Twenty-two months after the start of a large-scale war, Ukraine is forming a new tank brigade, Forbes reports.
Officially, the 5th Tank Brigade became part of the Ukrainian army back in 2016. However, for six years it existed only formally. It was only in February 2022 that Kyiv finally started manning the brigade with men and equipment. As the fighting escalated and Ukraine’s losses mounted, the General Staff in Kyiv prioritised existing brigades to receive new recruits and equipment.
Formally, the 5th Tank Brigade spent 2022 garrisoned in Kryvyi Rih in southern Ukraine. In reality, however, the brigade practically did not exist. In 2023, the situation finally changed. The first official photos of soldiers of the 5th Tank Brigade on training have appeared on the internet. We know that the photos were taken recently because the photos show snow everywhere on the ground.
In the photos, the soldiers of the 5th Tank Brigade are well equipped, wearing winter uniforms and camouflage, as well as AK assault rifles, not the American-designed M-16s that some newer brigades, such as the 47th Mechanised Brigade, are equipped with. However, recent photographs do not show any tanks.
Last year, the 5th Tank Brigade was expected to receive former Polish T-72M1 tanks and former Dutch YPR-765 armoured personnel carriers. It is unclear what is still planned for 2023.
While the Ukrainian army has hundreds of refurbished and donated T-72s to send to new units, including the 5th Tank Brigade, it has also received 31 M-1A1 tanks from the United States. It is also in the process of receiving nearly 200 Leopard 1A5 tanks from a German-Dutch-Danish consortium.
The M-1 and Leopard 1 together can arm six or seven battalions. A Ukrainian mechanised brigade usually has one tank battalion with 30 tanks; a Ukrainian tank brigade may have three tank battalions.
The only brigade we know for sure that uses Leopard 1A5 tanks is the 44th Mechanised Brigade; we have no information on which brigade received the M-1. It is possible that the 5th Tank Brigade is fulfilling last year’s plan to use T-72s, but it is also possible that it will receive Leopard 1s or M-1s.
In any case, Ukraine’s southern and eastern commands – the two regional commands that are doing most of the fighting and are undoubtedly in line to oversee the deployment of the 5th Tank Brigade to the front lines – should welcome the new unit as the war as a whole enters its third year.
Prior to the mobilisation of the 5th Tank Brigade, there were only four tank brigades in the Ukrainian army. While most of the Ukrainian military’s hundred or so land brigades have at least a few tanks – usually a company or battalion with a dozen or 30 tanks, respectively – only tank brigades concentrate large numbers of tanks under a single command.
The concentration of mobile, protected firepower makes tank brigades some of the most effective brigades for intense close combat, according to Forbes.
In the first weeks of the war, the Ukrainian 1st Tank Brigade marched to Chernihiv, 60 miles north of the capital. There it fought a much larger force. The brigade’s T-64BV tanks proved particularly deadly in close-quarters combat.
But Ukrainian tank doctrine has evolved as the war as a whole has slowed, moving largely into a phase of positional conflict in which both sides try to achieve major breakthroughs through heavily mined defence lines with explosive-laden drones circling above them.
Increasingly, tanks are fighting at a distance, positioned a mile or two from the front line and firing their main guns at a high angle, as howitzers do. The Royal United Services Institute noted in a 2022 study:
The value of this technique is that it allows tanks to concentrate fire over a wide area while they can maneuver without the protection and screening needed by artillery pieces.
The large fleet of donor Leopard-1s was ideally suited for this role, thanks to their accurate and fast fire control system and effective 105-millimetre main guns. Moreover, the Leopard 1s have barely half as much armour as the T-72s. Leopard 1s can only fight at a distance because they have no defence for close combat.
All of this suggests that we should not pin much hope on the 5th Tank Brigade. Most likely, the brigade will use its tanks – T-72, Leopard 1, M-1 or other types – piecemeal for indirect attacks.
