The idea appears to be that several Nato countries will pool their gifts to create a brigade including 100 2A4s as well as the 100 or so Bradleys and Marders. So IFVs and tanks, working closely together and liaising with artillery are essential for effective “ combined arms warfare” – the key to success in land battles. In turn these more lightly-armoured IFVs are vulnerable to tanks. These are equipped with automatic cannons and machine guns to provide covering fire for the infantry when they dismount. You do that in IFVs such as the Bradley and Marder. So the best way to protect tanks from infantry with ATGMs is to bring your own infantry with you. Tank crews, encased as they are in a very heavy steel box, often find it difficult to see these troops, which puts them at a huge disadvantage. Early in the war, Russia lost hundreds of them to anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) fired by infantry, including the iconic Javelin and NLAW. Until now, apart from some gifts from Poland and the Czech Republic of Soviet-designed but modified (by Czech and Polish engineers respeictively) T72 tanks, none had been forthcoming from Nato countries.īut on January 16 this changed, with an announcement by the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, of the transfer of 12 of Britain’s 227 Challenger 2 tanks. Tanks, with their big guns, speed and heavy armour, provide the sheer punch and momentum to take ground. For some time Ukraine has been begging allies for more and better weapons systems such as long-range artillery and aircraft.īut high on that list have been main battle tanks (MBTs). Just over a year later, the ferocious armoured battles in Ukraine during 11 months of conflict appear to confirm Elwood’s concerns. Committee chairman Tobias Elwood noted that it was tanks that were massing on Russia’s border with Ukraine, while the UK was cutting back its own fleet. When he appeared before the UK’s House of Commons Defence Committee in November 2021 to defend his government’s cuts to the armed forces, the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, declared that “the old concepts of fighting big tank battles on European land mass are over”.
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