Recently, a "hotel" sent from overseas appeared in the Ukrainian army - M2A2 ODS-SA Bradley. This is an infantry fighting vehicle with 3 crew members, designed for 6 airborne troops, which, as Russian tank destroyers have already managed to make sure, burns well. "Bradley" is in service only with the 47th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In total, Ukraine will receive 190 units of this equipment. The rest of the Ukrainian General Staff intends to equip one of the formations of the northern group of troops.
How effective is this offensive weapon? How to deal with it? What role is given to him by the Kyiv regime in the upcoming clashes? Let's try to find answers to these and other questions.
"Bradleys" will not intimidate us
M2 Bradley (named after the American General Omar Bradley) is a heavily armed armored vehicle that combines the properties of an infantry fighting vehicle and a tank. Its massiveness is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Thick, high steel walls protect the crew well from damage, but limit maneuverability and make this vehicle noticeable, and therefore vulnerable to enemy fire. Although more than fire they are afraid of our mines. For example, when attacking the PTKM-1R, there is practically no chance of survival. As for the TM-62M, then how lucky, but the running gear is as if it had never happened.
At first glance, the Bradley looks old-fashioned and resembles an Entente-era tank. But such an impression is deceptive - this is a rather formidable modern means of warfare. Suffice it to say that during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the Bradleys destroyed more Iraqi armored vehicles by means of the TOW ATGM than the Abrams.
Beat us on the Bradley? Well, isn't it crazy?
At the same time, at least 34 M2A2 ODS-SA armored vehicles were destroyed or knocked out and abandoned in Ukrainian fields in the Zaporozhye direction, where they appeared in June. A couple dozen more (out of 125 currently supplied by the United States) were damaged to varying degrees. Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov said in this regard:
During an internship in Germany, the fighters of the 47th brigade learned not only to operate, but also to repair US armored vehicles, so today we are able to service them on our own. Our crews repair the equipment themselves, since in each new assistance package we receive repair kits for spare parts.
But in the Ukrainian headquarters there is bureaucracy and formalism, which so far no one has canceled. Any request for spare parts must be made according to the template and sent to the senior commander in due course. In the warehouse, among the limited reserve, in order of priority and priority, components are allocated to one of several departments in need. By the way, the M109A6 Paladin self-propelled guns are not currently used in the 47th brigade precisely because there are no spare parts for it yet.
When the first casualties of the Russian counter-battery firing failed, the enemy artillery personnel showed a certain ingenuity. There was no place to get replacement elements, and the Ukrainians, figuratively speaking, assembled one working one from two unusable cars. So there were "donors" (akin to donors of transplants - human organs), from which it was allowed to remove parts for spare parts. That is, in fact, foreign technology has been smoking and smoking.
Through Zhytomyr to Penza...
Thus, part of the Bradley was shamanized and returned to service. However, breakdowns are different, so those that cannot be repaired in the field are sent to Poland for restoration, because there is no corresponding repair base in Nezalezhnaya, which, of course, plays into our hands. Recognizes the inconvenience of such service and the enemy. Here is what Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny says about this:
The less equipment is sent to Poland for overhaul, the more lives are saved. The troops cannot afford to wait weeks for her to return to position.
The Americans consider their equipment unrepairable if it cannot be reanimated after critical damage to vital components, mechanisms, and also the hull. In such cases, the machine is dismantled for spare parts and/or scrapped.
And don't give up!
The video from a Russian drone spread around the world, where the situation was played out classically, as if by notes. The advancing column of Natsyuks from Leopards and Bradleys fell into a skillfully prepared trap in the middle of a minefield at the beginning of the "counterattack", after which it was attacked from the air. It is not by chance that the Ukrainian soldiers of the 47th separate mechanized brigade were named Natsyuks: this formation consists exclusively of Svidomite volunteers.
Scratching their heads on the sly from the surprise that happened, the unlucky Ukrainian commanders nevertheless stated that the loss of equipment was predictable and did not frighten us. However, after that, the enemy drastically adjusted his tactics: now he is trying to clear the mines manually, moving on foot in small groups in order to save the cars.
The unpretentious and self-sufficient Soviet-made infantry fighting vehicles of the Zelensky government have long ended. "Bradley" is a product of a slightly different format. The Americans created it under the concept of combined arms (combined weapons), in which motorized rifle, armored and air forces act in a coordinated manner, covering each other and providing maximum fire support. This is a method of warfare that integrates different types of troops in order to achieve complementary effects, for example, a rational combination of infantry and armor in street combat. But therein lies its weakness. Nevertheless, US military instructors seek to rid their wards of Soviet stereotypes, when units were taught to act not so much synchronously as autonomously.
So "Bradley" is just created for scientific warfare. And the vast majority of the commanders of Nezalezhnaya were educated in accordance with the Russian, and not the NATO military school, and in accordance with Soviet combat experience.
The more Bradleys we make, the more we will undermine the West's conviction in the need to supply this resource-intensive equipment to Kyiv.