Ukraine's Western Armor Suffered Enormous Losses While Breaching a Minefield

On Friday, Russian social media channels began triumphantly sharing drone footage revealing the aftermath of a tactical-level fiasco for Ukrainian forces. It occurred roughly 2 miles south of Mala Tokmachka in Zaporizhya oblast, and reportedly took place last Wednesday or Thursday.

Damaged and abandoned Western-built armored vehicles can be seen clustered closely together, strewn along a dirt road—including one of Ukraine’s few valuable Leopard 2A6 main battle tanks (identifiable by the sloped forward edge of its turret), as well as four M2A2ODS Bradley armored fighting vehicles.

Other visible losses include American M113 and French-supplied VAB armored personnel carriers, a donated T-72M1 tank, a Soviet-vintage BMR-2 de-mining vehicle, and four M-ATV and MaxxPro mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAPs).

The attacking unit was the Bradley-equipped 47^th Mechanized Brigade. The Leopard 2A6s, meanwhile, were reportedly detached from the 33rd Mechanized Brigade.

On the other side, Russian sources claim that defending units in the region included two motor-rifle regiments of the 42^nd Motor-Rifle division, two brigades of Spetsnaz special forces, the Vostok battalion of DNR separatists, and a BARS volunteer unit—all under command of Gen. Alexander Romanchuk.

A reconstruction based on geo-location of Russian videos suggests that the Ukrainian column traversed a total of 4 miles, zig-zagging south and west before the attack finally floundered under fire from Ka-52 attack helicopters with Vikhr laser-guided anti-tank missiles.

By Saturday, footage recorded from a Bradley vehicle in this battle made its way online, initially displaying the vehicle blasting a nearby tree line with its 25-millimeter autocannon as two Bradleys passed in front in an attempted retreat. But at 12 seconds in, a blast immobilizes the second withdrawing Bradley. Crew and infantry can be seen dismounting and taking cover beside their damaged vehicles.

Smoke grenades, first lobbed by an infantryman and then launched by the point-of-view Bradley (at 1:20 below), obscure Russian visibility and allow the dismounted crew and infantry to fall back towards the point of view vehicle. They are seen climbing on top of it, perhaps fearing there may still be mines planted to the sides of the vehicles.

Later, an infantrymen who bailed out of a disabled Bradley posted a GoPro-style recording of the withdrawal, showing his team dismounting in good order and laying down covering fire with assault rifles before falling back.

But, confoundingly, a video posted by the Telegram account of Russian Neo-nazi group Rusich shows that four more Ukrainian Bradleys advanced right into the kill zone already littered with abandoned vehicles. At least one of these was set ablaze by Russian fire.

A second Leopard 2A6 also was knocked out. Another still image from a drone shows that the Brigade apparently lost three out of the six Leopard 2R de-mining tanks donated by Finland--another painful loss.

Ultimately, the Oryx blog visually confirmed the loss of a total of 16 Bradleys and three Leopard 2A6s in the area (though not necessarily all in the same day), of which only five Bradleys and one Leopard 2 were irrecoverably destroyed. That’s still roughly one out of every seven of the 109 M2A2 ODS Bradleys the U.S. has given Ukraine, though the Biden administration has announced it will replace the lost Bradleys in its latest aid package.

Fortunately, both Russian and Ukrainian videos suggest that most of the passengers and crew escaped with their lives, given the open hatches and lowered rear ramps for the Bradleys and the overall lack of visible casualties. Realistically, there are scenarios in which one can only hope that armor protection can protect the lives of those onboard, rather than guarantee the continued functionality of the vehicle. The commander of the 47th Brigade later posted a video on Facebook (translated here) which appears to say his unit sustained only five casualties in the battle.

One immobilized and abandoned Leopard 2A6 was set ablaze and destroyed. A Leopard 2A4 tank (an older, less -well armored model) was confirmed destroyed in a separate nearby engagement at Novopokrovka. But most of the lost vehicles appear simply immobilized or otherwise recoverable using Armored Recovery Vehicles (ARVs). Already, videos reveal that Ukraine has repaired one immobilized Leopard 2A4 tank, and that a donated Bergepanzer 3 ARV successfully evacuated an immobilized Leopard 2A6.

However, on Tuesday, Russia’s defense ministry posted a video of Russian troops picking over a Leopard 2A6 and at least four Bradleys, claiming some still had working engines. While not hugely compromising in terms of technology, the capture of ‘trophy’ vehicles amounts to a propaganda victory for Russian forces. However, it’s not yet confirmed that these vehicles have actually been towed back to Russian lines.

