The Ukraine conflict is a sufficiently vast and complicated issue to merit its own series of posts at some point in the not too distant future. In the meanwhile, however, I wanted to respond to yesterday’s news that Germany has given permission to Rheinmetall to export 88 Leopard 1 main battle tanks from its remaining stocks to Ukraine1.
In particular, Leopard 1 and its close cousin, the French AMX-30, represent something of an oddity in post-World War II tank design, as both machines deliberately sacrificed armour protection to boost their mobility and, to a lesser extent, firepower. Apparently, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, both German and French militaries believed that no kind of tank armour could withstand the new generation of antitank weaponry, and in any case, on a nuclear battlefield safety could only be found in speed. Thus, the design specifications for both vehicles called for just enough protection to withstand fire from heavy machine guns and 20mm automatic cannons. As a result, the two tanks ended up being considerably lighter and, at least on paper, more manoeuvrable than their American counterpart, the M60.
Ironically, it was the M60 that ended up doing any serious fighting, serving in the Yom Kippur War with the Israelis and in the First Gulf War with the US 1st Marine Division. By contrast, the Leopard 1 has hitherto not been involved in any notable military conflict, while a small number of AMX-30’s put in an appearance on the fringes of the First Gulf War, scoring some successes primarily thanks to in part to complete US air dominance. As such, the deployment of Leopard 1’s to Ukraine will prove to be the first real test of the “glass cannon” concept of tank design.
To be sure, it would seem highly unlikely that the Ukrainians would employ these “unarmoured” tanks as, well, tanks. A modern MBT can expect to withstand at least some enemy fire, giving the crew a chance to fall back to a more protected position, or to engage and defeat their adversary. The Leopard 1, however, would likely be knocked out or destroyed by the first hit from any significant antitank or artillery system. And so, rather than leading armoured or mechanised charges at the enemy, the Leopard 1 would seem to be better off being deployed well back of the line of contact, using its main gun to provide fire support to units on the frontline, or perhaps to bombard some preset list of targets. Ambush tactics might also work to some extent, as may hit-and-run attacks from behind the frontline, with the tank’s mobility giving it a chance to retreat out of range of any enemy response. In short, treating the machine as a sort of direct-fire artillery weapon with above average mobility, but one that is rather more difficult to hide than a towed gun.
At least, that is the theory. Two of the key characteristics of the Ukrainian battlefield today are the omnipresence of drone aircraft, and the fact that the Russians enjoy considerable, if not, in places, overwhelming advantage over the Ukrainians in artillery and aircraft. As well, unlike, perhaps, in the late 1950s, modern infantry formations, certainly Russian ones, are equipped with antitank weapons that can easily match the Leopard 1 in terms of range. On top of this, the tank’s optics and fire control systems, even if upgraded to the Leopard 1A5 standard, would still be at best a full generation behind their modern equivalents.
And so you have a tank whose survival relies on avoiding detection, operating in an environment where detection near the frontline is very difficult to avoid2. You have a tank whose performance depends on outranging and outspotting the enemy, operating against opponents that, as often as not, will outrange and outspot it. You have a tank that needs to be able to conduct hit-and-run attacks operating in an environment where it can be targeted by enemy helicopters, drones or guided artillery shells a dozen or more kilometres behind the frontline. And, finally, you have a tank whose crews will have only received a couple of months’ worth of training in operating this specific vehicle, not to mention a machine whose maintenance and spare parts requirements are completely different from any other in Ukraine’s increasingly diversified tank park.
Even if Ukrainian crews and commanders prove to be absolute virtuosos in handling their Leopard 1’s, one would think that any kind of “glass cannon” tank would have a fairly rough time of it in any sort of serious conflict such as the war in Ukraine. Or, for that matter, the Yom Kippur War, where the much heavier M60 still suffered significant losses against, arguably, a rather less well-equipped opponent than the Russian army is today. On the other hand, to the extent Ukrainians actually receive their Leopard 1’s – tank pledges, that is, promises to deliver this or that batch of vehicles at some point in the next year or two, are not the same as actual tank deployments in the conflict zone – we should finally be able to put aside the theorising and gather some real-world data on the “glass cannon” tank concept, its employment, its survivability on a modern battlefield, indeed, its very utility as compared with more conventional tank designs. And however or whenever the Ukraine conflict does come to a close, one thing is for certain – at least some of the participants will build their next generation of weapons drawing on precisely this kind of observed data.
- Camut, N., “Germany to send 88 Leopard I tanks to Ukraine”, Politico, February 3, 2023, retrieved February 4, 2023.[↩]
- This is particularly true in the wide open terrain in the south, for example around the Kherson region. As was amply demonstrated during the failed Ukrainian offensive east of Kherson during August-September 2022, vehicles moving anywhere near the frontline were almost guaranteed to be spotted by Russian drones.[↩]