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I remember General Patton threw a fit of rage because his soldiers were putting cement armor and sandbags on their Shermanās to protect them from superior German A/T weapons, stating that all that extra weight would interfere with the automotive performance of their tanks.
FFWD to the Warnin Ukraine; makes me wonder how depreciated was and is the automotive performance of the Russian tanks with all that extra steel over them, not to mention limited visibility due to literally putting a house on top of their T-72s.
I know; apples and oranges. The Shermanās Ford GAA engine is weak compared to the Russian V-12 engines, but think about it - how much increased wear and tear this Russian tanks are being subjected to with the extra hundred, maybe thousand pounds of steel plating.
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I agree with the analyst. Those things are death traps.
Many of the sequences in that video remind me of World of Tanks engagements but far worse. Situational awareness inside a turtle tank must be terrible.
I doubt turtle armor is heavy enough to quickly strip the final drive of any Russian tank in decent repair. They are already designed to handle a bunch of armor upgrade packages.
I was not aware that allied forces in Afghanistan were dealing with regular drone attacks.
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If the major obstacle you are facing is a drone or a Javelin then this makes sense It is a Stug 72 if you will. Add some Ukranian T 64ās in town then they are toast. However this war is not being fought like previous modern wars.
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Any new āinventionā in war works until the other side figures out a way to defeat it by an āinventionā of their own.
Plates far from the armour defeats HEAT by adding a lot of stand-off distance.
Go for a mobility kill, send another drone when the tank has stopped moving and the
crew has run away leaving the hatches open.
Another way is to let the first drone/drones blast a sufficient opening in the ābarnā,
then send more drones to fly in through the hole.
Canāt penetrate the ERA? First drone activates it and the second hits the same spot where there isnāt any ERA anymore.
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The video leaves many questions. Are turtle tanks attacking as part of larger, combined arms formations? (A few incidents show an armored force with multiple vehicles.) Are nearby elements of a larger formation specifically tasked with destroying drones attempting to engage turtle tanks? Do other units in the formation provide turtle tanks with battlefield situation information? When was each incident filmed? Are the filmed incidents representative of current tactics? Have tactics evolved since these incidents?
In the incidents shown, it appears that individual turtle tanks are engaging an enemy with overwhelming drone superiority, themselves without combined arms support. If that is happening, it is a terrible misuse of resources. When the expert commentator says that he would not want turtle armor blinding his crew, he is very probably assuming his vehicle would operate as part of a combined arms force with other assets tasked with clearing out drones, thus freeing tanks to engage heavy enemy units at range, a task that requires a high degree of situational awareness. I do not think he is suggesting that tanks should rush enemy lines alone, without additional vehicle protection.
Israel is also currently at war. Israeli tanks sometimes carry bar cages and umbrellas. They sometimes carry automated close in defense systems. I have not seen anyone suggest those things are useless. The contrary is true.
The video, while interesting, does not provide enough information to answer the question, 'Are turtle tanks useful?" It does provide me with enough information to conclude they are death traps when deployed as shown.
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They are deployed as shown ā¦
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KISS:
Mines with a 3 or 4 second delay, rendering the mine plough both essential & useless.
Drones carrying thick black paint, exploding on contact with the vertical chains in the front aperture. Blind the tank. Crew need to get out to clear it, follow up with the HE drone. (OK need to jam the jammer first)
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Jammer jams the frequency that the jammer designer was told that the FPV uses.
FPV owner figures out that frequency āsomethingā is jammed and goes over to
frequency āsomething elseā.
Some drones use wires to avoid radio disturbance ā¦
Some jammers made in Russia donāt work as āadvertisedā ā¦
Some drones get āintelligenceā and can guide themselves after losing contact,
the pilot selects the target and the drone does the rest. Impossible to jam and
no cable limiting the range or maneouverability ā¦
Itās getting dangerous out there ā¦
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I wouldnāt worry too much about the strain all that extra weight causes to the automotive parts - these tanks donāt seem to last long enough to break down!
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Mwahahaha!
They usually undergo a very rapid disassembly ā¦
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Itās just a flesh wound.
