Avdiivka Proves Hiding In Basements Wont Save Russians From Ukraine's M2 IFVs

Ukraine's M2s are slaughtering Russian troops and have even taken out Russian tanks - in one battle, three at one time. And they are making mincemeat of unsupported Russian infantry. 

If the Ukrainians can get all of the unused and unwanted M2s in US inventory, Ukraine might well be unstoppable. JL 

David Axe reports in Forbes:

The 47th Brigade’s American-made M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles are killing Russians by the dozen. Blasting the Russians with their fast-firing 25 millimeter autocannons—and even squashing panicked Russian troops in their basement hideouts. An M-2’s 25-millimeter autocannon fires one-pound shells at a rate of 200 per minute and a velocity of 3,600 feet per second. Paired with high-fidelity day-night optics and accurate fire-controls, the Ukrainians’ M-2s “have proved effective in providing their infantry with fire-support." That’s a sterile way of saying they’re killing a lot of Russian attackers.

To overstress the Kremlin’s training establishment and trigger a downward spiral in Russian military readiness, Ukrainian forces need to kill or main 100,000 Russian troops in 2024, according to a recent assessment by the Estonian defense ministry.

The Ukrainian army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade is getting an early start on that bloody work north of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.

The 47th Brigade’s American-made M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles are killing Russians by the dozen. Blasting the Russians with their fast-firing 25 millimeter autocannons—and even squashing panicked Russian troops in their basement hideouts.

A Ukrainian drone video that circulated online this week depicts one 47th Brigade Bradley crew meeting a Russian infantry assault in Stepove, a settlement just north of Avdiivka and the locus of the fighting on the city’s northern flank.

The drone spots a team of Russian infantry scurrying through the basement door of a ruined house in the no-man’s land in Stepove. The drone-operator directs an M-2 toward the distinctive green door. The three-person Bradley rolls right up to the basement—and flattens the entrance with its 28-ton bulk.

The M-2 reverses away, firing as it goes, then pops smoke, spins around and speeds back toward the Ukrainian line.

It’s a new way of fighting the Russians around Avdiivka—but no less effective for its novelty. The tactic underscores the sheer brutality, and present lopsidedness, of the battle for the ruined city as the Russian campaign grinds into its third month.

Russian forces first attacked Avdiivka on Oct. 10, aiming to surround the Ukrainian garrison—including the war-weary 110th Mechanized Brigade—and cut it off from resupply in order to starve it.

The first month of attacks by a combined force of around a dozen Russian regiments and brigades were the most powerful. Assault columns with dozens of tanks and fighting vehicles struck north and south of Avdiivka.

But the Russians quickly learned what the Ukrainians learned during their own armored assaults in southern Ukraine this summer: tank attacks across prepared defenses—minefields and drone and artillery kill-zones—are extremely dangerous for the attackers.

In a heady few weeks, the Ukrainians knocked out no fewer than 211 Russian vehicles: an entire brigade’s worth of heavy equipment. Even the Russian army with its around-the-clock tank-production and vast stocks of old Cold War vehicles can’t sustain a loss rate that steep.

So after a month, Russian commanders switched up their methods. Instead of attacking with vehicles, they attacked with infantry.

It wasn’t a bad idea, in principle. During their summer counteroffensive, the Ukrainians discovered that small teams of infantry can flank and get behind Russian positions—achieving what armored vehicles can’t achieve, albeit slowly.

But the Ukrainians were ready for the Russians’ foot assaults. The Ukrainian southern command chopped to the Ukrainian eastern command some of its best-equipped brigades—including the 1st Tank and the 47th Mechanized—and these units met the Russian infantry with M-2 fighting vehicles and Leopard 2 and T-64 tanks.

Lightly-supported infantry, to say nothing of unsupported infantry, are easy picking for armored vehicles. North of Avdiivka in November, the battle-hardened 47th Brigade’s M-2 crews really came into their own. The brigade is the sole user of the nearly 200 Bradleys the United States pledged to the Ukrainian war effort early this year.

An M-2’s 25-millimeter autocannon fires one-pound shells at a rate of 200 per minute and a velocity of 3,600 feet per second. Paired with high-fidelity day-night 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.

The Ukrainians’ M-2s “have proved effective in providing their infantry with fire-support,” analyst Tom Cooper noted. That’s a sterile way of saying they’re killing a lot of Russian attackers.

Even going underground might not save the Russians from the Bradley crews’ wrath. When those Russians dove into that basement in Stepove, they probably were thinking about escaping the murderous effects of 25-millimeter high-explosive rounds. They probably weren’t thinking an M-2 might just squash them in their cellar redoubt.

Russian infantry assaults on Avdiivka have been no more successful than the Russian armored assaults were back in October. The Russians have advanced a mile or so north and south of Avdiivka, but so far have failed to surround and cut off the city. And at least 13,000 of them have been killed or wounded while trying.

If the Kremlin has any reason to hope for victory in Avdiivka, it’s that the Russian army now enjoys a significant advantage in drones and artillery—and that advantage could grow as pro-Russia Republicans in the U.S. Congress continue to delay $61 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine.

Only making matters worse, Polish truckers and farmers have been blockading several important border crossings into Ukraine in protest of Ukrainian truckers and farmers taking some of their business.

The blockade, which new Polish prime minister Donald Tusk has struggled to break, has delayed by weeks some shipments of drones to Ukrainian forces. Every additional day of delay in funding and shipping weakens Avdiivka’s defenders, and empowers its attackers.