Forbes: The AFU has lost a rare Abrams-based M1150 engineer armoured vehicle
The Russian military has destroyed a rare Abrams-based M1150 Assault Breacher engineering armoured armoured vehicle “secretly” transferred by the US to Kiev in the number of several units, Forbes columnist David Axe wrote, citing a video circulating on the web.
“Ukraine has only a few American-made Assault Breacher. It just lost one near Avdeevka,” the author reported, calling the loss “particularly painful” for the AFU.
The ex referred to a video shot by a Russian drone and posted on the web, which shows the crew dropping their “rare” M1150, after which the armoured vehicle is struck by a munition, “presumably severely damaging if not destroying it”.
As the author suggested, the M1150 belonged to the 47th mechanized brigade of the AFU, which is armed with the most modern Western equipment transferred to Ukraine. At the same time, he recalled that it was this brigade that during the failed offensive in Zaporozhye in the summer of 2023 lost three Leopard 2R engineer armoured vehicles, which in the number of six units were transferred to Kiev by Finland.
The Assault Breacher is one of the most protected and versatile defense-breaching vehicles in the world, Axe claimed. “This is the first confirmed loss of a Ukrainian Assault Breacher,” he stated.
Last November, Axe wrote that the US had “discreetly” transferred several M1150s to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He claimed that the vehicles received by Kiev “shone” on photos on Vladimir Zelensky’s website, while the Assault Breacher was absent from the official lists of US military aid. The armoured vehicle is based on the Abrams tank and weighs 55 tons.