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Itās just a mine clearing device. It goes ahead of the column or just clears the way for it.
"As is known, when one of the T-72s was hit, its turret lost its ability to rotate, the tank crews decided that their vehicle could be used as an assault gun or as a mine clearing vehicle. It was only necessary to protect against FPV drones, for which the tank, having lost its former mobility, would become easy prey.
The T-72 was covered with tin sheets from top to bottom. It really did look like a barn. The Europeans saw a similarity with the ancient Roman military formation āturtleā. As it turned out, simple lining with thin metal really did completely protect the vehicle from FPV drones. Flying inside the ābarnā, the drones lost contact with the operator and lost their killing power. And blows from above and from the side pierced the tin sheets without causing any damage to the tank.
We must pay tribute to the ingenuity of the soldiers on the front lines. The damaged T-72 could have been sent to the rear, where it would have been completely restored. But it was decided to carry out a kind of upgrade of the vehicle on the spot, preparing it for solving a specific task. And the front-line Kulibins coped with their task.
The vehicle was used in combat operations near the settlement of Krasnogorovka. The āTsar-Barbecueā accompanied a column with troops to the city and returned to its positions under its own power.
Of course, a tank that looks like a turtle will not be able to become widespread, although three similar vehicles have already been spotted on the line of combat contact. Such total hull cladding protects against FPV drones. But it deprives the tank of its main advantages - speed, maneuver, visibility and turret rotation. But for solving some local tasks, the āTsar-Barbecueā is quite suitable."
Thanks for the video.
I repeat: Iām glad you watch such videos.
Barbecued turtles
When Ivan & Sascha runs out of tanks
Some of the turtle tank videos could be showing the same dead turtle,
I havenāt compared them.
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Depends on the mine-plough mechanism; if itās designed to dig into the ground and root up mines to divert them to the sides, they may not have the right anti-tamper mechanisms to blow up on the plough, but that can require significant additional power depending on the ground condition, which could stress the engine and running gear of the mine-clearing vehicle, and slowing the progress of clearing a route for the following vehicles, rendering them more vulnerable to attack.
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What would happen if a plough equipped tank drives over a mine buried deeper than the tines of the plough dig into the ground? Will the cultivated soil be solid/deep enough the distribute the weight of the tank so that the mine does not trigger.
Are there magnetic mines that could be buried deep enough for the plow tines to pass over?
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A paper on the MIT website describing an acoustic laser technique to identify buried land mines states that anti-tank mines are typically buried three inches below the surface. I donāt know how effective a more deeply-buried mine would be; I imagine it would be more difficult to āreplace your divotā to conceal the presence of the mine, although thatās more important when you have someone examining the route with a good view, not the limited view from inside a vehicle.
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Concealment:
Another one of my wild theories: How does the drivers in an enemy convoy react to a regular pattern of disturbed road surface?
All it takes is a shovel or a spade (entrenching tool) to scratch up the road surface.
Say 4 lines across the road with alternating 5 and 4 divots/marks per line.
Do they drive across or stop to investigate? Will they investigate all the scratches until they are certain that there isnāt a mine under any of the marks? Maybe 100 yards later there is a new pattern. Drive across or stop to investigate? This time there might actually be one or more real mines.
There is a video on YouTube where a Russian vehicle drives across a line of 4-6 mines in plain view on top of the tarmac. Either the driver didnāt see them, driver was drunk, driver thought they were fakes. It was filmed from a drone and the light coloured mines were very easy to see in the drone view. Viewing from inside a tank is obviously more difficult but if the driver can see and follow the road it should be possible to see those mines, they arenāt exactly small as pennies ā¦
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I remember reading about ā I think it was during Prague Spring ā where civilians were able to hold up Soviet tank units by putting overturned plates out on the streets, causing the tanks to either wait for infantry to come up or dismount a crewman to get a proper look at them to verify that they werenāt, in fact, mines, which they couldnāt tell through the vision ports while buttoned up.
And all it would take is, after the first couple of fakes were identified and the tankers started ignoring them, for a couple of the plates to be concealing pits in the road with real mines underneath, for things to get snarled up even more.
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