Fighting to halt the Russian advance west of the ruins of Avdeyevka in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade has lost another pair of its best American-made armored vehicles: an M-1 Abrams tank and an Assault Breacher engineering vehicle. Forbes.
The losses may not be permanent: the M-1, in particular, can probably be recovered if engineers can get to it before the Russian drones. But the loss, even if temporary, underscores the intensity of the battle in Berdici.
Two weeks after the ammunition-depleted Ukrainian garrison withdrew from Avdeevka, a former Ukrainian stronghold northwest of Russian-occupied Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, the Russian 2nd and 41st Combined Armies turned their attention to Berdichi and other villages west of Avdeevka.
The 47th Brigade – the main operator of Ukraine’s former US tracked armored vehicles, initially comprising 31 M-1s, 90 M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and possibly six assault rifles – withdrew from Stepovoye, on the northern flank of Avdeyevka, and established a new defense line at Berdici, five kilometers west.
There they encountered Russian assault groups employing Banzai-style tactics. Each Russian attack involves several groups of combat vehicles – most recently wheeled BTR-80s, which, after heavy aerial fire from Russian Air Force fighter-bombers dropping 1,000-kilogram floating bombs, head towards Ukrainian lines.
The APC crews are practically challenging the Ukrainians to fire some of their dwindling artillery ammunition, which is in desperate short supply.
The vehicles drop off the infantry at some defensive position – usually an abandoned building – and drive away. The infantry prepares for incoming drones with explosives, as well as the inevitable Ukrainian counterattack, while waiting for a second, third, and even fourth Russian assault group to join them.
The aim of the Russians is to transfer enough troops to establish a position in the Ukrainian lines. The aim of the Ukrainians is to destroy the Russian stormtroopers as soon as they arrive. For the 47th Brigade, this meant deploying M-1s and M-2s under the cover of drones and with the support of Assault Breachers to close in on poorly supported Russian infantry.
It’s dangerous work for the weary soldiers of the 47th Brigade, who have been in action almost non-stop for nine months. In the past two weeks alone, the brigade had lost two M-1s, several M-2s, and two Assault Breachers: perhaps five percent of its best armored vehicles. It is not clear how many of the crews escaped before their vehicles caught fire.
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2024-03-04 20:09:00
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