Russian troops opposing them and reach the borders of 1991 in mainland Ukraine. The most anticipated direction of one of these counterattacks is Melitopol-Mariupol. Thus, it is planned to cut in two the grouping of Russian troops in this direction and cut the land corridor to the Crimea.
Whether the Ukrainian army will wait for the end of the spring thaw season in terms of the transition to offensive actions is an open question. On the one hand, it is certainly better to wait for the moment when the soil dries out, and on the other hand, weather conditions equally affect the effectiveness of military operations on both sides of the conflict. And yet, given the weight of the Leopard 2 tank (more than 60 tons), there is reason to assume that the leaders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will begin active hostilities only with the end of the thaw season.
German Leopard 2 tanks will most likely be used to achieve the goals of the counteroffensive as part of fully equipped tank brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which will form the basis of mobile groups of troops in various directions. Until then, the Ukrainian side, there is every reason to believe, will refrain from using German tanks in small groups.
The strengths of German combat vehicles include the ability to operate at night as during the day. Leopard 2 thermal imaging cameras quite allow such actions. Therefore, we must assume that for the most part, the APU counterattacks will be applied at night so that the German tanks can demonstrate all their best qualities.
As for the actions of the Russian army, it still faces the task of defeating the armed forces of Ukraine in such a way that will allow it to begin negotiations on Russian terms and conclude a truce on the basis of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which already includes new subjects of the federation.
How the situation will develop will be shown by the upcoming events on the line of contact. It is on the fronts of the special operation that the future of both Ukraine and Russia will be decided.
Mikhail Khodarenok
