First US Abrams tanks arrive in Ukraine
The first U.S. Abrams tanks pledged to Ukraine have arrived in the country and are being prepared to send into battle, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Monday.
“Good news from Defense Minister [Rustem] Umerov. Abrams are already in Ukraine and are preparing to reinforce our brigades. I am grateful to our allies for fulfilling the agreements!” Zelensky wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Zelensky added that Ukraine is “looking for new contracts and expanding the geography of supply.”
The Pentagon confirmed the tanks arrived in Ukraine, with a spokesperson saying “the mere presence of Abrams tanks serves as a potent deterrent.”
“By having these tanks in their arsenal, the Ukrainian army can more effectively discourage aggressive actions,” the Defense Department spokesperson told The Hill. “We will continue to focus on what we can do to help Ukraine succeed on the battlefield and protect its people.”
I am by no means an expert, but what I have gathered is that it, like almost everything in combat, is incredibly complex.
With the correct support and combined arms usage tanks are an absolute devastating force on the battlefield still. Used correctly they can completely change a battle.
But they aren't war winners by themselves, and have never been. Unsupported a single tank is exactly a big expensive target, just like a modern fighter and or a single soldier.
The idea that tanks can be wonder weapons and that they alone can turn the tide of a war has existed since WW2, but they have always had weaknesses that need to be covered by supporting elements in order to be used effectively.
How the Abrams will do in Ukraine is anyone's guess. The Abrams has never seen combat without the might of the US's military logistics backing it up.
All that being said, if you are in a firefight, would you rather have a tank backing you up, or not? I'd take the tank support.
Well Ukraine already fields Leos, the Abram's twin separated before birth (both tanks started out as a joint programme, then Germany realised that the US were serious about using a turbine).
They use the exact same main gun, armour will be roughly comparable, there will be differences in secondary armament (machine guns, numbers and calibres thereof, (smoke) grenade launchers, etc), but generally also comparable (and generally modular). Both are about the same size and weigh about the same.
The big difference is that the Leo is faster, while the Abrams guzzles more fuel. Also, not diesel, but (preferably) jet fuel. And, as you said, Abrams logistics are a nightmare, even for the US. The one definite upside of the Abrams though is that the US have thousands standing around collecting dust because they kept producing them because that's cheaper than shutting down factories and starting them up again ten, twenty years later.
All in all: In combat it'll perform pretty much like the Leo as long as the Ukrainians can keep up with the logistics requirements. They don't have to do the whole logistics chain, though, in particular when it comes to maintenance... they'll need to do field maintenance and maybe they'll get away with half of what a depot would usually do and definitely let the Poles deal with the rest, just as with the Leo.
And given the sheer number of tanks the US could deliver having more lag in the maintenance department isn't actually that bad, having 10 tanks on a train to ship to Poland and back all the time would be a drop in the bucket.
This again... Yes, the Abrams needs more fuel, than for example the Leopard 2. But it's actually not that much more. I'll dig up the numbers later, when I'm home. Also the claim about jetfuel: The Abrams uses (mainly) JP8. And so do most if not all vehicles of the US military. This was done to unburden logistics - You only need to ship JP8 if everything in your arsenal uses it. And JP8 is basically Dieselfuel with worse lubrication properties than regular Diesel.
I retract everything and assert the opposite.
But, hey, at least you don't have to explain to people that a squad bringing a broomstick to an exercise to argue to brass that their command vehicle should have a gun even though it doesn't have a dedicated gunner does not even begin to be embarrassing.