A Wall of Steel

Mechanize the Ukrainian Military

Looking back at the past two years of the war, the aid delivered to Ukraine has been extremely wide-ranging in scope. Including everything from counter-battery radars to M1A1 Abrams, all of this aid is critical to the function of a modern military force—but much of it has been limited in quantity.

The M1A1 is a great tank, but 31 of them will not meaningfully contribute in comparison to a Russian wartime economy that is currently capable of producing 1,500 tanks in 2024.

Likewise, the provision of 186 M2A2 Bradleys is essentially nothing when the Russian industry is on track to provide 3,000 various armored fighting vehicles in 2024.

The same RUSI report also mentions that the Russian industry is currently planning for the production of over 5 million artillery rounds in 2024—not to mention whatever quantity they will receive from third-party partners like North Korea.

The current Czech plan is to acquire 800,000 rounds, of which only 500,000 are 155mm rounds. While these rounds are critical right given the United States has failed to provide aid for months, Ukraine needs hundreds of thousands of 155mm rounds a month if they want to regain parity in artillery fires with Russia.

As RUSI also notes, broader Western aid to Ukraine throughout much of 2023 was unfocused and pivoted from high profile system to high profile system without providing any one capability in necessary numbers. The Challenger II and the Leopard II are both great main battle tanks, yet only ~150 of them have been provided.

Russia can afford to trade five of its tanks for every tank it destroys, and it won’t just come out ahead in an attritional fight, it will be able to greatly expand its fighting force.

Meanwhile, the current biggest fight as of late in Europe is over the provision of the German Taurus cruise missiles. Having stand-off capabilities is a great capability for any modern force, and is certainly a key enabler in any sort of joint maneuver, but it’s not the most pressing concern.

There are only a few hundred of the Taurus in the German inventory, and they are no longer being produced. France has already floated the prospects of procurement of more SCALP-EGs for the Ukranian war effort anyway.

Not to mention, F-16s will arrive in Ukraine sometime this year, providing Ukraine with more stand-off capabilities. If necessary, the United States can provide more than sufficient numbers of JASSMs to meet any shortage that would have been left by not providing the Taurus.

There is also the U.K.’s recent push to spend resources on drone purchases for Ukraine. While this makes more sense given the extremely poor state of their domestic defense industry—this is something that Ukraine can already produce in mass.

It’s a good effort, and will certainly help on the battlefield, but it’s doubling up on a line of effort that Ukraine has put significant effort into already.

With Kyiv moving towards another round of mobilization amid an ongoing Russian offensive, these new troops will need the basic building blocks of brigade combat teams. Ukranian units shouldn’t have to fight as a light infantry force relying on FPV drones to make up their fire support.

To steal a quote from Bernard Montgomery in the Second World War, let metal do it, not flesh. Western countries should be focused on providing infantry fighting vehicles, main battle tanks, and artillery systems in mass.

The Russian theory of victory is extremely simple. They can produce more equipment and munitions than the West can, and they will grind their way to Kyiv’s eventual capitulation.

If we focused, the West could collectively mechanize the Ukrainian military and build a wall of steel for any future Ukrainian offensives.

• Germany can produce ~100 Leopard II tanks per year, with the ability to stand up more production considering their Cold War production rates.

• Germany can also produce ~100 Lynx IFVs thanks to a new factory in Hungary.

• It’s not exactly clear, but Germany can probably also produce ~50 Puma IFVs annually.

• There are no good numbers, but based on Sweden’s planned replacement of systems sent to Ukraine, Sweden can probably produce 40-70 CV90s annually.

• France still has ~200 AMX-10 RCs that are being divested in favor of the EBRC Jaguar that can be donated.

• France can produce ~100 Caesar artillery pieces per year.

• Poland can make ~40-50 Krab artillery pieces per year.

• The United Kingdom has hundreds of Warrior IFVs that are being divested in favor of Boxer IFVs.

• The United States needless to say has thousands of Abrams tanks and Bradleys sitting in storage that we can provide if we decide to forgo export restrictions, with significant production capacity on both platforms.

• The United States also has hundreds of LAV-25s that will be divested as part of the USMC’s FD2030.

This is far from an exhaustive list, but I think you get the point. There are IFVs and MBTs to be found.

This of course—except France which has transitioned to a “war economy”—despite most production still being at meandering peacetime levels. While it’s notoriously difficult to stand up more defense production capacity on short notice due to the complexity of supply chains, these are numbers that can grow with resources and sustained political will.

France’s firm Nexter for instance has already boosted their production of their Caesar artillery system from 2 to 8 systems per month. I realize that doesn’t sound like much on paper, but that’s a new artillery battalion every other month. Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the Czechs also have defense industries that can be expanded.

While these figures don’t match Russian production, Russia is largely refurbishing older and inferior Tanks and IFVs. Western systems are qualitatively superior. We don’t need to supply thousands of IFVs and MBTs every year, but we do need to supply hundreds.

As for artillery ammunition—assuming the United States resumes providing aid to Ukraine—I’m less concerned. The United States is now producing around ~80,000 155mm rounds per month, and when combined with expanded European capacity, we can now probably keep Ukraine from experiencing any future munitions shortages.

This of course all needs to be paired with an expanded train and assist effort on the part of Western nations to ensure newly mobilized Ukranian forces can effectively use these platforms.

One of the largest lessons learned from the failed 2023 Ukrainian counter-offensive was the need to improve command and control in the Ukrainian military to ensure mechanized brigades are effectively communicating across the battlespace.

But they also needed more equipment so that inevitable battlefield losses could be quickly reconstituted, and Ukrainians would not have to attempt to take ground with light infantry.

There is a pathway to building a Ukrainian military that can win this war, we just need to provide the matériel to make sure that happens.