Ukraine Is Transforming M-1 Abrams Tanks Into Drone-Proof Hedgehogs
One hedgehog Abrams got knocked out in southeastern Ukraine
The Ukrainian military transformed at least one of its ex-Australian M-1A1 Abrams tanks into a Russian-style hedgehog tank.
A video montage captured by Russian first-person-view drones, which circulated online on Monday, depicts an immobilized M-1 wearing the Australian army’s distinctive green and brown camouflage—and also wearing a metal frame supporting thousands of metal spines made of unwound aluminum industrial cabling.
The video cuts when one drone strikes the unmoving tank somewhere in Zaporizhzhia Oblast in southeastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian assault regiments and battalions—taking advantage of last week’s interruption in Russia’s access to Starlink satellite communications—have counterattacked the Russian Dnipro Group of Forces.
It’s unclear how much additional damage the strike inflicted on the M-1. Ukraine got 49 surplus Abrams from Australia starting late last year. The 69-ton, 2000s-vintage tanks supplement the dozen or so survivors of 31 M-1A1s the United States donated to Ukraine in 2023.
