By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
(Washington DC) Ukraine’s massive counteroffensive is reportedly having some initial success, but not without destruction to Western tanks and armored vehicles.
Citing the open-source public intelligence-gathering website Oryx, an interesting essay in CNN says as many as 16 Bradley Fighting Vehicles have been destroyed by Russian forces during the counteroffensive. Multiple mainstream public reports also say additional US armored vehicles and German-built Leopard tanks have also been destroyed during the advance.
Although Oryx’s site is very well documented and often includes pictures and specifics, the exact amount of damage to Ukrainian armor is likely difficult to discern with complete precision, yet it is not at all surprising that there has been these kinds of losses.
There are several possible reasons for this, none of which seem particularly surprising. Any mechanized force surging forward to “close with an enemy” implicitly put itself at great risk, so Ukrainian armor on offense will confront much more significant and highly concentrated pockets of armed enemy resistance. Should armored vehicles be operating in a purely defensive capacity, the level of risk, vulnerability or exposure to enemy fire is quite different. Advancing armored vehicles, even with some measure of overhead ISR and suppressive longer-range fires, are susceptible to ambushes, hit-and-run attacks or certain kinds of anti-armor strikes from elevated, obscured or protected positions.
Russian CopyCat anti-armor tactics?
There is yet another significant factor to consider regarding Russian anti-armor tactics, which is their having observed Ukraine. While Russian fighters are known to suffer morale problems and be ineffective at various kinds of Combined Arms Maneuver according to many observers, they have likely learned from having observed Ukraine’s highly successful anti-armor attacks. Ukrainians were not only effective with anti-armor weapons themselves such as Javelins which have a proven ability to decimate armor, but they were also enterprising in their use of tactics. Ukrainians used decentralized, dismounted groups of attackers leveraging terrain, altitude and narrow passageways to destroy Russian armor while remaining elusive targets themselves. For instance, it was quickly learned that Russian tanks were particularly vulnerable to top-down attacks as they are less armored and likely did not have hemispheric Active Protection Systems able to track and intercept incoming fire from above.
The increased loss of Western armored vehicles also raises a critical intelligence question, meaning could this allow Russian soldiers and weapons developers to study the built-in technologies, electronics, targeting sights and armor composites. However, a critical thing to bear in mind here is that the US and many of its NATO allies have been selling”export variants of the Abrams and other vehicles to friendly countries for quite some time. These export variants are quite different from the US Army’ domestic platforms. Details of these differences are not likely to be available for security reasons, yet the Abrams tanks the US has sold to countries such as Iraq and other allies are likely to have very different electronics, targeting sights, computing and sensors are just a few of the areas with a specific reason of protecting any US advantage which may currently exist.
Kris Osborn is the Military Affairs Editor of 19FortyFive and President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University
