What will change in Ukraine with Leopard and Abrams tanks. General Camporini speaks
According to General Camporini, the Abrams and Leopard tanks will allow a change of pace to the offensives in Ukraine in the spring. Here's how and why. Marco Orioles interview
Once the initial resistance fell, the United States and Germany finally decided to equip Kiev with what it had been begging for months, namely the famous Abrams M1 and Leopard 2 tanks. On the actual meaning of this move and on the repercussions that will be recorded on the battlefield, Start Magazine heard the opinion of Vincenzo Camporini , former Chief of Staff of the Defense and of the Air Force, convinced that the availability of the new and highly advanced means armored units will put a force like the Russian one in serious difficulty, which has proved incapable of effectively maneuvering its tanks and will offer Kiev substantial possibilities to go on the offensive in the Donbass.
General Camporini, what do you think of the decision of the United States and Germany to start the process by which the Abrams M1 and Leopard 2 will be placed at the disposal of Ukraine?
The Leopards will certainly be available soon, including crew training which will take four to six weeks. For the Abrams it is very different, as a logistics chain is required which must be created in any case and which must be incorporated into the Ukrainian system, and this will take a long time.
Which of the two vehicles is the more lethal?
The Abrams is heavier and therefore better protected than the Leopard. The latter is instead much more agile, as well as faster; it is a tank that can fire on the move – as well as the Abrams for that matter – and this implies an agility of maneuver which is a very important factor above all with respect to the adversary and therefore to the Russian weapon systems.
How can we imagine a use of these means in the Ukrainian theater?
The use will be the classic one of the armored forces which, with the tactics developed in the West, with the synergistic use of protected infantry and armored vehicles allows extremely effective actions, something that the Russian army has not succeeded in, which has never been able to develop this synergy and therefore often sent his tanks into disarray. There will therefore in all probability be a change of pace in the operations that will presumably start in the spring, both on one side and on the other.
The Americans have been reluctant for a long time, hiding behind the argument that the Abrams are a very complicated and extremely energy-intensive medium to handle. Is this no longer a problem now?
First of all, I recall that the Abrams have also been exported to countries that do not have particularly high technological equipment. Therefore, from this point of view, the American concerns are correct but not so much for the difficulty of learning about the use of the machine as for the complexity of the logistic apparatus connected with the use of this which must be built. It's not just a question of moving a cart, but of moving it with all its annexes and connections, which is not so immediate.
By imagining a massive or in any case congruous transfer of means to Ukraine, can a scenario of military victory for Kiev be outlined at this point? And then how would you define a military victory in that theatre? Reconquer Crimea for example?
I believe that Crimea is certainly in Kiev's political perspective, but from a military perspective I imagine it is much more reasonable to think of a gradual reconquest of the territory of Donbass, where the Russians have barricaded themselves. The quantity and quality of the defense systems they have built along the line of contact and in the areas immediately behind it tells us that the Russians are prepared to defend themselves and therefore that is the area where it will somehow be necessary to achieve those successes tactics which then translate into strategic successes.
Can the Russian superiority in demographic terms, ie in other terms of cannon fodder, be compensated by the technological superiority of the Ukrainian forces also deriving from the training of its men by the West?
Numbers are always important. However, when there are technological systems and above all the intelligent use of these systems, the number of soldiers on the ground becomes less and less relevant. This is even more so if these soldiers are poorly trained and poorly equipped as we have seen among Russian forces.
General Camporini, what can you tell us about the Wagner company and the successes it managed to collect in battles such as that of Soledar? Is this force really effective or is it all propaganda?
When we talk about effectiveness with reference to what happened in the battles of Soledar and Bakhmut, we must remember that Wagner has been trying to break through for months and its conquests are measured in terms of a few square kilometers, moreover with very high human losses. So I don't think there is today the possibility of defining the Wagner group as the spearhead of the Russian army. I believe that the successes boasted by Prigozhin are more a card played on the Kremlin's internal political table than on the military one. I'm quite skeptical of the capabilities of a force that takes convicts and sends them to be killed.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/guerra-ucraina-carri-armati-leopard-abrams-intervista-camporini/ on Thu, 26 Jan 2023 06:36:47 +0000.