Bushmaster vehicle

In a speech to Australia's parliament last night, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelensky asked for 'wonderful' Bushmaster troop carriers, which he said ...

Moreover, we have new Abrams tanks on order as replacements for our fleet of 59 older-generation Abrams. Certainly, providing a tank capability would be a major step up in terms of training and logistics requirements compared to Bushmasters and would need careful planning. One was to be blast tested; the other two were an ambulance and a troop carrier. More than 1,000 Bushmasters have been delivered to the Australian Army and to Royal Australian Air Force airfield defence guards. Thales Australia was able to improve Bushmasters on the production line and in the operational area. It will be the same with captured Bushmasters (which would inevitably be accompanied by the information warfare and internet trolling that has become a feature of this conflict). How you sustain a logistics chain to Bushmasters scattered across Ukraine is anyone’s guess, but excellent techniques to maintain and upgrade them were developed in theatre in Afghanistan. That spurred the decision to obtain a large number of lightly armoured and versatile troop carriers. If we do supply the vehicles to Ukraine, we need to accept that we may see footage of destroyed Bushmasters. And with both sides putting captured materiel into service, we might see them with the now infamous ‘Z’ painted on their sides. Proof was delivered in Iraq and Afghanistan, where around 100 Bushmasters were blown up but not a single soldier died in one. If you have the opportunity, Ukraine will be grateful to you. They won’t protect against a direct hit from a tank, howitzer or anti-tank missile, all of which Russia has in abundance. With relatively low-tech militaries like Fiji’s and Jamaica’s already operating Bushmasters, the resourceful Ukrainians could master their operation very quickly.