As Ukraine Gets More Tanks, Their Use As 'Snipers' vs Blitzkrieg Grows

It appears that the main battle tank's demise has been overstated. 

Although drones increasingly dominate the battlefield in Ukraine, its forces are receiving an influx of new Leopard 1A5s and US Abrams M-1s - and are happy to have them. The reason is that a new role is being carved out, in which the tank, rather than attacking in blitzkrieg like open formation, are now darting out and engaging the Russians at relatively close range more in the mode of snipers to disrupt enemy attacks. The Leopards, in particular, are well suited to the task as the Ukrainians have improved their protective armor significantly, while also enhancing their accuracy. The Leopard also fires faster than its Russian opponents resulting in a devastating weapon of which the Russians are justifiably afraid. JL  

David Axe reports in Trench Art:

The 40-ton, four-person Leopard 1A5 boasts a reliable 105-millimeter main gun and accurate fire controls now rolls into battle with two extra layers of armor: explosive reactive armor attached to the hull and turret and, over the reactive armor, anti-drone netting. One Ukrainian Leopard 1A5 survived eight hits by Russian FPVs. The Leopard 1A5 works best as a “mobile sniper tank.” “Its crew can fire 10 rounds per minute while the Russians fire six to 10 rounds. A modern fire control system that allows accurate fire from 4 km during the day and 3 km at night gets you a hunter capable of taking down prey that doesn’t even know it’s being hunted.”

A photo that circulated online last week confirms it: the Ukrainian army’s 142nd Mechanized Brigade is the latest unit to operate Leopard 1A5 tanks. The vehicles were built in the 1960s and heavily upgraded in the 1980s.

The 40-ton, four-person Leopard 1A5 boasts a reliable 105-millimeter main gun and accurate fire controls, but its armor—just 70 millimeters thick at its thickest—is thin compared to other tanks. That’s a third the protection a contemporary T-72 enjoys.

Still, “it is too early to write off this tank as scrap metal,” insisted the Ukrainian army’s 508th Separate Repair and Restoration Battalion, which repairs damaged armored vehicles. “It just so happened that it first met the opponent it was designed to fight 60 years later—and it’s a completely different tank now, to be fair.”

It’s completely different because it now rolls into battle with at least two extra layers of armor: bricks of explosive reactive armor attached directly to the hull and turret and, over the reactive armor, a skirt of anti-drone netting.

Ukrainian soldier standing on the Leopard 1A5 tank. Photo: Army Inform

The reactive armor explodes outward when struck, potentially deflecting explosive munitions. The netting catches incoming first-person-view drones before they can strike the tank. 

The add-on armor works. Back in January, one Ukrainian Leopard 1A5 survived at least eight hits by Russian FPVs before potentially three more explosive FPV drones finally finished it off. It’s unusual for a single vehicle to draw the attention of 11 FPVs.

All that extra protection gives Ukrainian Leopard 1A5 crews the confidence to engage Russian troops at close range—something fewer and fewer tanks do in Ukraine as Russia’s wider war of aggression grinds into its 41st month. 

The growing threat from tiny drones, which are everywhere all the time along the 1,100-km front line, compels tank crews on both sides to hide their vehicles in dugouts or buildings, rolling out only to fire a few rounds at distant targets.

 

Sniper mode

That’s a mode of fighting the Leopard 1A5 is pretty good at. The Leopard 1A5 works best as a “mobile sniper tank,” the 508th SRRB explained.

“A well-trained crew can fire 10 rounds per minute while its Russian opponents fire six to 10 rounds, the battalion noted. “Add a modern fire control system that allows accurate fire from a distance of 4 km during the day and about 3 km at night and you get a real hunter capable of taking down prey that doesn’t even know it’s being hunted.”

But as Russia extends its summer offensive, attacking all along the front line and making incremental gains in Sumy and Donetsk Oblast, some Leopard 1A5 crews have had no choice but to fight close.

 

On June 18, a powerful Russian force—around a dozen up-armored BMPs and other vehicles—rolled northeast from the village of Novoolenivka in Donetsk Oblast, heading for the village of Yablunivka, the next stop on the road to the town of Kostyantynivka, a top Russian objective in the east.

A 142nd Mechanized Brigade Leopard 1A5. 142nd Mechanized Brigade photo.

The Ukrainian 36th Marine Brigade and 12th Azov Brigade spotted the approaching vehicles—and hit them with drones and potentially other munitions, halting the mechanized attack. 

But a few Russian infantry managed to sneak forward and gain a lodgement around Yablunivka. A drone from the Ukrainian 5th Heavy Mechanized Brigade spotted the Russians—and one of the brigade’s Leopard 1A5s counterattacked.

The tank engaged the Russians with its main gun from just meters away. “Clear work, accurate fire and cold calculation,” the 5th Heavy Mechanized Brigade crowed.

In addition to the 142nd Mechanized Brigade and 5th Heavy Mechanized Brigade, five other brigades or regiments possess Leopard 1A5s: the Rubizh Brigade, the 21st Mechanized Brigade, the 44th Mechanized Brigade, the 68th Jaeger Brigade and the 425th Assault Regiment.

