The M-2 that disabled two Russian tanks.
Photo by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense
The three-man crew of an M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle of the Ukrainian army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade reportedly knocked out two Russian T-72 tanks in a single furious battle in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhia Oblast.
The one-sided battle in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhia Oblast, recalled by Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar in a Telegram post on Tuesday, is difficult to verify.
While Maliar released photos of the M-2 crew members, she provided no documentation of their alleged fight — nor did they specify exactly when or where it took place.
After suffering heavy casualties in a Russian minefield outside Mala Tokmachka in the initial phase of Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive in early June, the 47th Brigade and its partner brigade, the 33rd Mechanized, fought their way several miles south to the outskirts of Robotyne, where the Russians dug deep.
A recent video from the Robotyne sector shows Ukrainian troops taking cover in a trench they seem to have wrested from the Russians while an M-2 fires on nearby Russian troops.
The M-2 vs. T-72 battle – if played out as Maliar described it – underscores the US-made vehicle’s strengths. The 25-ton infantry fighting vehicle is a powerful anti-tank platform thanks to its fast-firing 25mm autocannon and long-range TOW anti-tank missiles.
“The combat vehicle was initially surrounded on two sides by Russian infantry,” Maliar wrote of the M-2. “And when the invaders were destroyed with an automatic cannon, the Russians announced a real hunt for the Ukrainian Bradley. The enemy urgently sent a pair of T-72s into battle.”
Most infantry fighting vehicles are no match for a tank. Modern tanks weigh twice as much as a typical infantry fighting vehicle and typically fire their guns miles further than an infantry fighting vehicle can with its machine gun.
But the M-2 is not a typical infantry fighting vehicle. “The Bradley in particular has impressive anti-tank capabilities that will work against any type of armor capability that Russia has deployed in Ukraine,” Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, told reporters in January, shortly after the United States received the first 50 M -2 pledged to the Ukrainian war effort.
Subsequent commitments have increased the number of M-2s in or destined for Ukraine to 190. That’s enough infantry fighting vehicles to replace the dozens of vehicles lost by the 47th Brigade and to equip another brigade.
Firing armor-piercing, fin-stabilizing and ejecting sabot rounds at a rate of three per second up to 3,000 yards, the M-2’s 25mm autocannon is capable of penetrating the 150mm of armor on the side of a T-2. 72 tanks.
And the two 50-pound TOW missiles in the Bradley’s turret-mounted launcher can penetrate a T-72’s armor from any angle and at a distance of up to 3,500 meters.
Perhaps more importantly, the M-2’s day-night optics are sharp and accurate over many miles, helping the crew spot the enemy before the enemy spots the M-2. “The Brad… isn’t a tank, but it can be a tank killer” tweeted Mark Hertling, a retired US Army general who commanded an M-3, a reconnaissance version of the M-2, in Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
The Ukrainian M-2s reportedly did to the Russian T-72s what the American M-2s did to the Iraqi T-72s decades ago. “Both Russian tanks were immediately burned down,” Maliar wrote. The “Bradley is equipped with a heavy TOW… anti-tank missile, which the crew used skillfully.”
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