Both sides also often destroy abandoned vehicles that they can’t recover with artillery or drones—dropping grenades through open hatches to detonate onboard ammunition, destroying them. Indeed, an earlier recording shows Russia targeting one of the abandoned Leopard 2A6s with a Lancet-3 kamikaze drone, with ambiguous results.

How Did This Happen?

The 30-ton Bradleys are amongst the better-protected infantry fighting vehicles out there—even though they’re not as heavily armored as tanks. And the Leopard 2A6’s sloped front turret armor is impenetrable to most Russian anti-tank weapons.

The transfer of these vehicles to Ukraine was rightly hailed as a promising upgrade for Ukraine’s ground forces. In fact, there is ample video footage showing Ukraine’s new Western vehicles withstanding blasts that would have likely shredded the more lightly armored Soviet-vintage BMP and BTR troop carrying vehicles.

But all tanks—even heavily armored Leopard 2A6s with good odds of brushing off hits to their sloped front turret armor by 125-millimeter armor-piercing shell or anti-tank missile—are vulnerable to strikes hitting their tracks and belly armor, and to munitions hitting their top armor.

This means that they can still be disabled by humble anti-tank mines, or pelted from above by accurate artillery. These threats are less acute when defending or counter-attacking (when the tanks can be better concealed and dispersed, and don’t have to traverse enemy controlled territory). But it’s a very common danger for forces assaulting prepared enemy defenses across open fields laced with mines, while simultaneously being overwatched by drones that can call in and adjust pre-sighted artillery bombardments.

In June, Russia also began employing ISDM Zemledeliye truck-based rockets systems that remotely scatter minefields in the path of Ukrainian forces from up to 9 miles away. Tellingly, we can see that the tracks have run off their rollers on several of the disabled vehicles.

The clustered losses, therefore, apparently represent an attempt to breach a mine-field—one that failed due to losses from mines and artillery fire as the advancing column was bogged down. This is a highly challenging type of operation called a ‘combined arms breach’ that requires careful coordination of tanks, infantry, and combat engineers to pull off. It can easily unravel when under enemy fire, as this one did, and requires use of specialized combat engineering vehicles.

David Demorrow, a combat-experienced U.S. army veteran who has commanded Bradley fighting vehicles and has been sending equipment donations to Ukraine, suggested a likely course of events on social media. Over the phone, he further explained why mine-plowing tanks could fall victim to mines.

“Those mine plows start falling apart. Some say they’re good for eight hits, some say ten hits. After taking hit after hit, that mine plow starts digging into the ground and becomes an anchor. So you have to get out of the vehicle, pull out maybe four pins to disengage the plow from the tank. So they disconnected the Finnish mine plow, it had done its job up to that point, and drove the tank back, whereupon it appears to have collided with a Bradley.” [It’s also possible that the tank was attempting to move the Bradley out of the way to clear the lane.]

Demorrow suggested that Ukrainian forces had conducted insufficient initial preparation using mine-clearing line-charges (MICLICS). These are cables stuffed full of plastic explosives which are launched forward by rockets and then detonated to blast a mine-cleared lane down their length. (Russian reports do state that Ukraine has employed at least some MICLICS in recent fighting.)

“The M2s tried to go around the immobilized vehicles [blocking the mine-cleared lane] and found mines. Everybody then gets bunched up so as not to hit more mines…and [Russian] artillery is called in [causing further losses.]”

Still, he observed in his tweet: “All the ramps down [on the Bradleys] and no signs of loss of troops tells me that the rest of the unit was able to evacuate.”

In Demorrow’s estimation, the column behind the mine plows was following too closely. Once both de-mining tanks were disabled, the correct course of action was for the surviving vehicles to pivot around and retrace their path backwards (to avoid hitting additional mines to the side), evacuate the crews of immobilized vehicles, and await undamaged combat engineering vehicles.

Still, he notes that parallel tracks visible in the video suggest that another Ukrainian company may have successfully advanced through the minefield.

Russia has also deployed kamikaze drones, as well as its many Ka-52 attack helicopters lobbing long-distance anti-tank guided missiles to knock out vehicles in advancing Ukrainian columns. Russian footage shows that at least one helicopter and multiple kamikaze drones equipped with PG-7 warheads participated in the battle near Tokmachka—though the drones appear to have had trouble assuredly hitting Leopard 2s due to jamming.

Some supporters of Ukraine argue that the country should redeploy its short-range (but highly effective) Gepard anti-aircraft vehicles from protecting Ukrainian cities to armor in the field, while others contend that Ukraine has received far too few (34) to spread out effectively across the frontline.

The Big Picture

Seeing such steep losses of advanced Western vehicles could induce despair among supporters of Ukraine’s effort to drive out Russia’s invading forces. However, they are less surprising—though still disappointing—to military experts. Historically, such tactical-level debacles are not uncommon when assaulting prepared enemy defensive positions—even as part of larger operations that eventually succeed.

