Ukraine is getting AMX-10RC armored vehicles from French stocks, reports Forbes.
The six-wheel AMX-10RC with its 105-millimeter gun looks like a tank, but without the tracks.
It’s not a tank. It’s a lightly-armored reconnaissance vehicle with a lot of firepower. And if the Ukrainian army uses its new-old AMX-10RCs the way the French army uses the same vehicles, they could help Ukrainian brigades and battalions move faster, fight smarter and exploit gaps in Russian lines.
They could, in other words, help Ukrainian forces fight less like Russian forces—and more like NATO ones.
The subject of the AMX-10RC came up in a conversation between French president Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday.
“Had a long and detailed conversation with President of France Emmanuel Macron on the current situation,” Zelensky tweeted. “Thanked for the decision to transfer light tanks and Bastion APCs to Ukraine.”
The Bastion armored personnel carriers don’t represent a new capability for the Ukrainian army. The “light tanks”—that is, the AMX-10RCs—do represent a new capability.