It’s possible each unit has just a single company with a dozen or so tanks. Those 84 assigned tanks would account for almost every since Leopard 1A5 that’s currently active in Ukraine. A German-Dutch-Danish consortium has pledged 170 of the tanks, and around 103 have shipped. Of those, at least 13 have been lost in action.

 

Ukrainian troops might have to wait for more Leopard 1A5s to ship before they equip an eighth brigade or regiment with the swift, accurate-firing tanks. Nine months after Australia pledged 49 surplus M-1A1 Abrams tanks to the Ukrainian war effort, the 69-ton combat vehicles are finally about to reach Ukraine. A photo that circulated online on Friday depicts one of the heavily-armed tanks in Poland, presumably awaiting onward shipment to Ukraine.

Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskyy celebrated the Abrams’ imminent arrival way back on 18 May. “I’m grateful for Australia’s comprehensive support, for the Abrams tanks that are helping our warriors defend Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said at a meeting in Rome with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

 

Ukrainian troops surely welcome the fresh tanks, even as heavy armored vehicles play a smaller and smaller role along the drone-patrolled, mine-infested 1,100-km front line of Russia’s 41-month wider war on Ukraine. 

But the brigade the US-made tanks are likeliest to join, the 47th Mechanized Brigade, was recently in the throes of a leadership crisis. Citing “clueless leaders” ordering troops to execute “stupid tasks,” one of the brigade’s battalion commanders, Oleksandr Shyrshyn practically begged for his chain of command to relieve him of duty in a 16 May post on social media.

 

It’s possible, however, that the Ukrainian army will distribute the newly arrived M-1s across more units than just the 47th Mechanized Brigade.

Pat Conroy, Australia’s defense industry minister, announced the M-1 donation in October. “These tanks will deliver more firepower and mobility to the Ukrainian armed forces, and complement the support provided by our partners for Ukraine’s armored brigades,” Conroy said.

The four-person M-1A1s equipped the Australian army’s armored brigade until the brigade upgraded to newer M-1A2s last year. The older tanks are still in “reasonably good working order,” J.C. Dodson, a Ukraine-based defense consultant who helped negotiate the tank transfer, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The 3rd Tank Brigade’s repair battalion is servicing tanks. Photo: The 3rd Tank Brigade via Facebook

Ukrainian officials had asked for the old Abrams in 2023, but the Australians waited until their new Abrams arrived before pledging the excess tanks. The US government holds the export license for the M-1s, which were made in Ohio—and the Russia-friendly administration of Pres. Donald Trump waited to sign off on the deal, adding further delay.

In any event, it seems at least some of the tanks are finally on the last legs of their long journeys to Ukraine. It’s apparent what the Ukrainian army will do with the ex-Australian Abrams. First, it will up-armor them with extra reactive armor, anti-drone cages and radio jammers. And then it will probably assign at least some of them to the 47th Mechanized Brigade’s tank battalion, the only Ukrainian unit with any experience on the M-1.

The 47th Mechanized Brigade got all 31 of the surplus M-1A1s the United States pledged to Ukraine in 2023. In 18 months of hard fighting, the brigade has lost at least 12 of the original M-1s: 10 destroyed, one captured and one so badly damaged it wound up as a museum piece in Ukraine. 

Other M-1s have been damaged—and at least a few are probably write-offs. The 47th Mechanized Brigade may be down to half its original tank strength.

Fresh tanks

The 49 Australian M-1s are enough to restore the brigade’s tank strength while also equipping a second battalion in another brigade—or in one of the new multi-brigade corps the Ukrainian army is standing up.

The same sweeping reorganization that’s introducing the army to corps operations is also reducing, or even eliminating, Ukraine’s four separate tank brigades—each with 100 tanks—in favor of smaller but more numerous separate tank battalions with just 31 tanks apiece.

In the meantime, it’s apparent that some brigades are making do with just a single tank company with a dozen or so tanks. That seems to be the plan for Ukraine’s growing fleet of German-made Leopard 1A5s.

 

Ukrainian officials clearly appreciate that tiny explosive drones, and not 69-ton tanks, are now the dominant weapons along the front line. 

A Ukrainian M-1 tank. 47th Mechanized Brigade photo.

The 47th Mechanized Brigade was in the thick of that fighting and, soon after retreating back to Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast in early March, supported smaller-scale raids into Kursk—raids that risked heavy Ukrainian casualties for fleeting territorial gains of questionable strategic value. 

More recently, the 47th Mechanized Brigade has been defending Sumy Oblast from an infantry-led Russian counteroffensive that has, at great cost in Russian lives, brought Russian artillery to within firing range of Sumy city.

That the general staff in Kyiv continued to order brigades to fight their way into Kursk even as Russian troops massed for their coming Sumy operation was an ominous development for the units, including the 47th Mechanized Brigade, that had to carry out the pointless or even counterproductive orders. It was even more ominous for the innocent residents of Sumy Oblast.