The insistence, for weeks and months, of the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, asking for Leopard 2 main battle tanks has almost elevated this German tank to the rank of a mythological animal, or at least to that of the Tiger, the heavy tank of the Wermacht. It’s not that bad.
Neither the Leopard 2 is indisputably the best main battle tank in the world nor is it an ultimate weapon that will change the course of the war in Ukraine, and that goes equally for the American M1 Abrams and the British Challenger 2 that are supposed to one day or another will coincide with their German counterpart on the Ukrainian plains.
Zelensky was simply pressing the corresponding key repeatedly with his demand. Fourteen NATO countries use the Leopard (and also candidates Sweden and Finland), so it was the tank to order if you were trying to get the European allies more involved in the war.
Hand in hand also went the willingness of the United States to join its Abrams tanks despite supposed reluctance from the Pentagon, which in reality the head of the Ukrainian army, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, must have known very well since he not only speaks often with his American counterpart , General Mark Milley, but both met in Poland on the eve of the meeting of the allies at the North American base of Ramstein, in Germany, the last step for eight more countries – among them Spain – to join the plan.
In this sense, the political content of the so-called Leopard coalition is deep. The fact that they all agree to send tanks is very visible (not to say showy…) and represents the end of dissimulation: if the Kremlin propagandists have been claiming for almost a year that Russia is at war with NATO, let them keep saying it.
But, as usual, the devil is in the details. Between the 31 Abrams, the 14 British Challengers and all the Leopards that the Europeans can send, there will be a maximum of 133 tanks, 145 in the best of cases. And not all of them will arrive at the same time: at least within three months the Germans, much later the Spanish, and the Americans don’t even know… Not only do we have to prepare the Ukrainian crew members and mechanics but, above all, we must ensure a safe route into Ukraine to move these monsters without exposing them to Russian missiles. And meanwhile, the war continues: the cars that arrive will cover the casualties that occur among the punished Ukrainian T-72 and T-80, of Soviet origin. All this without counting the tremendous logistical apparatus that it entails. Tanks, although it may seem so, are not alone…
There are recent examples of the inappropriate use of modern cars. In the 2006 Lebanon war, the powerful Israeli Merkava were left bogged down and at the mercy of Hizbollah’s guerrilla cunning. In Syria in 2016, Turkey deployed several of its Leopard 2 A4s along the border against both the Kurds and the Islamic State: the jihadists were able to destroy ten in the city of Al Bab using mines and anti-tank rockets. There is also evidence of how in Yemen Houthi guerrillas wearing sandals have destroyed Abrams cars. And in the Ukraine, videos of T-72 tanks circling in a row and being attacked by drones and smart Javelin anti-tank rockets gave a very poor impression of the use of armor by Russian commanders.
Whether the impact of those hundred-odd tanks will be seen in the Ukraine is an unknown quantity. But, for the moment, the most serious analysts – both Western and Russian – agree that they will not in themselves represent a turnaround in the war as the American Himars multiple rocket launchers have, which have attacked the Russian rear with great effectiveness. , their command centers, their logistics chain… And, of course, they have caused carnage. It was the Himars batteries that turned the situation around, forcing the Russian withdrawal from the Kharkiv and Kherson provinces.
Battle tanks are for something else. General Zaluzhnyi wants them to reconquer territory. But he with a hundred he doesn’t even have to start an offensive. He needs, he has said, about 300 tanks, 600 or 700 armored vehicles for the infantry, about 500 self-propelled howitzers… And ammunition, ammunition and more ammunition.
For all that has been said, the idea that the Leopards and their Anglo-Saxon cousins ??could play a large role in the announced spring confrontation seems more propaganda than anything else. It remains to be seen, by the way, what is being prepared on the Russian side.
Until now, Russia has used in Ukraine the old T-72 and T-80 and the more recent T-90, called Vladimir after its late designer, Vladimir Potkin. Its most modern version, the T-90 Ms Proriv, ??is up there with the Westerners and would be superior in some ways, with electronic optics that, at least until 2014, were supplied by France. The ultimate Russian main battle tank, the T-14 Armata, a highly automated behemoth designed for maximum crew survivability, is still in development and exists only to be displayed in parades.
It is believed that Russia has lost about thirty T-90 and the question is whether there will be more copies on the way. Of course, it is not possible to expect a massive encounter of armored vehicles like the one that occurred in the Battle of Kursk in 1943, with more than two thousand per side (the Panzer IV and the legendary Russian T-34) and part of which had as scenario Ukraine. But undoubtedly the manufacturers will be interested in verifying the performance of their tanks against those of the enemy, a rather unusual situation and one that has not been seen – saving the distance – since the 1991 Gulf War.
