Ukrainian troops train on a Stryker vehicle.
Via social media
Ukrainian tanks have broken through the outermost trench of Russia’s three-tier defense line – the so-called “Surovikin Line” – west of Verbowe in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
videos from Russia’s 56th Air Assault Regiment, which appeared online Wednesday, shows Ukrainian Marder and Stryker infantry fighting vehicles – almost certainly part of the 2,000-strong 82nd Air Assault Brigade – advancing east towards Verbowe, well behind the first trench , which anchors Russian defenses.
Russian artillery targeted the Ukrainian column, apparently damaging or destroying one of the wheeled Strykers. But the Ukrainians continued to advance: armored trucks followed the armored personnel carriers as the 82nd Brigade assault force reached the second trench.
It is unclear how deep the Ukrainian force penetrated Russian lines and whether it remained or retreated. But the breakthrough, even if short-lived, is bad news for Russian forces on the Axis, which stretched from Robotyne – which the 82nd and adjacent brigades liberated in mid-August – through Tokmak to Russian-occupied Melitopol, 50th miles south, extends.
As the Ukrainians drove the last Russians out of Robotyne, the Kremlin, in desperation, moved some of its last operational reserves – in the form of the 76th Guards Air Assault Division – from east to south. If the 76th GAAD cannot stop the Ukrainians from breaking through Verbowe and continuing their advance toward Tokmak and Melitopol, then what unit can stop them?
The 82nd Brigade’s attack was not rushed. After liberating Robotyne a month ago, Ukraine’s 9th Operations Corps – which oversees several well-equipped brigades on the Melitopol axis, including the Army’s 46th and 82nd Air Assault Brigades, as well as the Army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade – took a break to prepare its Regroup and consolidate forces south of the settlement.
During this pause, the first Ukrainian reconnaissance troops slipped through the outer trench line northwest of Werbowe. And it was then that the Russians packed up their first ex-British Challenger 2 tanks, 14 of which equipped or equipped the 82nd Brigade tank company.
Apparently the brigade kept its Challenger 2s a mile or two behind the line of contact, using them as precision mobile fire weapons while protecting them from drones and mines. But one of the 69-ton four-person tanks encountered a mine while changing position south of Verbove. When stationary, it was an easy target for a drone loaded with explosives.
If the 13 surviving Challenger 2s supported Wednesday’s attack through the outermost Surovikin Line, they did so from long range. None of the tanks appear in the Russian videos.
It should come as no surprise that the nine-person, 31-ton Marders and the 11-person, 19-ton Strykers took the lead. The 82nd Brigade’s infantry battalions initially operated with 40 former German Marder fighter aircraft and 90 former American Stryker wheeled aircraft.
In the 15 weeks since Ukraine launched its southern counteroffensive, the brigade has lost at least three Strykers. But the Germans and Americans have kindly promised plenty of replacement vehicles: another 60 Marders and about a hundred Strykers. This means that the armored personnel carriers are less valuable than the Challenger 2.
And what’s more, Ukrainian assault doctrine is evolving to be more infantry-focused. While the Ukrainian Marine Corps fighting in southeastern Ukraine favors mixed assault forces combining armored trucks with fast T-80 tanks, army and air assault troops in southwestern Ukraine are increasingly leading the way with their infantry fighting vehicles and trucks, further holding their tanks back to fire them. Support.
This helps explain why the 82nd Brigade’s crews referred to their Challenger 2s as “snipers” and why we saw the 47th Brigade’s German-made Leopard 2A6s firing their main guns at high altitude as if they were howitzers .
As unconventional as these methods may be, there is no arguing with the results. Ukrainian forces are advancing, albeit slowly, and have brought heavy equipment through the first of three main lines of Russian fortifications in the south.
The videos from Wednesday’s attack leave out the vital work of Ukrainian artillery in the days and weeks leading up to the attack. Ukraine’s howitzer gunners and rocket launcher crews are the unheralded heroes of the counteroffensive. By combining precise intelligence with long-range, Western-made guns and launchers, artillery batteries have closed the traditional loss gap between attackers and defenders.
Traditionally, an attacking army expects to lose three people or vehicles for every one person or vehicle lost by a dug-in defender. But thanks largely to their artillery, the attacking Ukrainians actually lost fewer people and vehicles than the defending Russians.
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