David Axe writes about ships, planes, tanks, drones and missiles.
The Ukrainian army's 47th Mechanized Brigade is running low on M-1 Abrams tanks. But the few tanks the brigade still has left are going out fighting, engaging Russian paratroopers and marines -- and potentially North Korean soldiers -- along the edge of the 250-square-mile salient Ukrainian forces carved out of Kursk Oblast in western Russia back in August.
"They are performing quite well," Ukrainian war correspondent Andrii Tsaplienko said of the 47th Mechanized Brigade's dozen or so surviving Abrams. Ukrainian crews have praised the M-1's thick protection and accurate fire controls.
It's hard to say whether the 2010s-vintage tanks have clashed with any of the thousands of North Korean troops who recently reinforced the Russians in and around Kursk. "The tankers are not 100-percent sure whether the North Koreans were among the enemy units they destroyed," Tsaplienko noted, "because the machine gun cannot see the enemy's face."
The 47th Mechanized Brigade defends a length of the front line just east of the village of Novoivanovka on the western side of the salient. A pair of Russian formations -- the 56th Airborne Regiment and the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade, apparently -- has been trying to advance from Novoivanovka in order to gain control of the neighboring village, Leonidovo, a mile to the east along a country road.
That road and its branches are equally critical to both sides -- and equally dangerous. Russian operators flying new fiber-optic drones recently immobilized one of the 47th Mechanized Brigade's M-1s as the tank rolled down the road. The drones, which are jam-proof because they send and receive data via the fiber instead of the radio, repeatedly hit the 69-ton, four-person Abrams in its engine compartment.
The crew survived, according to Rob Lee, an analyst with the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia who has been in contact with the 47th Mechanized Brigade. The drones "were unable to penetrate either the turret or the hull elsewhere while we were inside," one of the tankers told Lee. That particular M-1 was protected by locally installed anti-drone netting and reactive armor blocks as well as its factory-installed armor.
The 47th Mechanized Brigade told Lee the damaged M-1 may be recoverable. For now at least, it's out of action -- reducing by one Ukraine's shrinking inventory of Abrams. The United States donated just 31 of the tanks despite having thousands of them in storage. In 18 months of hard fighting, the 47th Mechanized Brigade has lost at least nine of the original M-1s. Eight more have been damaged.
More M-1s are coming, but not from the United States. Australia pledged 49 surplus M-1s back in October. That's more than enough fresh Abrams to restore the 47th Mechanized Brigade's tank battalion back to its full strength of 31 tanks while also equipping a second battalion.