The Ukrainians are finally getting a glimpse of the Leopard 2 contingents they have been clamoring for for weeks. This Wednesday, yielding to the arguments (and pressure) of its partners, Germany – which as a producing country reserves the right to scrutinize the transfer of tanks – must remove the last obstacles that prevent Ukraine’s allies from offering these heavy tanks .
The firepower, capabilities, mobility of the Leopard 2 promise a lot to the decimated fleet of the Ukrainians, deprived in this sector in the face of the Russian navy. It will still be necessary to deliver them in sufficient numbers and accompany the expedition with the necessary efforts in terms of preparation, the observers emphasize. BFMTV.com examines this Wednesday the virtues and limits of the military influence that can be expected from these armored vehicles.
Impressive technical sheet
Mass-built starting in the 1970s, the Leopard 2 is not the ultimate weapon, but it is still a machine with impressive properties. You can roll and fire your shells from your 120mm cannon at the same time. And the beast is mobile: with its 450 km range and especially its 1500 horsepower, the Leopard 2 is capable of taking its top speed up to 70 km/h.
However, the machine perfectly matches its status as a heavy tank. As Colonel Michel Goya, a BFMTV military affairs consultant, explained on set Sunday, its 64-tonne weight – 20 tons more than the machines currently used by Ukrainian soldiers – gives it an advantage of about fifteen tons over the T90M. russians.
Its particularly heavy armor is an excellent bulwark against rockets and mines, a not insignificant element now that the Russians have turned the east of the country into an open minefield, as the local authorities themselves admit.
Satisfy the wishes of Ukraine
The first merit of Leopard 2 is to meet the needs of Ukraine. In December, the chief of the General Staff of the armies Valéri Zaloujny already launched: “I know how to defeat the enemy, but I need resources, I need 300 tanks.” On Tuesday night, its president Volodymyr Zelensky did not quantify so clearly but recalled that “the (Ukrainian) needs are greater” than “five, ten or fifteen tanks.”
In principle, it must be served. According to echoes collected on Tuesday by ABC News from a Ukrainian administration official, the Western allies agreed – at a summit held last Friday at the US Ramstein base in Germany – to hand over a hundred Leopard 2 tanks.
A quorum that will be reached thanks to combined donations from 12 countries, including Poland, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany (which will eventually lease 14 tanks) and probably Greece. If Joe Biden’s United States fulfills its commitment, within a few weeks some thirty Abrams tanks should follow.
100 tanks? Could you do it better
Enough to change the course of the conflict? On BFMTV this Wednesday morning, Xavier Tytelman, former pilot and now editor-in-chief of the digital newsroom ofAir and CosmosI think.
“We will reach 100, 150,200 tanks and there we will have a critical mass that will influence the field,” he estimates.
However, this point is hotly debated among scholars. General Michel Yakovleff, a tanker by training and former deputy chief of staff at Shape (NATO’s operating sector) dryly estimated at LCI on Tuesday night: “It’s not enough.”
“With 100 tanks they will constitute an armored brigade that will be able to maneuver. With 200 charges they would make two brigades, that multiplies the options by four”, he explained.
soon in port
However, it is a matter of attending to the most urgent. Because the options, the Ukrainians are very scarce. This is the lesson that Michel Goya learned in the BFMTV studios, listing his losses in this area since the start of the conflict: “They lost 600 tanks.”
“The Poles have already provided them with 280 tanks, but ex-Soviet tanks,” the colonel admitted.
But that is part of the problem. Even apart from the age of the equipment, this imposes an increasingly important logistical constraint. “The ammunition is running out,” said the Ukrainian official interviewed by ABC News. However, Ukrainian armaments factories no longer produce the appropriate shells for these tanks bequeathed by the USSR.
“So that forces us to look for an alternative solution,” said the same source.
Technology against the Russian wall and mobilization
Workaround that should make it possible to open new holes in the Russian system. Because that’s what it’s all about: breaking the concrete wall built by a defensive Kremlin… but whose forces are still capable of doing damage, as the battle of Soledar demonstrates.
“With the mobilization, the Russians have entrenched themselves, additional means are needed to be able to resume the offensive”, analyzes Xavier Tytelman.
“We had to counter that with the only weapon left on the western side, which is technology,” Admiral Michel Olhagaray added to LCI.
We have yet to agree on the technology in question. If we recognize the leopard by its spots, we recognize Leopard 2 by its number. And it can be A4, A5, A6 or A7. However, to each type its weight and its faculties, which does not simplify the matter for the Ukrainians.
“They’re going to have seven times twelve tanks whose models look alike but aren’t exactly the same. When are we going to stop complicating their lives?” general plague Michel Yakovleff still with LCI.
allies in support
That said, the official himself points out that the obstacle is not insurmountable: “In a month or two, you manage to adapt to the use of a tank when you have the culture.” “For the maintainers, the mechanics, it is more complicated. And there is no point in having tanks if they break down, ”he continues from the other side.
Xavier Tytelman, who comments that “training of Ukrainian tank crews has already started”, and will allow them to be “operational upon delivery”, is more optimistic on BFMTV.
“All heavy maintenance will continue to be done in Germany,” he explains.
“What we are going to provide the Ukrainians with is the means to do maintenance on the ground to make an operational system, but we are not going to recreate a whole logistics chain in Ukraine. There will always be back and forth with the return.” which will allow us to be much more efficient and go faster,” she said. A speed that will not be a luxury after weeks of postponement.
Source: BFM TV
