Forbes: Ukrainian Military Install Own Armor On American Abrams Tanks

The warriors have found a way to solve the problem with Russian drones.

The United States gave Ukraine 31 M-1A1 Abrams tanks. They equip a single battalion in the Ukrainian army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade, which has been fighting a defensive campaign west of the ruins of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine.

In several months of hard fighting, the 47th Mechanized Brigade has lost as many as eight of the 69-ton, four-person M-1s — to Russian drones, mostly. The brigade is finally doing something about its drone problem: adding cage armor that can help detonate incoming explosive drones at a safe distance, according to Forbes.

The losses around Avdiivka compelled the brigade to withdraw its surviving tanks in late April, the Associated Press claimed in late April, quoting—among others—U.S. Navy admiral Christopher Grady, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. One Ukrainian tank crew member admitted two weeks later that the crew might have used the M-1 differently if they had been better protected from explosive Russian drones.

The U.S. Army remedied this problem with their latest M-1A2s by adding extra “passive” — that is, non-reactive — armor to their turret faces. But this armor likely includes depleted uranium, which the United States doesn’t export, as a matter of policy.

Before shipping M-1A1s to Ukraine, the Pentagon paid contractors to open up the tanks’ turrets, remove the uranium and replace it with tungsten.