For me the article loads and then collapses behind a paywall. So it's free and no free at the same time? 🤷 No idea, so here it is:
Ignore the Russian propaganda: Britain’s Challenger 2 tanks are still supreme
Grainy footage is circulating of a British-built Challenger 2 tank, donated to Ukraine 18 months ago, allegedly meeting its end in Kursk under fire from a Russian attack drone.
If this is true, this would likely be the second British tank destroyed over a period when Moscow is thought to have lost around 2,000 of its own. Perhaps this disparity in performance is why the Russians are so vexed by the handful of Challengers offered to Kyiv. The release of the footage is clutching at some very slippery straws to try and suggest the Russians are in the ascendency in Kursk.
That is, if it’s accurate. To me, the footage smells “off”. First, the tank is in what we call a ‘hull up” position showing the whole vehicle to any attacker. Anybody who has any experience of armoured warfare will know you show as little of your tank as possible to the enemy, in what we call a “hull down” position. Very inexperienced tank crews could make this mistake, but the Ukrainians have been manning these Challengers for 18 months and only two have been badly damaged as far as we understand, suggesting that they know what they’re doing.
Second, while the footage is low quality there doesn’t seem to be any additional armour on the tank. Again, the other Challenger 2’s we’ve seen in active duty in Ukraine have been kitted out with “explosive-reactive” armour or drone cages.
Third, the drone is attacking the strongest part of the tank, the frontal 60 degrees of the turret. None of the drones we’ve seen in Ukraine so far should really be able to damage armour of this thickness; usually attacks are characterised by the drone attempting to manoeuvre around the tank and hit it in the rear, or through an open turret.
Finally, there’s no surveillance drone supporting the attack variant, capturing the moment of explosion and conducting battle-damage assessment. This is pretty suspect; usually we get footage from the support unit showing the devastating impact on the unfortunate vehicle in question. The lack of any such footage suggests that perhaps the drone might have been a “dud”, scratching the paintwork but doing little more harm.
Frankly, without further evidence coming to light, my suspicions are that this footage is not quite what it’s purported to be; either less successful than claimed, or a propaganda con with the low quality of the footage helping to pass it off as genuine. On a personal level, I find it quite heartening that the Russians are so fixated with attempting to do down the Challenger 2: it shows that it’s holding up well in performance, quite likely better than anything they’ve managed to build.
If the footage is of a real vehicle, however, then it would appear that the Russians do have access to a genuine Challenger 2. This could be cause for concern as its successor – the imaginatively named Challenger 3 – is based on the same model, and there can be little doubt that Russian engineers will have stripped the captured unit down to its basics to learn whatever secrets they can.
Recent MoD briefs on the Challenger 3 suggest that it will be very different on a technical level, with new fire control systems and defensive aid suites. But this should surely be a wakeup call to the designers and engineers to take stock and re-evaluate their plans on the assumption that the Russians know more than we’d like them to. I have faith that this can be overcome; what Rheinmetall – the German manufacturer involved in the new build – doesn’t know about making tanks isn’t worth knowing!
As I continue to work on my new book – tracing the development of tank warfare from Cambrai, the first tank battle, to Kursk today – it’s striking how fundamentally very little has changed. Just as the Germans were fixated by the MK4 tank in November 1917, so are the Russians with the Challenger 2 tank in 2024. I wouldn’t bet against the Challenger 3 continuing this noble lineage.