“Just give us tanks!” was the collective plea of the Ukrainian government a year ago. They were begging the collective leadership of NATO to hand over to them advanced Main Battle Tanks, such as the German-made Leopard-2 and the American M1A1 Abrams MBT. 

The Western nations assented to the pleas. Almost every one of the various advanced Western tank platforms has either been destroyed or abandoned because they were so ineffective. Particularly, the M1A1 Abrams, considered among many military experts to be the best MBT in the world, has been utterly decimated in combat with the Russians.

A September report from Harrison Kass in these pages indicates that an astonishing twenty out of the thirty-one Abrams MBTs that the United States gifted to Ukraine have already been lost in battle. There are other instances of Russian forces parading captured Abrams tanks through the streets of Moscow, with a bemused Vladimir Putin looking on. In other instances, the Abrams tanks are getting mired in the thick and legendary mud of the country. 

The Abrams is Not Performing Well

Back in May of this year, Newsweek spoke with multiple Ukrainian tank crews, all of whom stated that the Abrams tanks in question were not that great. The Ukrainians have had next to no luck in combat against the Russians using Western tanks. Where they’ve had an incredible amount of success is in replacing those fancier, newer Western MBTs with their older Soviet-era T-64 and T-80 MBTs. 

Some problems associated with the American tanks revolve around the lack of adequate armor for those tanks against modern weaponry.

It might sound crazy to you, but the Americans did not hand over their best M1A1 Abrams. These units were older. 

Further, when faced with Russian drone swarms and any kind of Russian attack in this war over Ukraine’s future, the Abrams, like so many other tanks, simply cannot defend itself or survive. The reports from the frontlines on the performance of the much-ballyhooed American Abrams tanks involve phrases like “catastrophic failure” and, my personal favorite, “the armor melted!” 

What that latter claim by Ukrainian frontline troops referred to was the fact that the Abrams tanks were completely unprepared to withstand the twin threats of drones as well as anti-tank weapons that were firing missiles with dual warheads at those tanks. 

The older armor on the American tanks never stood a chance against such innovative tactics, these tactics that Russia was using against Ukraine were adapted by Russia after they saw the Ukrainians employing similar innovative tactics against Russian armor in the first half of the war. 

America’s Abrams tank was likely the best tank of the twentieth century. The updated variant the Americans are building is probably going to ensure the Abrams brand remains the best MBT in the world. However, the units that were sent to Ukraine did not live up to their name.

Not Ready for Showtime

That’s not only because they were poorly prepared for the kind of combat the Russians would subject them to. It’s also because the Ukrainians themselves never received the proper level of training to use these systems. 

The Abrams, like most Western MBTs, are far more sophisticated than the Soviet-era MBTs that the Ukrainians are used to. Even though the Americans put the Ukrainian tank crews through rigorous training, it was still done on the fly, under the pressure of a continually expanding war. It takes years to master the Abrams tank. We expected the Ukrainians to do it in a handful of weeks.

Here is yet another reason why the Ukrainians have had far more success with their own, older Soviet-era MBTs, such as the T-64 and the T-84 Oplot than they have had with any Western MBT. 

Nevertheless, NATO persists in dumping its equipment into Ukraine where it is just getting trashed and abandoned by the desperate Ukrainians in the face of the Russian onslaught.

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is available for purchase wherever books are sold. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

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