The US is going to send Ukraine Bradley Fighting Vehicles for the first time in a new weapons package worth nearly $3 billion, US officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The officials said the $2.85 billion aid package will be formally announced on Friday, and it will mark the single largest arms package for Ukraine the US has pledged at one time. The package will include 50 Bradleys, which are designed to transport infantry troops with armored protection that are equipped with a 25 mm gun.
The White House confirmed the US will be providing Ukraine with Bradleys in a statement on a phone call between President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The statement said that Berlin will be supplying Kyiv with a similar piece of equipment, the German-made Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicles.
The announcement came the day after France said it would be giving Ukraine AMX-10 RC armored combat vehicles, which are similar to the Bradleys but have a bigger gun and are considered “light tanks.” A French official said it was the “first time that Western-made armored vehicles are being delivered in support of the Ukrainian army.”
While providing Ukraine with Western-made armored vehicles is a significant escalation in aid, it falls short of the heavier tanks Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been seeking, such as US-made Abrams and German-made Leopards. Zelensky was denied Abrams when he visited Washington DC, and a US official told The Washington Post the Biden administration is still ruling it out.
The US officials speaking to AP said the $2.85 billion weapons package that will be announced on Friday will also include HUMVEES, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, and a large number of missiles and other ammunition. The weapons will be paid for by funds already authorized by Congress to spend on the war, which at this point totals about $112 billion.
This is consistent with Biden’s response to Putin’s call for a 36 hour ceasefire.
If anything, 40 transport vehicles seems like not very much equipment. Helpful yeah, but kind of underwhelming. I guess we feel the need to pretend that this is only a temporary and gradual escalation.
Forty Bradleys is enough for ten infantry platoons. So along with some other vehicle types for headquarters company, etc. about one infantry battalion. Not an especially large force.
It might be used as the main maneuver element for an otherwise non-mechanized (or just truck-mounted) regiment. It would give the troops some protection and some extra armament (25mm chain gun, 7.62 machine gun, and TOW anti-tank missile — I wonder if that last has been modernized to something better?), but it doesn’t seem like any kind of large-scale game-changer.
Of course, the Ukrainians also have other APCs, including BMPs, BRDMs, and BTR-80s. These may mostly be replacement vehicles for combat losses.
Thank you for the detailed clarification. My guess is that your last sentence is correct.
Lots of acronyms. But they’re all just shorthand for methods to mutilate and kill people.
I’ve been noticing in some discussion fora that they are latched onto with an obscenely adolescent glee by a lot of progressive democrats. Does make me wonder…
A Bradley platoon has six vehicles. They each carry fewer infantry than the older vehicles did. A company is twenty, with three platoons of six and two command. Forty would then be two companies, or the infantry component of one combined arms battalion.
$112 Bbbbilion Bbbbbucks! We’re not talking chump change here.
You type that number on a PC in a bank, and presto, you have the money!
Magic!
It’s funny how much money we spend on WAR… It makes me wonder if there is a tally on how much we spend on peace?………………………………
It’s the Null Set.
It shows you clearly that the whole financial system is a giant SCAM!
“US to Send Ukraine Bradley Fighting Vehicles in Nearly $3 Billion Arms Package The vehicles represent another escalation of US military aid”
In third world countries fighting tribal people the US used these vehicles as the US military played wack-a-mole with tribes using primarily small arms and a few IEDs.
In Ukraine the Bradleys will be death traps against Russian heavy weapons.
They are quite mobile and can put Russian tanks at risk from the backs and sides. Better than being in a truck. War is dangerous.
In Ukraine you will not be fighting aboriginal tribal people with small arms, IEDs and RPGs. Ukraine is a major European land war between the cannon fodder Ukrainians plus industrial America and Russia.
In this battlefield Bradleys are worthless.
Compared to what? A truck, better than a truck, a BMP, better than a BMP.
With armed Drone use and heavy artillery there is no good armored vehicle in Ukraine.
Both the BMP and Bradley are magnets for destructive weapons in use in Ukraine.
