Key Points and Summary – Western tanks like the Abrams, Leopard, and Challenger have had a “modest impact” in Ukraine, failing to be a “silver bullet.”
-They arrived “too late,” after Russia had built WWI-style layered defenses (mines, ditches) that prevent maneuver warfare.
-The tanks are also highly vulnerable due to Ukraine’s lack of air support, a critical component of Western doctrine.
-Furthermore, the small numbers donated and the “intense logistical burden” of maintaining multiple, non-interoperable tank types, combined with the new, devastating threat of cheap $500 drones, have forced Ukraine to use them sparingly as mobile fire support rather than as breakthrough weapons.
Cheap Drone vs. $10,000,000 Tank: Who Wins in Ukraine?
Western tanks that the United States, Australia, many European countries, and other nations donated to Ukraine have been less decisive than anticipated, with a much more modest impact on the battlefields of Ukraine than many commentators had hoped or expected.
In reality, Western countries’ tank donations—of their own platforms as well as refurbished Cold War-era tanks and legacy Soviet systems—have had little impact on the war’s trajectory.
One of the core issues is the nature of the war in Ukraine and the advantages inherent in defending rather than attacking. But by the time Ukraine received Western tanks, Russian forces had spent many months constructing deep, layered defensive lines across hundreds of miles of the front line.
This included wide belts of minefields, antitank ditches, dragon’s teeth antitank obstacles, pre-sighted artillery kill zones, and deeply entrenched infantry. This situation is not dissimilar to the fighting that defined the combat of the First World War.
Consequently, larger armored formations could not be assembled and punch through the front lines.
In summary, the tank that Ukraine received arrived too late: after the war, there had changed to positional, attritional warfare rather than maneuver warfare for which tanks were intended to fight in concert with robust artillery and air support, which Ukraine lacked.
Even the most advanced of Western tanks, namely the Abrams platform (costing around $10 million each), but other NATO tanks as well, proved to be highly vulnerable when attempting to navigate dense mine fields under artillery fire, drone attack, and real-time observation.
The United States military, and NATO militaries more broadly, operate under the assumption of close air support and air cover from national air forces — a central component of combined-armed doctrine.
Ukraine lacks helicopters, fighter jets, and bomber platforms to prosecute this kind of warfare. Without not only air support but air dominance, Ukrainian tanks would be dangerously exposed and very easily targeted.
Consequently, Ukrainian-operated tanks are forced to spread out and disperse, avoiding the kinds of open terrain where, under different circumstances, they would be expected to excel.
The kinds of combined-arms operations NATO militaries would prosecute have proven elusive to Ukraine, given its significantly more limited time and resources under wartime training conditions. NATO operations depend on close coordination among infantry, armored units, combat engineers, reconnaissance assets, and artillery.
In Ukraine’s case, communications are disrupted, drones conduct reconnaissance, and mine-clearing equipment is scarce.
Western countries have donated an enormous plethora of equipment to Ukraine. Main battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, supply vehicles, artillery pieces, and other equipment have been a great boon to Kyiv.
These systems are, however, maintenance-intensive, and while many of them enjoy some interoperability in terms of ammunition and fuel, their longevity depends on reliable supplies of spare parts and qualified maintainers to keep them fighting fit.
The spare parts, however, are not manufactured domestically, nor are the spares for, say, a German-made Leopard 2 main battle tank compatible with those for an American-made Abrams main battle tank. Though spare parts have been shipped to Ukraine, the myriad maintenance regimes for the various platforms in Ukraine are an intense logistical burden and a significant operational constraint.
Drones Can Easily Kill Tanks for Cheap
The advent of relatively inexpensive, readily available drones has undoubtedly transformed the battlefield. Both Ukrainian and Russian forces use drones to observe and damage or destroy vehicles in close to real-time — a $500 drone can disable or destroy a multi-million dollar main battle tank.
This cost dynamic has transformed how tanks are employed in Ukraine, from front-line breakthrough platforms into mobile fire-support systems, used very cautiously.
Additionally, the total number of Western-donated tanks has simply been too small to alter the balance of the war. Though Ukraine has received hundreds of tanks and other armored platforms from the West, these numbers pale in comparison to the thousands of tanks Russia has managed to pull out of storage and send to the front in support of its operations.
Ukraine is therefore forced to disperse its assets widely across an enormous front line, spread so thin that its impact has been modest.
Given the limited number of tanks supplied to Ukraine, the country’s political and military leadership has chosen to deploy them sparingly to avoid high-profile losses of advanced Western equipment.
As a result, Western armor deployment has been conservative, especially following the loss of several Leopard 2, Abrams, and Challenger 2 main battle tanks.
The Time of the Tank Now Over?
In summary, main battle tanks were intended for a different kind of warfare, one in which fast-moving tank formations operate in close coordination with air assets such as attack helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, mounted infantry, and are supported by mine-clearing platforms and robust resupply and logistics lines.
The war in Ukraine is, in stark contrast, static, artillery-heavy, and saturated with drones.
Though the strengths of main battle tanks—robust armor, off-road mobility, and heavy firepower—remain real, they are blunted due to the unique aspects of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
About the Author: Caleb Larson
Caleb Larson is an American multiformat journalist based in Berlin, Germany. His work covers the intersection of conflict and society, focusing on American foreign policy and European security. He has reported from Germany, Russia, and the United States. Most recently, he covered the war in Ukraine, reporting extensively on the war’s shifting battle lines from Donbas and writing on the war’s civilian and humanitarian toll. Previously, he worked as a Defense Reporter for POLITICO Europe. You can follow his latest work on X.
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