Russian Vs. Western-Made Tanks In The Ukraine War | Balance Of Power | Insider

Russian Vs. Western-Made Tanks In The Ukraine War | Balance Of Power | Insider

The tank is the apex predator of ground warfare. And both Russia and Ukraine have had significant losses. It can cost millions of dollars to build replacements. So what do these losses mean for the war? And which country is ahead? We’re going to break down the balance of power. I’m Sam Fellman. I’m a defense editor with Business Insider, and I’m a US Navy veteran. Tanks aren’t decisive, but they’re an important part of the positional warfare, and they’re a critical weapon to Ukraine to try to break the Russian momentum. These are premier fighting vehicles that we’re seeing in action on the battlefields of Ukraine. We’re learning a lot about the tank forces and warfare against pretty pervasive threats to tanks. Russia is using its tanks primarily to support foot soldiers who are advancing, to counter Ukrainian drives, and to protect vehicle movements. Russia is one of the largest tank forces in the world, and Russia has been on attack. The other advantage Russia has is a political willingness to sacrifice hundreds of vehicles and tens of thousands of troops to try to attain battlefield victories. Russia has lost a lot of tanks by the count of open-source researchers at Oryx, they’ve lost 1,800 destroyed, 530 captured, and then 270 abandoned. Russia has thousands more tanks upon which it can draw, and it can make operational older or reserve tanks as the war continues. So Russia’s using pretty much everything it’s got. The bulk of that is the T-80s and the T-72s. Those are Cold War-era Soviet-made tanks that Russia has in really large numbers. There is some usage of the more modern T-90s, and Russia is also, to augment its numbers and replace its heavy losses, has dipped into its deep storage and is taking out T-55s and T-54s. Those are tanks that were built in the days after World War II. The T-55s and T-54s, those are essentially obsolete on a modern battlefield. Russia has not deployed its T-14 Armata tank, which is a tank that Russian media has hyped up quite a bit. It has not been involved in any meaningful combat operations in Ukraine. The T-90M is the most advanced tank that Russia has deployed to the battlefields of Ukraine. And it has thermal sites, a computerized fire control system, and jammers. It also, like many other tanks, Russian tanks and Western tanks, it has explosive reactive armor. It costs about the ruble equivalent of $4.5 million. Ukraine has received donated tanks from Western partners. So those tanks are the UK-made Challenger 2, the German-made Leopard tank, and the American M1 Abrams. Those are all very modern tanks. The M1 Abrams is a premier tank designed to destroy Soviet- and Russian-made tanks. And my guess would be the Ukrainians wish they had more. They could certainly use them. The M1 Abrams, that is the main battle tank of the United States. It has computerized fire control software. It has depleted uranium rounds that are designed to shatter enemy armor, and it was built specifically for tank-on-tank battles. The M1 Abrams has a high top speed. It has a gas turbine engine that creates a lot of power. It is a top tank, and yet it is also facing the same threats that have bogged down Russian and other Western-made tanks. The challenges with the M1 Abrams is that it requires a lot of maintenance. Tanks are a fearsome weapon that carries a psychological effect on the defender. Ukraine has shown that the Russian tank forces are hardly the unstoppable force that many had feared before the war’s outbreak. Russian tanks are less survivable than Western-made tanks. Western-made tanks are better designed to protect the crew, and when they sustain a direct hit, it’s more frequent that a Western tank will be able to be towed and then repaired. You would not find me in any Russian tank. The risks of all Soviet- designed vehicles to the crew are really high. The Soviet-made tanks often become total losses and crew killers when they’re hit. A good example that’s indicative of this is the jack-in-the-box effect. The T-72 has a design flaw where the crew essentially sits on top of ammunition storage for the tank’s shells. And that means that a blast into this space is going to potentially cook off the stored ammunition inside the tank. The top turret will basically blow off from this massive explosion of all the tank’s ammunition. That will kill the crew, and that’ll make the tank a total loss. Tanks