How to differentiate the modern tanks that Ukraine is receiving and its country of origin

@DefAviation ES 3·28·2023 · 21:54 0

In the last few hours, the arrival of new tanks donated by various countries for the Ukrainian Army has been reported.

The details that will allow distinguishing the Leopard 2A4s donated by Spain to Ukraine
The more than 700 tanks donated to Ukraine by other countries: their numbers and models

On Monday, the German Ministry of Defense announced that their 18 Leopard 2A6s arrived in Ukraine yesterday, in addition to more packages of ammunition and spare parts. An hour later, the Portugal Ministry of Defense announced< /a> that the 3 Leopard 2A6 donated by that country are already in Ukraine. This Tuesday morning, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine announced the arrival of the first Challenger 2 from the United Kingdom.

Ukraine is coming together with various types of tanks, with the different mimetic schemes of their countries of origin. You can see here some notes to be able to distinguish them , which are added to what I already noted here about how to differentiate the Leopard 2A4 delivered by Spain.

🇺🇸 United States: M1 Abrams

USA announced the delivery of 31 tanks. They will be easy to identify because the United States is the only country that will deliver tanks of this type. At the moment it is unknown which Abrams variant will be delivered and if the vehicles will be painted with the desert scheme (the most common in US Army), in olive green (some desert-scheme US Army vehicles have been repainted in this color) or with the three-color NATO camouflage (olive green, brown and black) worn by many of the Abrams stored at European bases (Photo: U.S. Army).

🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Challenger 2

The UK has delivered 14 Challenger 2s of this type to Ukraine. As in the case of the Abrams, they are easy to identify because it is the only country that has delivered tanks of this type. As a curious fact, the images of these tanks published today by Oleksii Reznikov (on these lines you can see a screenshot of his video) show that these tanks are painted completely olive green.

🇵🇱 Poland: Leopard 2A4

With the Leopard 2 things begin to get complicated, as Ukraine will receive three different versions of this tank from a total of eight countries. As we already saw here, the Polish Leopard 2s delivered to Ukraine are Leopard 2A4s. They are easily recognizable because the sides of their turrets are straight. In addition, the Polish Leopard 2A4s are the only ones of this type to have been delivered with NATO camouflage in three colours: olive green, brown and black (Photo: Kancelaria Premiera).

🇪🇸 Spain: Leopard 2A4

As we saw here a few days ago, Spain is in the process of delivering 10 Leopard 2A4s. The Spanish tanks are identical to those delivered by Poland, but they are painted olive green (Image: Spanish Ministry of Defense).

🇨🇦 Canada: Leopard 2A4

Canada has also delivered Leopard 2A4s. They are painted olive green, but they are distinguished from the Spanish by the rear of their turret, which has wider baskets on the sides and covered with canvas. In addition, Canadian Leopard 2A4s have smoke grenade launchers positioned differently from Spanish ones. Both Spanish and Polish Leopard 2A4s have smoke grenade launchers located on the rear of the turret: 4 on top and 4 below. Canadian tanks carry 6 launchers on the top row and 2 on the bottom.

🇳🇴 Norway: Leopard 2A4NO

The tanks Norway has announced it will deliver are the Leopard 2A4NO, a local version of the Leopard 2A4. They are painted olive green, like the Spanish and Canadian Leopard 2A4s, but at the rear of their turrets are larger baskets and a winch with a cable (Photo: Forsvaret).

🇫🇮 Finland: Leopard 2A4 or Leopard 2R

The news about the 6 tanks announced by Finland are somewhat confusing, since some indicate that they will carry demining equipment and others affirm that they will be demining vehicles. In the first case it would be Leopard 2A4 with Israeli Urdan demining equipment (as seen in the first photo above), and in the second it would be Leopard 2R demining vehicles , made by Finland from 20 Leopard 2A4s (the photo below). These vehicles are not properly tanks, since they do not have a cannon. How they will be painted is unknown, but Finnish camouflage is two-tone: black and olive green (Photos: Juhani Karvonen)

🇩🇪 Germany: Leopard 2A6

Germany has delivered 18 Leopard 2A6s to Ukraine. This model differs from the Leopard 2A4 because the 2A6 has a turret with additional sloped armor on its frontal part. Likewise, the Leopard 2A6 has 8 smoke grenade launchers on each side of the turret: six on the top row and two on the bottom row. Usually, German tanks are painted in NATO camouflage in three colors: black, olive green and brown. At the moment there are no images of the delivered tanks, so it cannot be confirmed if they have been painted with another mimetic scheme (Photo: U.S. Army).

🇵🇹 Portugal: Leopard 2A6

The three tanks delivered by Portugal are also Leopard 2A6 and the Portuguese Army also uses the three-color NATO camouflage. What makes it possible to differentiate them from German tanks is that the Leopard 2A6s have 6 smoke grenade launchers on each side of the turret, instead of the 8 that the Germans have.

🇸🇪 Sweden: Stridsvagn 122

It is the Swedish version of the Leopard 2A5. They can be distinguished from the Leopard 2A6s donated by Germany and Portugal because the Stridsvagn 122s have a shorter L44 barrel than the L55 of the Leopard 2A6s. Likewise, they only have 5 smoke grenade launchers on each side of the turret, and instead of being like those of the Leopard 2A6, the Swedish tank has all the launchers in the same compartment. Likewise, Swedish tanks wear an angular camouflage of three colours: black, dark olive green and light olive green, although it is unknown how the tanks delivered to Ukraine by Sweden will be painted.