It is an announcement that gives Emmanuel Macron the opportunity to “reaffirm France’s unwavering support for Ukraine”. Paris on Wednesday (January 4th) promised Ukraine to deliver French-made AMX-10 RC light combat tanks to it, in response to kyiv’s pressing needs to confront the Russian army, as announced by the French president at his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.
“The president wished to amplify the” military aid provided to kyiv “by agreeing to deliver light combat tanks”, explained the French presidency after a call between the two leaders. The Elysee said that “this is the first time that tanks of Western design have been supplied to the Ukrainian armed forces”. Ukraine’s European allies have delivered Soviet-designed tanks before, but never yet Western-built tanks, despite repeated requests from kyiv.
The AMX-10 RC, light tanks of about fifteen tonnes, whose design dates from the 1970s and production from the 1980s, served in several external theaters, notably during the Gulf War and in Afghanistan. These armored reconnaissance and combat vehicles, equipped with 105 mm guns, are mounted on wheels and not on tracks. They are therefore “very mobile”, “admittedly old but efficient”, assures an adviser to the French presidency to AFP. They camouflage themselves easily to avoid return fire.
The French army still has 248 of them. It is gradually replacing them with the new generation Jaguar reconnaissance and combat armored vehicle, an ultra-connected 25-ton vehicle.
Two missions: reconnaissance and combat
“The AMX-10 RC tanks have two missions: reconnaissance, i.e. getting as close as possible to enemy lines, testing the ground, seeing where the opponent’s points of resistance may be, and combat, in other words the ability, thanks to the cannon, to engage in combat against much heavier armored vehicles in front of it”, explains to L’Express Pierre Servent, journalist and specialist in defense and strategy issues.
The author of The world of tomorrow (Robert Laffont), recalls that the AMX-10, as well as another vehicle delivered to Ukraine, the VAB (armoured forward vehicle), were “designed at the end of the last century against the pact of Warsaw” while never having fought against the Warsaw Pact (Editor’s note: the former military alliance bringing together the countries of Eastern Europe with the USSR). “Ironically, these two materials at the end of their life will therefore find their original enemy, the Russians.”
The AMX-10 RCs have undergone many improvements over the years. As LCI recalls, it is now equipped with a 280 horsepower Baudoin engine and six-wheel drive, which gives it mobility and autonomy. A 7.62 mm machine gun overlooks the cockpit which can carry a maximum of 38 shells, precise Europe 1. This machine, 9 meters long, counting the barrel, for a little more than 3 meters wide, can reach 80 km/h. It is also capable of traveling 800 kilometers on roads, without the need for refueling.
“A useful element in a whole panoply”
“The AMX-10 RC tank and other equipment in this range provided by the Americans reinforce the offensive reconnaissance capacity”, observes Pierre Servent. “It can undermine armored vehicles and enemy bunkers, machine guns or even mortars, so its firepower is not negligible”, explains Pierre Servent. If the contribution of this armored reconnaissance and combat vehicle is “quite significant”, underlines this expert, it is also because it “comes to fill a box which for the moment was not yet filled in the Ukrainian military panoply”, composed in particular of rocket launchers, anti-tank missile launchers, air defense systems or armored infantry fighting vehicles. In other words, “it is a useful element in a whole panoply” of military equipment.
Léo Péria-Peigné, armament and prospective researcher at the French Institute of International Relations, however, qualifies with L’Express the capabilities of the AMX-10 RC, which he does not classify as “a tank”. “While its firepower allows it to deal with well-protected targets, its protection is insufficient and limits its use to armed reconnaissance and flank protection,” he said.
Thus, it is not a “heavy tank” like the Leclerc, equipped with a gun with a range of 4000 meters and weighing 55 tons, which is tracked and fires 120 mm shells. The AMX-10 RC “will only have a limited use, too fragile to be on the front line”, says the researcher. “They will probably be used as high mobility indirect artillery, like the CAESAR gun but closer to the front.”