Ukraine forms new tank brigade, we finally know what tanks it’s getting

Ukraine’s newest tank brigade apparently rides in some of Ukraine’s newest tanks.

New to Ukraine, that is, according to Forbes.

Officially, the 5th Tank Brigade has been in garrison in Kryvyi Rih in southern Ukraine. In reality, the brigade barely existed until a few months ago, when it finally began training new recruits.

The Ukrainian army had just four tank brigades before the 5th Tank finally mobilized. While most of the Ukrainian armed forces’ hundred or so ground-combat brigades have at least a few tanks—normally a company or battalion, respectively with a dozen or 30 tanks—only the tank brigades concentrate a lot of tanks under a single command.

If the Ukrainians fully equip the 5th Tank with Leopard 1A5s, the brigade could consume more than half of the nearly 200 tanks that a German-Dutch-Danish consortium so far has pledged to Ukraine’s war effort.

The 40-ton, four-person Leopard 1A5 is a 1980s update of a tank from the 1960s. Crews praise its excellent mobility and the fast fire-controls for its accurate 105-millimeter main gun.

But the Leopard 1A5 does have one major flaw: its thin armor, which is just 70 millimeters thick at its thickest. That’s the least protection of any major tank type in the Ukraine war.

If it wasn’t already apparent to the Ukrainians that the Leopard 1A5 needed extra protection, the type’s first battles were a strong reminder. The first few dozen Leopard 1s already are in eastern Ukraine, equipping a battalion with the 44th Mechanized Brigade.

(video is under the link below)

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The brigade nearly lost a Leopard 1A5 late last month, after one of the tanks apparently ran over a mine, lost mobility then came under fire from Russian artillery. The army reportedly has recovered the damaged tank in order to repair it.

Now the Ukrainians are up-armoring the Leopard 1s. “The problems of reinforcing the armor are already being solved by Ukrainian engineers,” Ukrainian ICTV reported.

That apparently means adding layers of explosive reaction armor. “As far as I know, there are plans to install additional dynamic protection,” one tanker told ICTV. A layer of ERA could double the Leopard 1’s protection against high-explosive projectiles.

In equipping a fifth tank brigade, Ukraine adds significant offensive firepower to its force structure. But it’s hard to say when, even whether, Kyiv will have an opportunity to use this new firepower. All across the 600-mile front of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, Ukrainian forces are shifting to the defensive.

They have little choice but to do so after winding down their summer counteroffensive, which consumed all the spare combat power the Ukrainian military managed to build up in the first half of this year.

Adding one new tank brigade and five new, and so far under-equipped, mechanized brigades probably doesn’t add enough combat power for an offensive in 2024. The Ukrainians stood up at least a dozen well-equipped new brigades for this year’s offensive.

More to the point, Ukraine must acquire—and make plans for using—a lot of new electronic-warfare and mine-clearing equipment in order to have any chance of grounding Russia’s drones and carving a path through Russian minefields.

Securing, from foreign allies, big consignments of this specialized equipment is one of Kyiv’s top priorities, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, wrote in November.

But these acquisitions probably aren’t possible unless, and until, pro-Russian Republicans in the U.S. Congress end their obstruction and sign off on U.S. president Joe Biden’s proposal to spend another $61 billion on aid to Ukraine.

No army at war would say no to a new tank brigade, even one with lightly-protected tanks. But Ukraine’s 5th Tank Brigade can’t do much on its own