Ukraine's Newest Brigade Has Fewer 'Cautious' Tanks, More Armored Infantry
Ukrainian tank brigades are disappearing; the army is getting new heavy mechanized brigades that are better for the infantry-first fighting
The famed 1st Tank Brigade is the third of Ukraine’s five tank brigades to undergo the transformation. After its reorganization, the brigade now has just two ostensibly 31-tank battalions instead of three—but has added a second mechanized battalion with, on paper, 31 infantry fighting vehicles.
Big, cumbersome, easy-to-spot tanks are just too vulnerable to the tiny first-person-view drones that are everywhere all the time all along the front line. “The reduced time between detection and engagement, driven by real-time drone surveillance and the high velocity of FPV attack drones, has created a hostile environment for traditional armored platforms on the battlefield,” Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight explained.
Prior to the reorganization, the brigade operated T-64 and T-72 tanks and BMP fighting vehicles. Its equipment may change as its structure changes.
It’s the latest chapter in the long history of a legendary brigade, which fought in some of the hardest battles of the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and, as the invasion widened eight years later, won a decisive battle in the city of Chernihiv, 100 km north of Kyiv and just 60 km from the border with Russia.
Russian commanders assumed the 1st Tank Brigade would be an easy target on day one of the wider war. In the early morning hours of Feb. 24, Russian missiles and artillery struck the permanent garrisons of many of Ukraine’s ground combat brigades.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.
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