After more than ten months of war, the West is finally tacking: the Ukrainian army will soon receive armored fighting vehicles that should better enable soldiers on the battlefield to take on Russian tanks. But is it enough?
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine is at a critical point. We will therefore further strengthen support for Ukraine.” In a joint statement following a phone call, US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced Thursday night that they plan to send armored fighting vehicles to Ukraine. The United States is expected to send about fifty so-called Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Germany will send forty Marders.
The US-German pledge comes after French President Emmanuel Macron announced the delivery of an unknown number of AMX-10 RC reconnaissance vehicles on Wednesday evening.
The promises of France, Germany and the US – probably soon followed by the British, who can now also not stay behind – represent an important new phase in Western arms deliveries to Ukraine, military analysts say. It is the first time that NATO standardized infantry fighting vehicles have been shipped. For Scholz in particular, this was completely unthinkable until recently: the German Chancellor has been very careful for months not to ‘provoke’ Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But more and more people in Washington, Paris, Berlin and London are realizing that Putin needs no reason to escalate the war anyway, especially now that Russia has been flattening Ukraine’s energy network with weekly drone attacks for three months now.
Game changer
Lieutenant Colonel Tom Simoens (Royal Military School Brussels) calls the delivery of the combat vehicles a particularly important step, and in the long term a possible game changer in the war. “The Bradley is the flagship American infantry fighting vehicle due to its speed, maneuverability and deployability, and is considered one of the ‘Big Five’ in the US, alongside the Abrams tank, the Patriot anti-aircraft system and the Black Hawk and Apache helicopters. . Certainly in the two Gulf wars in Iraq, they have rendered themselves particularly helpful.”
The US has been using the Bradleys since the early 1980s and still has thousands of them in stock. Because of their construction, they are often called tanks, just like the Marders, but they are not, says Simoens. “A tank is a tracked gun with heavy armor. The main task of these vehicles is to transport infantry and at the same time to suppress enemy fire, accompanied by tanks.”
Although the Bradleys should certainly not be underestimated. Former US general Mark Hertling calls the Bradley “not a tank, but one tank-killer”, a description that the Pentagon wholeheartedly agreed with in a briefing. “They don’t have a heavy gun like a tank, but their rapid-fire gun on the turret can shoot loose through a Russian infantry vehicle,” Simoens agrees. “They also have two launch tubes for anti-tank missiles, with a range of several kilometers. This is no small grub. If you use them in the right way, you can hurt Russia a lot with this.”
Combined warfare
That right way is in modern martial arts combined arms warfare a tactic that requires military insight, ingenuity, training, and above all, sufficient vehicles. “With 40 or 50 Bradleys and Marders in itself you are not much, Ukraine will eventually need more. They also perform best in combination with other weapon systems,” explains Simoens. Hence the persistent demand from Ukrainian President Zelensky to also receive modern Western tanks, such as the American M1-Abrams and the German Leopard 2.
Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhnyi said in late December that Ukraine needs at least 300 tanks, 600 to 700 infantry vehicles and 300 howitzers to launch a counteroffensive. For now, however, the West is still refusing to supply tanks, fearing a Russian escalation.
Defensive
Kris Quanten, also a professor of military history at the KMS, sees the new vehicles primarily playing a defensive role, due to a lack of sufficient offensive weapons. “Biden and co. show that they will not let a possible new Russian offensive pass just like that. These armors are fast and have a very high-performance anti-tank system, which the Russians will be afraid of.”
The announcement that Germany will also supply an extra Patriot anti-aircraft system is also important, says Quanten: “There is already one to protect Kiev against drones, the second can then be used behind the front to defend Russian fighter planes in a new offensive. to deny air superiority.”
Simoens is convinced that eventually tanks will be sent. “It’s not”too little, too late‘, but always littleespecially in the beginning, and late. These vehicles should have been sent as early as April 2022 for the counter-offensive in Kharkiv. Even now, the West remains cautious not to offend the Russians too much, while saying they fully support Ukraine. In fact, that’s not true.”