The United States quietly donated to Ukraine at least one—and probably several—of its most powerful armored breaching vehicles.
Nov. 3 is Missile Forces and Artillery and Engineering Troops Day in Ukraine. Official photos from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s commemoration of the day feature an impressive array of combat-engineering equipment.
The equipment includes an American-made Assault Breacher: a 55-ton mine- and obstacle-clearing vehicle with the armored hull of an M-1 tank, an attachment for a British-made mine-plow or dozer blade and launchers for mine-clearing explosive line-charges.
The two-person crew of a $4-million Assault Breacher can dig up and safely detonate buried mines, fill in trenches and excavate anti-tank berms—and then mark, with tiny flags, a safe lane for tanks and fighting vehicles to speed through the breach. And the crew can do all of this without leaving the protection of its thickly armored vehicle.
There are many types of engineering vehicles that can conduct a breach. As Russia widened its war on Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian engineers already had Soviet-built vehicles with breaching capabilities.
And as the war ground into its second year and Ukrainian forces prepared to go on the offensive across southern Ukraine, Kyiv’s allies donated scores more breaching vehicles, including the best Finnish, Norwegian and South Korean models.
The American Assault Breacher weirdly was missing from official lists of pledged equipment, however. While the Americans donated to Ukraine large consignments of engineering and support vehicles, they seemingly left out the Assault Breacher. This despite the U.S. Army recently inheriting scores of ex-U.S. Marine Corps Assault Breachers, all of which should be surplus to Army requirements.
The Assault Breacher, or ABV, is one of the best-protected and most versatile breaching vehicles. A pair of the vehicles can do the same work that might require four, five or six less-versatile vehicles such as mine-clearers, bulldozers and excavators.
“Commanders on the ground say that [the Assault Breacher] provides better protection than the equipment they are currently using or have been using—and that it reduces the number of vehicles at the point of breach,” said Randall Flack, a director with Pearson, the British firm that manufactures the Assault Breacher’s plows.
Lance corporal Jonathan Murray, a Marine Assault Breacher mechanic, said the vehicle can clear a minefield 10 times faster than dismounted engineers can do by hand.
Without specifically announcing it, the Americans shipped at least one, and probably at least six—a company’s worth—Assault Breachers to Ukraine. It’s likely the White House lumped the breaching vehicles into the vague category of “mine-clearing equipment” in its periodic announcements regarding military aid to Ukraine.
The need is clear. While Ukrainian forces back in September breached the outermost line of Russian fortifications in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, there are secondary and tertiary defensive lines deeper inside Russian-occupied Ukraine. And in other sectors of the 600-mile front, Ukrainian forces still must breach the first line of mines, trenches and anti-tank obstacles.
It’s not clear which Ukrainian brigade has taken ownership of the Assault Breachers, but it’s apparent which brigade needs them.
The Ukrainian army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade, which operates many of Ukraine’s best Western-made heavy vehicles, began the southern counteroffensive in early June with all six Leopard 2R breaching vehicles that Finland donated to Ukraine.
But the 47th Brigade abandoned three of the Leopard 2Rs during a failed attempt to breach a dense minefield south of Mala Tokmachka in Zaporizhzhia on June 9. While there have been sporadic sightings of the surviving Leopard 2Rs, it’s possible the ex-Finnish vehicles are becoming unsupportable as their numbers dwindle toward zero.
An Assault Breacher has all the qualities of a Leopard 2R—plows and thick armor—but also adds built-in launchers for line-charges that can detonate minefields from hundreds of yards away.
If the 47th Brigade swaps its last few Leopard 2Rs for Assault Breachers, it will restore—and add to—the under-armor breaching capability it expended back in June.
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