The American-made M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle is not a tank. It’s an armed vehicle for infantry.
But with a little luck and a lot of crew prowess, the 30-ton, 11-person M-2—with its 25-millimetre auto-cannon, turret-mounted TOW anti-tank missiles and side-mounted reactive armour—is more than a match for even the best Russian-made tank.
This isn’t hype. In a recent skirmish on the outskirts of Avdiivka in northeastern Ukraine, a pair of M-2s belonging to the Ukrainian army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade—the sole user of the roughly 200 M-2s the United States donated to Ukraine—tag-teamed a Russian army T-90 tank. And wrecked it.
“This tank got fucking ganked,” open-source analyst Andrew Perpetua mused.
Ukrainian IFV M2A2 “Bradley” fires from a 25 mm gun at a Russian MT-LB near the village of Solovyove, Donetsk region.
The brief, brutal fight—one of hundreds that have raged in the three months since two Russian field armies with 40,000 troops first attempted to surround the 10,000-strong Ukrainian garrison in Avdiivka—was observed by a Ukrainian drone.
In the drone’s video, which circulated online on Friday, a pair of M-2s engages a single T-90.
On paper, an M-2—even two M-2s—is no match for a 51-ton, three-person T-90 with its 125-millimeter smoothbore gun and hundreds of millimeters of composite armor.
But after seven months of non-stop fighting, during which the 47th Brigade has lost at least 31 M-2s, the brigade’s Bradley crews might be the best in the world. Better, even, than U.S. Army crews are.
The T-90 gets the first shot—and misses. After that, the M-2s out-maneuver and out-shoot the T-90. One M-2 peppers the tank with 25-millimeter rounds as it speeds past. A second M-2, rolling the opposite direction, takes over where the first leaves off—and pours auto-cannon rounds into the tank at close range.
An M-2’s auto-cannon fires one-pound shells at a rate of 200 per minute and a velocity of 3,600 feet per second. Paired with high-fidelity optics and accurate fire-controls, the 25-millimeter gun is brutally effective.
In one clash outside Avdiivka, a single M-2 struck and likely destroyed three Russian MT-LB armored tractors in the span of just 30 seconds.
A T-90 is much better-protected than an MT-LB is, but it doesn’t matter. The Bradley’s unrelenting fire apparently kills the T-90’s driver and commander and leaves the tank badly-damaged and uncontrollable.
Turret spinning, the T-90 rolls into a tree. “Russian tech and training such a shit-show,” Perpetua laughed.
If and when pro-Russia Republicans ever relent and finally approve $61 billion U.S. president Joe Biden wants to spend on military aid to Ukraine this year, that aid should pay for additional M-2s.
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