According to Business Insider (BI), up to now, the US has completed sending 31 advanced M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine as committed, but it is notable that they are still absent from battlefield clashes.
Analysts told Business Insider that current conditions do not allow Ukraine to effectively use these weapons because of worsening weather conditions and increasingly fortified Russian defenses. They concluded that these Abrams tanks will not appear on the battlefield until next spring.
“ Because the situation on the battlefield is stable, Ukraine will leave the M1 Abrams tanks as a reserve force, ” said Mark Cancian, a US Marine Corps colonel and senior advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
M1 Abrams tank.
Mark Cancian told BI that after receiving the first batch of Abarms in September 2023, Ukraine deployed the tanks along with the US-made M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles to its armored brigades. The Bradleys arrived earlier but have already seen combat on the battlefield.
However, at present, due to winter conditions, deploying Bradley fighting vehicles and Abrams tanks to the battlefield will be ineffective and difficult to support logistically.
Winter in Ukraine will bring mud, rain, frost and snow, making it difficult to move troops and combat vehicles, especially heavy vehicles such as M1 Abrams tanks.
A section of the Russian defensive line.
According to BI, due to harsh weather conditions, neither Russia nor Ukraine made any major breakthroughs on the battlefield during last winter. Mr. Cancian added that Ukrainian forces will “wait for the right moment,” possibly in the spring of 2024, to launch a new offensive.
Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia expert at the Institute for the Study of War, said there was no evidence so far that the M1 Abrams had seen combat. She echoed Cancian’s assessment that rain and mud were hampering the use of heavy military equipment.
The US missed the right moment to send Abrams tanks to Ukraine, said Sergej Sumlenny, founder of the European Resilience Initiative Center in Germany. He said the delay by the US and its allies in sending advanced tanks to Ukraine gave the Russian military enough time to build up solid defenses.
He told BI that with thousands of kilometers of trenches, concrete obstacles and Russian minefields, Western tanks had little chance to shine on the battlefield.
A US-made M1A1 Abrams tank, fitted with a mine roller, photographed in Grafenwoehr, Germany.
Sumlenny cited the July attacks by the 47th Mechanized Brigade in the Zaporizhzhia region, where he saw the Ukrainian army suffer heavy losses of Bradley armored vehicles against Russian defenders.
According to Oryx (a Dutch defense intelligence analysis website), at that time, up to 34 out of 100 Bradley armored vehicles that the US provided to Ukraine were destroyed by Russia.
“ That was the only case where the Ukrainians used Western tanks in a frontal attack. They don’t seem willing to try it again ,” Mr. Sumlenny said.
Mr. Sumlenny said that with Russia's solid defense line stretching over 1,000km, the 31 Abrams tanks provided by the US are too few to play a decisive role, because on average there are only 3 tanks for every 100km.
According to Russia Today, speaking in an interview with African journalists on November 16, Ukrainian President Zelensky said that the M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks provided by the US have barely helped the Ukrainian army make a difference on the battlefield. According to Mr. Zelensky, the 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks provided by the US to Ukraine are too few.
Le Hung (Source: Business Insider)
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