(01-20-2024, 12:08 AM)dabigv13 Wrote: Interesting interview of the crew of the second Bradley
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status...ediaviewer
Great post! It added lots of insight to the incident. I did have to edit the link a bit to get it to work. Removed the mediaviewer part.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status...3990372669
Lots of good info can be extracted from this tweet. If one looks at the pictures of the Bradley, one notes immediately that while they have TOW missile launchers, it doesn't appear they are carrying the missiles. Certainly the attacking Bradley didn't use one, as there was snow in the back of the launcher. I found it revealing that the gunner said
Quote:I can 't express what it means to see a tank in the sights. In training, I said "God forbid I see a tank in the sights". It so happened that I did. And very close. There was another crew that came first. It didn't work out so we had to muster up the courage and go.The training was correct. Good to know. The caption in the training probably was "If you see this, you know two things. The one thing you know for sure is that you have f***** up big time. The second thing you know is that you are probably going to die very soon". These guys were very, very lucky. The fact they saw the tank only "very close" shows they didn't have info from the drone, the infantry they were supporting, or the other Bradley. They were surprised, and in a Bradley your job is to ensure it is the other way around. They were just lucky the tank missed and wasn't even minimally well operated.
The most important factor is that it is always a mistake to be hunting tanks with a Bradley. It is an even bigger mistake if that was "the plan". The Bradley in question wasn't carrying infantry. It was being sent out with a crew of 2 to engage a tank. This was somehow SOP. Something is very, very, wrong here. If the Ukrainian unit had no tanks to support the infantry, one must ask why? Certainly the number of tanks provided by the west was proportional to the number of IFVs. This makes one worry about Ukraine's tactical organization. A "combined arms" team that is missing one of it's arms, isn't. Trying to substitute Bradleys for tanks isn't going to work. They aren't tanks.
What happened to the first Bradley? Is "didn't work out" a mobility kill or something else? It is OK to use Bradleys as "scouts" to locate enemy tanks, but not to fight said tanks. If you for some reason have to fight tanks with a Bradley, you need to use your ATGM and achieve surprise. A meeting engagement with your gun is normally suicidal.
That said, the AP rounds didn't "kill" the tank. No surprise there. Then there was "an issue" with them. Were they just ineffective or were they all expended? The gunner switched to HE in order to "clean off" the tank and blind it. That worked. He was lucky to live long enough to have a chance to do it. At that point, the Bradley fought very well and very courageously.
Some other comments. While the maintenance trooper said Bradleys weren't design for Ukrainian cold, there were a bunch of them trundling right along. Undoubtedly not perfect, but it seems to work pretty well.
Second, notice that the Bradley commanders are riding on the outside of the Bradley on the way to the repair point. Same issue for years. You stay inside the vehicle. You can unbutton and stick your head out, but you NEVER ride on the outside. This is a holdover from Russian practice, where being inside the BMP was more dangerous than being outside :-). I had hoped this would be "trained out" of the Ukrainians.
Lastly, while the US has provided Strykers to Ukraine, we don't seem to see many articles praising how good they are. I think there are reasons for that. It would be nice to know the Ukrainian experience. Doesn't necessarily prove anything, but could be of interest :-).