Crucially the French vehicle has almost twice the operational range of the US tank (800-1,000km compared with about 425km for the M1). Vehicles such as the French tank destroyers, sometimes called a “light tank”, are a good fit for the way Ukraine has been fighting despite not having the heavier armour and battlefield capabilities of a main battle tank.Įquipped like the US Abrams M1, with a 105mmgun, the French AMX-10 is both faster (on road at least) and more agile than the M1. While Kyiv has been pushing hard for its allies to supply main battle banks, such as the US M1 Abrams and the German Leopard II, demands so far resisted, the armoured vehicles now pouring into Ukraine are in many ways a better fit for the kind of war and tactics that the Ukrainian military has been using against Russia.įaced with a shortage of armour at the beginning of the war, and – on paper, at least – heavily outgunned, Ukraine’s armed forces rapidly turned those shortcomings into advantages.Ĭonfronted with a lumbering Russian military approach that concentrated its heavy tanks and had a large reliance on recently upgraded Ukraine’s road system, Ukraine’s lighter forces have successfully emphasised speed and mobility – not least in Kyiv’s successful counteroffensives in both the east and south against Russian forces. Bushmasters from Australia can be seen alongside Polish Dziks and British-made Spartans, soon to be joined by scores of even more impressive vehicles: US Bradley and German Marder infantry fighting vehicles and French AMX-10 tank destroyers.
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