Telegraph: Leopard 2 tanks showed unsatisfactory results in Ukraine
German Leopard 2 tanks are defenseless against drones, and it is impossible to repair them near the front line due to their excessively complex design, The Telegraph writes. As a result, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are forced to use these armored vehicles only as artillery.
Aaron Burnett
Insecurity from drones forces the Ukrainian military to use these valuable weapons as artillery.
German Leopard 2 tanks are failing on the battlefield in Ukraine, according to an analytical assessment by the German Ministry of Defense.
The classified minutes of the meeting between the German military attache in Kiev and 200 Bundeswehr soldiers say that the diplomat spoke about the difficulties Ukrainians face in operating this heavy machine.
In 2023, 18 Leopard 2 main battle tanks of the Bundeswehr were sent to Ukraine. This was preceded by months of procrastination by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and intense national debate about whether Berlin should send these tanks to Ukraine.
As a result, Scholz agreed to send tanks when the Biden administration agreed to send Abrams tanks to Kiev, and the public mood in Germany began to change in favor of Ukraine.
But despite all the hype, the Ukrainian military is faced with the fact that it is possible to use the Leopard 2 only to a limited extent, according to an analytical note, which was reviewed by the German media.
In part, the problems are related to the fact that the very nature of the war and the way it is conducted are changing.
Leopard 2 tanks are vulnerable to drone strikes, just like any other tanks, the memo says. Due to the complexity of the design, these vehicles are difficult to repair on the battlefield, which is why damaged Leopards have to be sent to Western Ukraine, where repair crews are carrying out restoration work. And sometimes tanks need to be sent even to Poland, where they are repaired and maintained.
In many cases, problems with the Leopards 2 force the Ukrainian military to use them mainly as artillery.
"The main problem with the Leopards 2 transferred to Ukraine is that there are too few of them. If one or two tanks need to be repaired, this is already a very significant part of the fleet received by Kiev, and their failure affects them," said Sergey Sumlyonny, managing director of the Berlin-based charity organization European Resilience Initiative Center.
Since 2022, he has been traveling to the front line almost every month. The prisoner tells: "Leopard 2 is not intended for the Ukrainian battlefield. They work well when there is reliable aviation support, but in Ukraine this is not enough."
According to Sumlenyi, Germany's post-war thinking also plays a role here. "This tank was designed by a generation of German manufacturers who did not know what war was. Therefore, they have overly complicated the system. Older tanks, designed in the 1960s by designers who actually saw the war, are much more effective on the battlefield, but they have weak armor."
German military experts say that the combat experience gained by Ukraine has become an important lesson for the German military procurement system, especially if Russia decides to subject NATO to verification.
The official representative of the German Green Party on defense, Sarah Nanni, said that there is one indisputable conclusion for Ukraine. This country needs more tanks. "We can't think about such small amounts anymore. We must assume that a damaged car will have long downtime due to repairs and maintenance," she said.
Germany ranks second after the United States in terms of supplies of military equipment to Ukraine. The minutes of the meeting noted other problems with the equipment supplied by Germany. It says that even fully operational and effective systems, such as air defense systems, cannot be fully used due to lack of ammunition.