OK, but the Ukrainians asked for them and we have tons of these in storage. War is dangerous
“OK, but the Ukrainians asked for them and we have tons of these in storage.”
Best rationale for a proxy war I’ve seen to this point.
Congratulations.
“In Ukraine you will not be fighting aboriginal tribal people with small arms, IEDs and RPGs … In this battlefield Bradleys are worthless.
APCs seem to have been worthless in fights with aboriginal tribal people with small arms, IEDs and RPGs. I used to have a little Afghan-woven rug (bought from a shop in Saudi Arabia whose proceeds allegedly supported the Afghan muj) featuring images of burning BMPs.
On the Ukrainian battlefield, they’re reasonably fast transportation for infantry and provide some protection from e.g. overhead artillery.
If they wanted to send Kiev all this equipment to occupy Donbass, they should have done it before the war, not piecemeal. Now all it does is add an extra day of Russia bombing new equipment. An extra day of forced Ukrainian conscripts dying for Zelensky.
“Give”- Maxwell Blummenthal has called 3 billions, welfare queens.Pretty easy when Twitter files show how Twitter Interfered in the Pres election helping install Chairman Biden.
“Chairman Biden”… I hope that one sticks. lol
We should also take a page from the media and call the government in Washington the U.S. “regime”.
And personally I never write “the U.S.” does something, just like I don’t write that “Ukraine” is attacking Donbass. It’s Washington and Kiev, to show that it’s certain individuals in government.
I kinda like “Cadaver in Chief”, Donna 😉
That is SENILE Biden, not chairman. He doesn’t look like a chair, just a stupid warlord.
These are still mostly useful for holding territory, not offense to gain ground. It’s the US govt that’s totally cynical, bleeding Russia and Ukraine for as long as they can be coaxed into dying indefinitely for nothing.
How many people who “support” the Ukraine regardless of the truth and facts would like to be victims of a government just because of their nationality/ethnicity? The Ukraine has been attacking Russian people within its borders for a long time and it finally precipitated in Putin’s “surgical operation to de-Nazify” the Ukraine. Those who condemn Russia blindly and with a closed mind would certainly not want to fill the shoes of those people molested by the Ukranian government, their “OWN” government!
Don’t worry Americans!
Senile Joe is NOT sending HIS money to spend on HIS war…. He is sending YOUR, and YOUR grandchildren’s’ and their grandchildren’s’ money to send on HIS stupid war.
So, cheer up!! all is good with our senile warlord.
The US will send old, used, broken down vehicles that were put into storage because their units could no longer repair them with reasonable cost and effort.
That money won’t go to Ukraine. It goes to the US Army, to buy new vehicles for the US Army to use.
This is a smokescreen. Propaganda. Lies.
Anyone seen Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” cover? I don’t have to tell you who it is.
I noticed it standing in the checkout line at Meijers. Good thing my stomach was empty, or I might have expelled its contents. 😝
They make excellent target practice for Russians to expose their weakness and at the same time help US improve on these outdated armor system. Only losers are the Ukrainians who will cook inside those Bradleys upon impact.
Go ahead- Bradleys are big targets and loud AF. I hope the Ukro soldiers who use them have their SGLI papers up to date. Same for the poor bastards who were issued the Aussie M113 shoeboxes. (Oh, and good luck with maintenance.)
Next stop tanks … after that – nukes?
The whole thing is very disconcerting… It has been weighing heavily on my mind….
It makes me wonder who is behind all this terminal insanity, human or non-human entities …
What if arms manufacturers instigated wars so they could test their new toys?
I am still very concerned about this money and this war… There are so many ways that this situation can escalate…
I have no desire to get my a– nuked…
I’ve been trying to get it started that we call these kinds of vehicles EBOs, for Easy Bake Ovens. Maybe issue the soldiers packets of dough. Using them without air superiority is basically scrapping them with people inside.
Imagine a few Russia soldiers in a bar joking about how they finally have a use for those captured Javelins….
Imagine a few Russia soldiers in a bar joking about how they finally have a use for those captured Javelins….
Maybe for all that money we should have bought all those soldiers Lexus sports cars and let them drive home.