Uk news
It appears to be just like the Ukrainian armed forces have misplaced their first Challenger 2 tank. A video that circulated on-line on Monday depicts what appears to be like to be without a doubt one of the predominant 82nd Air Assault Brigade’s ex-British Challengers 2 in flames on a roadside open air Robotyne, in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
The apparent first loss of a 69-ton, four-particular person Challenger 2, out of 14 that the United Kingdom pledged to the Ukrainian war effort lend a hand in January, comes honest days after the Ukrainian protection ministry highlighted the tank in a video interview with an 82nd Brigade trooper.
The soldier praised the Challenger 2 for its long-fluctuate firepower and incredible protection when in contrast with Soviet-vogue tanks. We mute haven’t considered footage of the 82nd Brigade’s Challenger 2s firing their 120-millimeter rifled guns in madden in Ukraine, nonetheless the Monday video of the burning Challenger 2 ironically does highlight the tanks’ survivability.
That’s since the burning Challenger 2’s turret mute is connected to its hull.
Among the most predominant weaknesses of a Soviet-designed T-72, T-80 or T-90 is that the three-particular person tanks—they’ve autoloaders for his or her main guns as a substitute of a fourth crewman who manually handles ammunition—stow their ammo in a ring beneath the turret.
When a T-72 takes a divulge hit and its ammo cooks off, the tank tends to explode like a firework. The turret and its occupants as in most cases as no longer originate honest off the hull. “You’re despatched flying someplace in the fields,” the 82nd Brigade tanker, a frail T-80 crewman, mused in his interview. “You don’t stand powerful of a possibility.”
By difference, the Challenger 2 like most Western tanks stows its ammo in particular compartments alongside the turret that explode outward, a long way from the crew, when struck. “All the pieces here is designed for the of us,” the tanker defined.
We don’t know what effort passed off the Challenger 2 that burned on that motorway open air Robotyne. Nonetheless we attain know the 82nd Brigade and its sister unit, the Forty sixth Air Cellular Brigade, step by step are advancing from liberated Robotyne southeast in direction of Verbove. Their last function, Russian-occupied Melitopol, lies 50 miles to the south alongside the T0408/T0401 motorway.
Consistent with the 82nd Brigade tanker, the Ukrainians favor to spend their 14—now 13—Challenger 2s as long-fluctuate fireplace-motivate, completely taking very finest thing about their incredible day-night optics, right fireplace-controls and highly efficient main guns firing tungsten penetrators two miles out or farther. “It’s a machine designed to operate at a protracted distance.”
Nonetheless when the battalions they’re supporting are advancing, the tanks assign no longer have any different nonetheless to switch out in allege to withhold.
It’s apparent the Russians caught that Challenger 2 on the motorway, removed from any concealment. If the Challenger 2 loss is in any appreciate akin to outdated losses of German-made Leopard 2 tanks in Ukrainian carrier, it’s possible the ex-British tank struck a mine or got immobilized by artillery—after which explosives-laden drones zeroed in to attain it off.
Don’t shed a creep for the tank. “It’s very no longer inclined to fully preserve a long way from armor losses, especially as a result of the enemy’s profit in the air,” Ukrainian soldier Olexandr Solon’ko wrote. “Nonetheless, armor serves a particular motive that entails risks. These actions are justified by the indisputable truth that they build lives.”
“That it is possible you’ll substitute a portion of steel, even if it be expensive, nonetheless you might most definitely no longer restore a human existence.”
Take comfort that, three months into Ukraine’s counteroffensive, the Ukrainians have misplaced honest seven of their 105 Western-made tanks: six of 71 Leopard 2s and without a doubt one of 14 Challenger 2s. None of the 20 delivered Leopard 1A5s yet have been destroyed.
And so a lot of more tanks are en route to Ukraine because the counteroffensive grinds on: 14 more Leopard 2s, 31 American-made M-1s and most likely one other 145 Leopard 1A5s.
Yes, Ukraine is shedding tanks, including some of its easiest tanks. No, it’s no longer working out of tanks.
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