A video shared on social media by the open-source military intelligence group OSINT Technical (@Osinttechnical) earlier last week served as a reminder that the “rasputitsa” doesn’t pick sides.
The time of the mud, when travel on unpaved roads or across the country can become difficult, was on full display.
A Ukrainian T-72 main battle tank was forced to pull a French-supplied VAB armored personnel carrier (APC) that became bogged down in a mud-soaked road. With a mass of 13.8 tonnes, the VAB is less than a third of the weight of the T-72.
However, commentators noted that certain types of heavy clays can stick to tire rubber and when those tires are coated, there is zero effective traction. That certainly seemed to be the case with the VAB seen in the video, but the T-72 was able to pull it to more solid ground.
The Vanguard
Véhicule de l’Avant Blindé or VAB (literally meaning “Armored Forward Vehicle” – but more appropriately translated as “Armored Vanguard Vehicle) was developed during the Cold War for use in Western Europe. It entered service in 1976 and approximately 5,000 were produced.
The base model is a 4×4 APC, which is able to carry an infantry squad of eight to ten fully-equipped troops. The vehicle’s armor is able to protect the crew and passengers from 7.62mm small arms rounds, as well as artillery shell splinters, and even anti-personnel mines. The vehicle can carry up to 2,000 kg (4,400 pounds) of payload in place of the troops. It offers full NBC (nuclear, biological, and chemical) protection.
The fully amphibious VAB can also serve as a scout car. It can mount a variable array of weapons including machine guns, and missile systems to counter light-to-medium battlefield threats.
An air defense variant can be equipped with 4 x Mistral air-to-air missiles (AAMs), while another model can be armed with twin 20mm automatic cannons to counter low-flying aircraft as well as ground-based light-armored vehicles.
The French VAB APC has been deployed extensively around the world with the French military, seeing service in Kuwait, the Ivory Coast, Chad, and Yugoslavia.
In Ukrainian Service
It was last June that the French Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu said that Paris would send “significant quantities” of armored personnel carriers, including the VAB, to Ukraine.
“To move quickly in areas under enemy fire, armies need armored vehicles,” Lecornu said in an interview with the Parisian-Today news program.
It is unclear how many have been provided to Kyiv to date, but it is just one of several French-made systems now employed by the Ukrainian military.
In January of this year, the French government pledged to send a number of AMX-10RC wheeled tank destroyers to Ukraine. The first batch of those vehicles began to arrive in late March.
In the east, a Ukrainian T-72 recovers a French-supplied VAB APC from the spring mud. pic.twitter.com/KUz0pGInks
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) May 3, 2023
Author Experience and Expertise:
A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