Furthermore, both sides in a war mostly release footage to influence public opinion favorably, which means that we can’t know for whether this fiasco is exceptional, or generally representative of how Ukraine’s large-scale counter offensive—which debuted on June 5—is going. After all, there are also Ukrainian videos showing them advancing swiftly or overrunning Russian trenches.

At this point, it’s relatively clear to observers that Ukraine’s main offensive efforts appear aimed at recapturing valuable coastal ports in southern Ukraine, thereby cutting off Russia’s land corridor of occupied territory connecting Russian bases in Crimea to Russian territory.

The battle near Mala Tokmachka lies along the Ukrainian axis of attack running from Ukrainian-held Orikhiv and down the T0408 highway to Tokmak. Tokmak, in turn, lies just 30 miles up the road from the port of Melitopol. Capture of Melitopol would cut off Crimea from land-based resupply and reinforcements except via a vulnerable bridge across the Kerch strait.

To the east, another major visible prong of Ukraine’s counteroffensive appears to be advancing down the T0518 road near Velyka Novosilka, ultimately leading to the large port of Mariupol. This is close to Vuhledar sector to the east, where two Russian naval infantry brigades previously battered themselves badly and futilely against Ukrainian defenses during the winter.

A more limited tertiary counter-offensive also appears to be taking place around (but not in) the city of Bakhmut.

Focusing on the land bridge was arguably Ukraine’s best option—and Russia’s most glaring vulnerability. But, unavoidably, that made it a predictable one. As a result, Russia has dug in significantly along multiple fortified lines in this sector. It also appears likely to have destroyed a dam at Nova Kakhovka—causing massive destruction to local inhabitants and the regional ecosystem—so as to lower the threat of supporting attacks by Ukrainian forces on the west bank of the Dnieper river around Kherson.

This means that even a successful Ukrainian offensive must—at least initially—involve a costly head-on assault to bust open a path through Russia’s multi-layered defense-in-depth (which includes many trenches and deep minefields), rather than a deft battle of maneuver like Ukraine pulled off in last year’s Kharkiv counter-offensive.

Observers should also bear in mind that that outward layer of Russia’s defense-in-depth isn’t meant to be held, but rather amounts to a ‘security zone’ to delay attackers and impose costs. Even seizing part of the true main line of resistance, however, can’t be considered a breakthrough until attacking Ukrainian forces succeed in repelling the inevitable Russian mechanized reserve counter-attack force.

This kind of brutal assault operation was seen in the decisive 1942 Second Battle of El Alamein in North Africa during World War II, as well as the U.S. Army’s breakout during the Battle of Normandy in Operation Cobra in July 1944.

In the former, British forces suffered massive losses, battering their way through Rommel’s fortified troops in North Africa right until they ground through Rommel’s last reserves and forced him to begin a calamitous retreat. Though Axis combat losses were only moderately higher than the UK’s during the fighting, the British went on to capture tens of thousands of prisoners during the retreat.

The Operation Cobra offensive in late July of 1944, meanwhile, followed an overly tank-heavy British assault in the Caen area called Operation Goodwood, which was defeated with massive losses (up to 500 tanks) upon colliding with Germany’s reserve tank and artillery forces. That left German forces with few available reserves to counter the U.S. Cobra offensive a week later, which ended up unraveling the entire German defensive position that had bogged Allied forces down since D-Day six weeks earlier.

More recently, Azerbaijani mechanized forces initially suffered heavy losses to Armenian defenders of the Nagorno-Karabakh region during a war in 2020—one which ended in a major Azerbaijani victory due to drones enabling precision drone and artillery strikes, which cleared the way for Azerbaijan’s mechanized troops to advance.

Demorrow, without prompting, brought up the Goodwood offensive precedent when he spoke with Popular Mechanics, and notes that Ukraine has more than 20 additional fresh brigades (many also Western-equipped) still uncommitted to the battle. He argued that the 47th’s attack may in fact have been intended to ‘smoke out’ Russian artillery, air power, and reserves already primed to expect Ukraine’s main effort to involve Western armored vehicles. He also noted that the defending 42nd Division relies on many outdated T-62M tanks and is exhausted, having been in near-constant combat since the beginning of the war.

Historical precedents give an idea of the costly nature of even successful assault operations, and how the fortunes of both sides are liable to sway over time in a battle literally fought until one or both sides is exhausted. In other words, it will be some time before we know the ultimate trajectory of Ukraine’s summer counter offensives. The losses seen in the Mala Tokmachka videos, though, chillingly reflect the high costs they unavoidably will entail—even with the benefits of advanced Western armored vehicles.

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