Nicholas Tonev
modified to
4:30 p.m., January 16, 2023
NATO announced on Sunday that Ukraine could expect to receive new Western heavy weapons “in the near future”. Why does this kind of material raise such hope in the armies of kyiv? Should we see an indication of the power of these weapons against their Moscow equivalent?
London plans to send 14 Challenger heavy tanks in the coming weeks to Ukrainian troops. This gesture is the first of its kind towards kyiv, which estimates that it needs 300 heavy tanks. NATO, which meets on Friday, ensures that other heavy weapons will be sent in the near future. This initiative from London could decide Germany and Poland to deliver Leopards 2. Why does this kind of equipment, despite the low number of units delivered, raise such hope in the armies of kyiv?
Several factors to consider
In the battle of the titans on a front, the Challenger is a monster compared to the main Russian tank the T72. It was designed in the middle of the Cold War to outclass the Russian T series, 62 tons against 42. Despite this mass, it is as fast as the adversary, it shoots farther and can destroy a T72 at two kilometers distance while resistant itself thanks to the quality of its shielding to a direct impact from the Russian.
This gives the Challenger and its crew a decisive chance of survival on a front. With 14 vehicles and the support of French AMX 10s and dozens of armored personnel carriers recently promised by the United States and Germany, the Ukrainian army could mount offensive operations on specific points of the front, more than 800 kilometers.
To be decisive and take back all the territories conquered by Moscow, it would take more Challenger or identical machines. The lifespan of these tanks and their success will also depend on several factors: the training of the crews, the Ukrainian capacity to create a new logistics chain for equipment that is difficult to maintain and the hypothetical presence opposite in the Donbass of several dozens of recent Russian T90 tanks.