Ukraine loses two-thirds of its Abrams tanks to Putin

The Abrams M1A1 tank, once dubbed a “game changer,” has lost ground against Vladimir Putin—only about ten remain.

Kiev – “For western tank builders, it has always been of the utmost importance that the individual vehicle survives as long as possible on the battlefield; that if it is knocked out, it can be made operational again as quickly as possible; and that the crew inside also remains efficient,” explains Ralf Raths on his YouTube channelThe historian and director of the German Tank Museum in Celle has described exactly what problems the super tank supplied by the USA is causing in the Ukraine war; not so much for the enemy Vladimir Putin, but for Ukraine. The country is slowly running out of Abrams M1A1s – because that is what it is.

The Military Watch Magazine is currently reporting that the stock of Abrams tanks is rapidly running out. According to the magazine, this is a repeat of a period of high losses from the end of February to mid-April this year. Apparently they were badly damaged by drone attacks, which is why they were taken out of the front line to increase protection. More than 20 of the 31 US battle tanks delivered to Ukraine are now considered destroyed, disabled or captured, according to Military watch.

Everyday life in the Ukraine war: Horrendous tank losses due to drone army

“Most of the kills recorded on videos on social networks were made by guided artillery or disposable kamikaze drones, while one kill was confirmed by a Russian T-72B3 tank after the two had fired consecutive shells,” the magazine writes. The fault – including that of the Abrams – lies in the system or in the different mindsets underlying eastern and western tank construction. Russian tanks, which are also used by Ukraine, are small, light, and their loss is easy to bear. In the Soviet Union, this sometimes even applied to the crews.

“Without tanks, an army engaged in a large-scale ground war would have to rely on armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles to fulfill the same role, resulting in a higher percentage of catastrophic losses.”

The Eastern Bloc tanks are disposable, throwaway tanks. That is what distinguishes them from the models used in NATO, says Raths. The battlefield has also changed accordingly – because both sides use large numbers of drones for reconnaissance, the ground has become transparent. Washington Post quoted sources reporting difficulties in distinguishing friend from foe in the sky, “since about 100 Russian and Ukrainian reconnaissance and attack drones are operating simultaneously within a radius of ten kilometers,” as the ISW citing the post writes.

The enormous size of the vehicles alone has led to reports that they were exposed to particularly heavy fire. Camouflage and deception are once again among the mainstays of a modern army, explained Lieutenant Colonel Martin Winkler, head of the “Evaluation” department in the Army Command, in the Bundeswehr podcast. InquiredOn the contrary, during operations in Afghanistan and Mali, for example, armies were trying, as Winkler said, to “openly show their presence and to stabilize.” The Abrams was built for this period and today therefore towers over its opponents such as the T-80. This is now working to its disadvantage.

The new transparency: offensives with Abrams tanks find no cover

In the first period of excessive losses, the US Department of Defense had offered to sharpen the situation with tactical training, as the British Guardian After all, the Abrams was not only slowed down by technical obstacles. Apparently the Ukrainians had not internalized combined arms combat, or they simply lacked the strength to combine. With the dominance of drones, however, the tactic had generally gained more importance. The spread of drones meant that “there is no longer any open terrain that you can simply drive over without having to fear being discovered,” as the Guardian A high-ranking US military official quoted in April. This has also become even worse.

“The pattern of one side using a fleeting technological advantage to support immediate ground operations while they last is likely to become a defining feature of this type of conflict,” wrote the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). By this time, at the latest, the Abrams tank may have outlived its usefulness in Ukraine and on the unique battlefield there – revealing a commonality among Western tanks. The German Leopard and the British Challenger also rolled ahead with a halo that they could only clumsily rattle behind.

Winners of the Kursk Offensive: Marder and Bradley tanks – the real threat to Russia

Apparently, only the Marder and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles may have fulfilled what Ukraine had hoped for from the Western systems. However, the Ukrainian tank troops had refused to accept criticism of their tactics. The magazine Forbes At the end of May, it was reported that the British military had suffered from the US being asked to upgrade its tanks. Just like the other side, they had begun welding improvised wire structures onto the steel of the tanks to sharpen the impact of kamikaze drones on the turrets or flanks.

In the battle for Avdiivka, the losses were so significant that the Ukraine began to withdraw the tanks from the front line, as Forbes wrote. The 47th Mechanized Brigade only sent out M-1 tanks when there was an opportunity to “go out and destroy the enemy’s vehicles,” the magazine quoted a tank driver as saying. This would have meant that the M-1 tanks did not take up position in the outermost trenches and wait for a Russian attack, but rather waited behind the front line of a counteroffensive as a kind of reaction force.

Battle tanks are outdated: Ukraine dupes Putin at Kursk with guerrilla offensive

About a year ago, the Atlantic Council think tank weighed up the pros and cons of heavy battle tanks. Proponents say that tanks alone have the ability to break through enemy lines or hold enemy territory. However, Ukraine is currently successfully practicing a different type of warfare in the Kursk area: “By launching surprise offensives across the thinly guarded border, Ukraine can conduct a guerrilla war at the operational level, supporting its general strategy of attrition,” says Robert G. Rose.

“Without tanks, an army engaged in a large-scale ground war would have to rely on armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles to fulfill the same role, resulting in a higher percentage of catastrophic losses,” writes Rob Lee for the Atlantic Council. The analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute is an outspoken advocate of the tank weapon.

Number too small: Ukrainian tank weapon not a real opponent for Putin

Robert Rose recently wrote that, in the case of Kursk, the quick and decisive action of infantry units in Ukraine was what made it possible to regain maneuverability. It is possible that an attack with a wider tank wedge would not have been as big a surprise as the obvious advance with lightly armored and therefore faster units.