The Ukrainian Army Has Formed a New Kind of Brigade

The 17th Tank Brigade has become the 17th Heavy Mechanized Brigade

17th Heavy Mechanized Brigade photo

The Ukrainian army has re-designated the 17th Tank Brigade. It now is the 17th Heavy Mechanized Brigade—the first of its type in the army.

Militaryland, a collective that tracks the Ukrainian ground forces’ structure, was the first to note the change.

The difference between the old 17th Tank Brigade and the new 17th Heavy Mechanized Brigade outwardly is slight. The brigade in its new incarnation has two tank battalions, two mechanized battalions and two rifle battalions.

Typically, a Ukrainian tank brigade—there now are just four—has seven battalions: four tank battalions, a mechanized battalion and two rifle battalions.

In equipment terms, that means the old 17th Brigade should have rolled into battle with around 120 tanks and 30 infantry fighting vehicles. The new 17th Brigade should roll in with around 60 tanks and 60 infantry fighting vehicles.

For comparison, a standard Ukrainian mech brigade might have one tank battalion, three mechanized battalions as well as two or three rifle battalions for a total of 30 tanks and 90 IFVs.

The 17th has been spotted operating both T-72 and T-64 tanks. It’s unclear whether the unit will standardize on one type: both are abundant in the Ukrainian inventory.

Modern infantry fighting vehicles, by contrast, aren’t abundant in the inventory, so it’s notable that the army has reorganized the 17th Brigade to have fewer tanks and more IFVs, likely BMP-1s and BMP-2s.

Whether the 17th Brigade’s re-designation reflects a new thinking in Kyiv—and the start of a wider trend—remains to be seen. For sure, infantry maneuver in IFVs is much more important than tank-led maneuver is in Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.

Indeed, tanks are so vulnerable to mines and drones that both sides of the wider war often relegate the vehicles to a static fire-support role. Instead of fighting close, tanks fire their main guns at unseen targets spotted by drone miles away.

There are many exceptions, of course, and the twin impulses of Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk Oblast and Russia’s yearlong offensive in eastern Ukraine have drawn more tanks into close combat.

Still, if the Ukrainian army aggressively rewrote its doctrine to reflect tanks’ main liabilities in the current conflict, you might expect more tank brigades to become heavy mechanized brigades, instead.

But the ongoing IFV-shortage—a shortfall of potentially thousands of modern vehicles—might constrain a wholesale reorganization of the Ukrainian tank corps.

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