Dec 29, 2023
47TH MECHANIZED BRIGADE PHOTO
Ukraine received just 21 German-made Leopard 2A6 tanks: 18 from Germany and three from Portugal.
That’s … not a lot of tanks. A Ukrainian armored battalion usually has 31 tanks. With just 21 of the 69-ton, four-person tanks—arguably the best tanks in Russia’s 22-month wider war on Ukraine—the Ukrainian army could equip at most two companies, each with 10 vehicles.
So it made sense that the Ukrainians initially equipped just one unit with the Leopard 2A6s: the army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade.
But now it seems a second brigade is using the tanks. More and more photos and videos depict Leopard 2A6s with the army’s 21st Mechanized Brigade, which also operated all 10 Strv 122 tanks—up-armored Leopard 2A5s—that Sweden donated to Ukraine.
What’s weird is that the 47th Brigade is fighting in the most dangerous sector of the front, around the eastern city of Avdiivka. How can the 47th spare the tanks?
For 10 weeks, Russian regiments and brigades have been trying, and failing, to surround and cut off Avdiivka’s Ukrainian garrison. But the garrison, bolstered by the 47th Brigade’s Leopard 2A6s and American-made M-2 fighting vehicles, has held. With its tanks and fighting vehicles, the 47th Brigade even has managed to counterattack north of Avdiivka.
There are 40,000 Russians around Avdiikva. The city’s defenders need every tank they can get. And the 47th has lost at least four—potentially many more—of its 21 Leopard 2A6s and has sent off others to Lithuania for repairs.
It’s unclear how many Leopard 2A6s the 47th chopped to the 21st, which is defending a sector in the Kreminna Forest, 50 miles north of Avdiivka.
The 21st is down to no more than nine Strv 122s after losing at least one in combat. Did the 47th transfer enough Leopard 2A6s to restore the 21st’s sole armored company to 10 tanks? Or did the two brigades even out their inventories, with each brigade taking a reinforced company of perhaps 13 tanks?
📷Leopard 2A6 tanks alongside Strv 122 tanks of Ukrainian 21st Mechanized Brigade in the direction of Kreminna. #UkraineRussiaWar pic.twitter.com/djvGGRFENQ
— MilitaryLand.net (@Militarylandnet) December 27, 2023
It’s a mystery, and one that underscores just how few of the best Leopard 2s Ukraine got from its allies. Yes, the 33rd Mechanized Brigade has the survivors of 40 older Leopard 2A4s and should get another 14 from Germany in 2024.
But no one has pledged more Strv 122s or Leopard 2A5s or A6s. The 31 of these tanks Ukraine got early this year might be the only ones it ever will get. And when the tanks all are gone, Ukraine will have to replace them with something.
A German-Dutch-Danish consortium is sending nearly 200 Leopard 1A5s, but many of these thinly-protected tanks already are accounted for by the 5th Tank Brigade and the 44th Mechanized Brigade.
The United States meanwhile has shipped 31 M-1A1s. They’ve been on the front line in the east for a few weeks now, but we don’t know which brigade owns them.
It would make sense for the 47th Brigade, whose main equipment is ex-American M-2s fighting vehicles, to take the M-1s and give the 21st Brigade the rest of the Leopard 2A6s.
That exchange would be a delicate one while both brigades are in the thick of the fighting. If indeed the 47th is taking on the M-1s and offloading the Leopard 2A6s—and to be clear, there’s no evidence this is the case—it might be a gradual swap.
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The too little too late strategy is something that monkeys would do … and the leaders of the free world. This doesn’t impress the various trash countries and terrorist organizations one bit. We have exposed ourselves to be weak and cowardly.
Just to provide an illustration of the enormity of Ukraine’s task :
Putlerstan has 40,000 depraved degenerates, aka orcs, operating just in and around Avdiikva.
Let’s visit fantasy land and assume that various countries decided to offer the services of their entire armies to deal with that 40,000:
It would take the entire armies of Denmark, Sweden and Norway just to handle that one job.
Or : The entire armies of the Netherlands and Czechia.
Or : the entire armies of Belgium and Portugal.
It really is time for capable armies of the larger countries of Europe, eg France, UK, Germany, Poland etc, to send ground troops to help out.
Than perhaps the US and Canada might feel that they should contribute too?
Unfortunately, not a single foreign army will ever be involved in this war, not even a single platoon. They are still shivering too much with fear to get directly involved. They also think that they might need them in case mafia land does attack them. The problem is that if this comes to pass, their ass will be grass because none are nearly as capable and determined as the Ukrainian army. Their best bet is to hand over everything the Ukrainians need, and this forthwith and sufficiently. Only a handful of Western politicians and experts know this.
I am afraid you are right facts.
Veth has just posted another filthy murderous attack on Kyiv.
Air defences clearly are still inadequate.
Let us know what you can find out?
I haven’t heard any detonations today, Scradge. His article seems to be an update from the 29th.
Good to know man!
Have a peaceful New Year’s celebration!