The British Challenger 2 Is The Wrong Tank For Ukraine

With reporting by Gabriel Silveira.

The United Kingdom donated to Ukraine 14 71-ton Challenger 2 tanks. The Ukrainian air assault forces’ 82nd Brigade is the sole user of the 13 surviving tanks after one was destroyed during fighting around Robotyne, in southern Ukraine, late last summer.

The Challenger 2 is the British Army’s only tank. And the Brits successfully deployed it during the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The four-person Challenger 2 isn’t good for Ukraine, however. There are reasons to believe London offered up those 14 Challenger 2s merely to encourage other NATO countries to donate their own, better tanks: Leopard 2s, Strv 122s and M-1s.

The Challenger 2 lacks mobility

One Ukrainian Challenger 2 crew member told The Sun the tank’s 1,200-horsepower engine is under-powered for a 71-ton vehicle. Challenger 2s often get bogged down in Ukraine’s soft soil and need towing by other Challengers or engineering vehicles.

In the heat of combat, when towing isn’t always possible, a stuck Challenger 2 is a vulnerable Challenger 2.

Its protection is lacking

Since its first combat campaign, in Bosnia in the 1990s, the Challenger 2 in British service always has deployed with add-on armor on the sides of the hull and the lower frontal plate. And for good reason: these spots are where the baseline Challenger 2—which was designed to fight straight ahead while dug in—is most vulnerable.

Ukraine never got these add-on armor kits, probably because the extra three tons of weight would make Ukrainian Challenger 2s even less mobile on soft ground. The Ukrainians instead have added lightweight slat armor to their Challenger 2s’ most vulnerable aspects.

The slats might help mitigate strikes by drones and handheld anti-tank weapons, but heavier munitions should blast right through.

The Challenger 2 has a unique main gun

The Challenger 2’s L30 120-millimeter cannon is a problem. In contrast to the smoothbore cannons on contemporary Western tanks, the L30 is rifled. Its ammunition isn’t compatible with other tank guns, so the Ukrainians must maintain a separate logistical system just to keep 13 Challenger 2s shooting.

While a smoothbore L44 tank cannon has a useful life of up to 1,500 rounds, a rifled L30A1 wears out after 500 rounds. This is especially problematic because the 82nd Brigade—apparently worried about its tanks getting mired—has been keeping them miles behind the front line and using them like mobile howitzers.

A howitzer wants to shoot a lot. But that’s something the Challenger 2 can’t do without wearing out its main gun.

There aren’t enough of them

Ukraine so far has received 71 Leopard 2s and similar Strv 122s from European countries plus 31 M-1s from the United States—and is set to get 34 more Leopard 2s and nearly 200 Leopard 1s in the coming year or so. But even these tanks are outnumbered by the many hundreds of Soviet-style T-64s and T-72s that comprise the bulk of the Ukrainian armor corps.

All that is to say, 14—now 13—Challenger 2s amount to a rounding error in Ukraine’s order of battle. They barely are worth the effort to maintain and arm them. Oh, and to tow them when they get stuck.