Should Leclerc tanks be sent to the kyiv forces, when German Leopards and American Abrams will be delivered soon, as the two countries announced on January 25? If the French government promised, on January 4, to provide “light tanks” AMX-10 RC, the decision concerning its 56-ton tanks, equipped with a gun with a range of 4000 meters and able to fire up to six shells per minute, has not yet been taken. Time is running out, however: Ukraine says it needs at least 250 modern tanks and other armaments for a new offensive against its Russian enemy.
It must be said that the French steel monsters require very significant logistical support, both for supplies and for maintenance. In general, when a tank rolls, two others are immobilized to change or maintain the parts – engine, tracks, gun -, estimate the specialists of the mechanized cavalry. And before using them, Ukrainian crews and mechanics will have to be trained there, constraints which partly explain the insistence of the Ukrainians on receiving German Leopards, which are easier to repair and available in greater numbers in Europe. Currently, 13 armies of the continent have, together, 2,000 copies of this “panzer” of about sixty tons.
© / The Express
A limited fleet of tanks
France, on the other hand, is the only one to use Leclercs – it has only sold them in the United Arab Emirates. Another problem: its fleet remains limited, with around 200 units, to which the tanks immobilized for renovation or deployed in certain countries, such as Romania as part of the Aigle mission, are exempt. “The Leclerc fleet is therefore made up of 136 machines that are actually available, among which it would be possible to take the 14 tanks mentioned [par le gouvernement]. Taking into account these different elements, the percentage that these 14 machines would represent would then amount to 10.29% of the Leclerc tanks available, leaving 122 tanks to the Army. analysis in a note Yann Boivina former lieutenant-colonel in the French army.
For this specialist, “the transfer of Leclerc to Ukraine could therefore weaken our defense system, and more particularly its armored component”. However, President Emmanuel Macron, Chief of the Armed Forces, declared on January 22 that the possible delivery will only be made on the condition of “not weakening our own defense capabilities”.
But the French army will not be able to count on the manufacture of new Leclercs. The Nexter company dismantled its last production line in 2008. It must also modernize a large part of the current fleet to extend its life, pending the arrival, by 2040, of its replacement, the MGCS – project Franco-German “tank of the future”. “It is therefore better that French support is expressed differently: giving the twenty AuF1 self-propelled howitzers that it still has would be a useful complement for the Ukrainian artillery, had explained to The Express Léo Péria-Peigné, weapons and forecasting researcher at the French Institute of International Relations. Intended to be withdrawn from service by 2025, these systems would not represent an insurmountable loss for the Army.”
French tanks are not what kyiv demands in priority in Paris. “There is a discussion on the Leclercs but there are more expectations from our Ukrainian friends on the ground-to-air defense or on the artillery than on these tanks”, explained the Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu. kyiv will also have to set up separate logistics chains for its British Challenger 2s, its Abrams and its Leopards. The arrival of Leclerc would mean a fourth chain, for a lower number of machines, a priori, than the American and German models. But the suspense should not last long: Sébastien Lecornu has warned that the decision will be made in the coming days.