Watch Eager Ukrainian Troops Roll Into Battle Atop A Tank

One skirmish in one sector of one front of a wider war that’s grinding into its eighth month isn’t indicative of much. But watch closely the below video depicting volunteers from the Republic of Georgia riding into battle atop a T-64 tank.

Infantry rolling into an assault on top of a tank is an old tactic called “tank desant.” Many modern armies—in particular, the U.S. Army—mostly have abandoned the tactic as being too risky for the infantry.

That the Georgian Legion in Ukraine has adopted the tactic says something important about their capacity for risk—that is to say, their aggression—as Ukrainian forces barrel toward victory in southern Ukraine.

Since the first tank rolled into combat with the British Army during the Battle of the Somme in September 1916, tanks and infantry have worked together. The tanks’ armor-clad firepower helps to smash enemy defenses and terrify enemy troops. The infantry screen the tanks from ambush and fill in behind the lumbering vehicles to secure enemy positions the tanks clear out. “Tanks can take anything, but can hold nothing,” S.D. Rockenbach, a U.S. Army general, wrote in 1920.

A century later, effective modern armies combine tanks and infantry in the same formations. But they usually travel separately. To keep pace with the tanks, the infantry ride in fighting vehicles such as the Russian BMP or the American M-2.

The infantry do not ride on top of the tanks themselves, despite some European armies—the Soviets, in the particular—adopting that tactic as an expedient in the 1930s and ‘40s. When Soviet troops practiced tank desant, it usually was for a lack of dedicated infantry carriers.

Infantry are exposed and vulnerable while sitting on top of a tank within range of enemy gunfire. The U.S. Army’s Field Manual 7-8 advises against tank desant unless “contact is not likely.” The Americans so rarely practice tank desant that they designed their main tank, the M-1, with a hot engine exhaust on the rear hull, which relegates infantry—no more than nine of them—to squeezing together atop the turret.

Ukrainian tanks, such as the T-64 the Georgian Legion uses, are more comfortable for infantry. And Ukrainian tactics clearly embrace tank desant despite the risk. It’s possible some Ukrainian units such as the Georgian Legion are short of good fighting vehicles. It’s also possible these units appreciate the simplicity, directness and shock potential of tank desant in the attack.

Consider again the video, depicting Georgian Legion troopers and a T-64 assaulting a Russian strongpoint, apparently in Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine, where Ukrainian brigades launched a powerful counteroffensive in late August.

While a Ukrainian drone observes from above, a dozen Georgians piled onto the back hull of the T-64 roll toward the Russian trench. The T-64 approaches, apparently nearly to machine-gun range. The infantry dismount and line up behind the tank.

The tank and infantry move along a dirt track toward the strongpoint, the tank firing its turret-mounted 12.7-millimeter machine gun and 125-millimeter main gun. A shell explodes right in front of the Russian position, blanketing it in dust.

The T-64 peels off. The Georgians split into fire teams and clear the trench. It all happens fast. The drone watches Russian troops flee. At least one crawling. At least one dying a short distance away. Sixteen Russians perished in the attack, according to the Georgian Legion.

In its aggression and violence, the tank-desant assault on the Russian position is consistent with other Ukrainian assaults we’ve seen on social media—in particular, a shockingly vicious attack by Ukrainians riding in thin-skinned Humvees, firing machine guns and rockets as they sped toward a Russian position in Kharkiv Oblast last month during the early days of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the northeast.

The Ukrainian army and its allies have the momentum all across Ukraine. And they know it. Ukrainian commanders clearly are eager to press their advantage while they can—in the last few weeks before the coming winter soaks the Ukrainian landscape, likely compelling both sides to pause for a couple months.