Ukraine’s tanks will achieve little without modern fighter jets
This week I was on Salisbury Plain listening to the satisfying sound of Challenger 2 tanks manoeuvring behind me. The knowledge that Ukrainian tank crews are learning how to use them gives me hope that this is the beginning of the end for Putin’s illegal invasion.
Yet ever since the first great tank battle at Cambrai on November 20, 1917 during the First World War, we have known that tanks on their own are not decisive – only combined with infantry, artillery and air power can they be truly devastating. So the news that President Biden will not currently permit F-16 fighter jets to be sent to Ukraine will have come as a major disappointment to Ukrainian high command.
Although it would take months for Ukrainian pilots to be trained to fly these advanced jets, we saw in the opening months of the war how devastating it can be for tanks not to be used as part of a combined arms strategy: Russian tanks were easily picked off when they should have charged into Kyiv with ease. In the long term, Ukraine will need more weaponry than we are offering.
About 130 Western tanks have so far been promised to Ukraine: the equivalent of a tank brigade, which will have to be supported by 500 or so armoured fighting vehicles to deliver infantry for holding ground. This did not happen at Cambrai, where our army’s large gains were followed by the loss of territory as the Germans counterattacked our unsupported tanks.
Without fighter jets, this tank brigade – with local and wide area air defence systems – will likely be sufficient to hold back the Russian counteroffensive expected in March. The UK has already gifted the very capable Stormer air defence system which protects tanks from Russian attack aircraft and helicopters. Even without air superiority, the Arras counterattack in May 1940 saw a tank brigade strike into the flank of Rommel’s Panzer divisions. The action stalled the German advance for 48 hours, allowing the British Expeditionary Force to escape at Dunkirk – a strategically decisive action.
Yet in order to conduct offensive operations on a scale that will ultimately push the Russians out of Ukraine, a combined arms force of a whole armoured division – including fighter jets – will be essential. We are still some way off that. It would require around 300 Western tanks supported by hundreds of Ukrainian T72s and advanced fighter jets.
Air superiority really matters for forces of that magnitude. Although the Russian air force has been absent for most of this war, one must assume they would try to stave off defeat from such an advance. In the Six-day War in 1967, Soviet-made tanks were decimated by their Western equivalents, which were better protected and had better fire power.
My own experience in the First Gulf War saw British and American tanks destroy hundreds of Iraqi T72s and T55s and overwhelm a huge dug-in force thanks to amply supported infantry and ground attack aircraft, plus no small amount of artillery. This combined arms tank force kicked the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait as the Ukrainians seek to do to the Russians in their own land.
Tanks have proved decisive on the battlefield for more than 100 years, but only when supported by infantry, artillery and air power. In the short term, a tank brigade will not need fighter jets to be effective in defence. But in attack, jets will be vital to produce the unrelenting momentum that will kick Russian forces out of Ukraine.