are a weapon of maneuver warfare, and the Ukraine war is essentially positional. When tanks have tried to pass through areas, they’re hitting these pervasive threats of the prepared defenses, of enemy attack airplanes, of mines, drones, artillery, and anti-tank guided missiles. All of that is bogging them down, preventing them from what they’re best at: massing fire through a combination of speed and the ability to cross nearly any type of terrain. But if they can’t cross that terrain without losing their tracks or coming under sustained attack, then their power on the battlefield has been effectively checked. To really understand the artillery threat, we have to understand the battlefield the tank is facing. This is a very dangerous battlefield for any tank. Let’s consider the Russian prepared defenses that a Ukrainian tank would potentially face. First, there’s a minefield, a very heavily laid minefield with hidden bombs that may run kilometers in depth. Then there are anti-tank obstacles, like upturned pyramids that try to limit a tank’s movement. There are vehicle ditches, which are almost like a moat through which a tank or an armored vehicle can’t cross, without some type of bridging equipment or without filling in part of this moat. Anti-tank missiles are an incredibly important threat that has become much more widespread in Ukraine. An anti-tank guided missile is a much more advanced system than, say, an RPG, or rocket-propelled grenade, that could threaten a tank but is guided by a firer who often is afraid for their life. Ukraine has a variety of anti-tank guided missiles, which have all seen combat use. So a couple systems, NLAWs, Javelin, and the Ukrainian- made Stugna-Ps. Both sides are adapting their armored vehicles for the pretty pervasive threat of drones. And so one way this is manifesting itself are these "cope cages." It’s like a welded netting that goes around the tank. This is designed to make it more tricky to land an exploding drone right on the tank’s shell and blast inwards. These cages, if you will, kind of look like mosquito nets that try to keep the explosion a little bit further from the tank’s hull. The other side of that is that drone pilots are becoming more skilled at getting around these and attacking vulnerable points. We are almost certainly going to see continued heavy tank losses on the part of Russia. The monthslong battle to capture the strategic city of Avdiivka is indicative of the staggering losses that Russia is sustaining. The capture came at a cost to Russian armor: 350 tanks, 750 armored vehicles, and 46,000 troops killed or injured. Russia is making every indication that it’s going to continue to try to seize territory from Ukraine, and that’s exposing its tanks and its armored vehicles to all these pervasive threats on the battlefield. Russia can continue to afford to lose vehicles at this heavy clip. Russia is producing more tanks, and it has extensive tank reserves that it can pull out to augment its tank losses. The experts at the International Institute of Strategic Studies believe that Russia can continue to lose tanks and armored vehicles at this rate for two to three years. The balance of power on the battlefields of Ukraine must go to the Russian tanks. Russia simply has more tanks and is using brute-force tactics that are causing them to lose their tanks in droves. But only Russia has this massive firepower it can mass, and compared to Ukraine’s tanks, even with more advanced tanks, the advanced tanks face the same threats that the lesser-advanced tanks like the T-72 that both sides use face. And so this war does not play to the strengths of the tank, but tanks are useful to Russia to try to take territory using maximum force and firepower, as Russia is doing. Tanks and artillery and drones are critical to Ukraine to try to break the momentum of Russia’s ground forces and the tanks that enable their forward movement.

Tanks are the apex predator on Ukraine’s battlefields, with modern Western tanks facing off against Soviet-designed relics. But which country has the power?

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0:00 – Intro
0:25 – Tanks: M1 Abrams And Russian T-90
4:16 – “Jack-In-The-Box Effect”
5:21 – The Soviet Doctrine And Human Wave Attacks
7:37 – Anti-Tank Missiles And Cope Cages
11:27 – Costs: $5 Million Battle Tanks
13:09 – Future
14:14 – Balance Of Power
15:08 – Credits

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Russian Vs. Western-Made Tanks In The Ukraine War | Balance Of Power | Insider