Armored Fighting Vehicles VI: Eye of the Tiger

[glitterboy2098]

Like the article, I'm positive they don't fire the mortar from the back of the camel... ::)

same. there were camel borne artillery units using light cannons/swivelguns in the pike and shot era (called Zamburak), but they were never used while mounted, they just used the camel's mobility and carry capacity to haul the guns around between set up points. version of these saw use right up into the late 19th century.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

During WW2, a number of troopers found out the hard way why you don't brace even the smallest mortar on something like a leg.  The force on that camel means at least 3 things go flying when you thump.

Part of that had to do with some extremely poor translations of the manuals of captured enemy equipment.

[BairdEC]

Part of that had to do with some extremely poor translations of the manuals of captured enemy equipment.

I'm guessing you're referring to the Japanese's small 50mm mortar whose base plate fit nicely on the thigh.  The whole thing was about 2 feet long.  These guys have a good write up.

[Fat Guy]

Victory Day parade in Red Square tomorrow. Which of the following is most likely to happen?

• A vehicle breaks down
• Su-57 or T-14 spotted
• New Russian wonder weapon announced or shown
• Flyover canceled again
• Western trophy vehicles
• Worlds loneliest T-34 returns
• Air defense friendly fire
• Brodcast cut due to "technical difficulties"
• Something catches fire

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I'm going to go with "A vehicle breaks down" and "something catches fire."

[glitterboy2098]

Victory Day parade in Red Square tomorrow. Which of the following is most likely to happen?

• A vehicle breaks down
• Su-57 or T-14 spotted
• New Russian wonder weapon announced or shown
• Flyover canceled again
• Western trophy vehicles
• Worlds loneliest T-34 returns
• Air defense friendly fire
• Brodcast cut due to "technical difficulties"
• Something catches fire

i'm predicting
Western trophy vehicles will be hauled around (they've already had several on display, so i'm expecting those on flatbeds)
Su-57 or T-14 spotted
Worlds loneliest T-34 returns
A vehicle breaks down followed by Brodcast cut due to "technical difficulties"

[Daryk]

You almost have enough for a proper bingo card... :D

[SteelRaven]

Lots of crowd shots of patriotic citizens talking about the great patriotic war.

[glitterboy2098]

You almost have enough for a proper bingo card... :D

how many more do we need to fill it out?

[Daryk]

About 14 more... ;)

[worktroll]

World's loneliest T34 was indeed lonely ...

[Fat Guy]

Ukraine has added cope cages and Soviet ERA to its remaining M1s.

[glitterboy2098]

i'm wary of calling that a copecage, given that actually looks to be fairly well though out slat armor. unlike the slapdash and poorly constructed russian things.
and the ERA make sense. ukraine got M1A1's, without the extra applique armor packages that make the american M1's so exceptionally durable. so fitting ERA would go a good way towards to making up the difference.

[PsihoKekec]

Remember kids, it's only called cope cage if Russians so it, if anyone else does it, it's well thought out protection element.

Unrelated:

[glitterboy2098]

nah, if ukraine had stuck half a sheetmetal shed on top like an umbrella, the way that russian tankers do, i'd still call it a cope cage. that's why they're called that, because letting the crew cope is literally the only thing they'd do. instead Ukraine designed a fairly efficient set up that might actually limit damage from drone attacks and reduce the effectiveness of ATGM's.

[chanman]

i'm wary of calling that a copecage, given that actually looks to be fairly well though out slat armor. unlike the slapdash and poorly constructed russian things.
and the ERA make sense. ukraine got M1A1's, without the extra applique armor packages that make the american M1's so exceptionally durable. so fitting ERA would go a good way towards to making up the difference.

Those aren't slats at all. That looks like wire of the kind used in a chain link fence or chicken coop.



Aside from not really understanding how the turret crew are going to get out, it looks like the front panels may interfere with some of the turret optics mounted topside.

[Cannonshop]

Those aren't slats at all. That looks like wire of the kind used in a chain link fence or chicken coop.



Aside from not really understanding how the turret crew are going to get out, it looks like the front panels may interfere with some of the turret optics mounted topside.

Chicken wire and looks like welded square channel tubing.  Also it looks uneven, like it was improvised, there's no visible support to make it useful, either-it's apparent that it's more or less laying on top of the turret and held down with gravity.

kinda like something you'd put up for a photo-op of the "haw haw lookit these dumb ******'..."

Or something come up with by a crew chief who got bit by the bright idea fairy, because that's not going to protect shit.

Measures like that, are proof that the paradigm shift's hitting on a psychological level, but we KNEW that with the



"Turtle" tanks-sacrificing the sensor packages that are the real reason you bring tanks, to turn it into an assemblage that needs direction over radio to find its way anywhere, because it turns out drones can put shaped charges on thin top armor pretty handily, and turret rings that include your ammo where smart people put bearings is probably a bad design choice, but it's kinda late to go back and totally redesign hulls that were in mass production from the 1950s to the 1990s or even later.

nto that the Russians haven't come up with a totally redesigned idea of the tank, but it's logistically unsupportable, ergo, why they don't have them in mass production and why there's been parade problems



Probably the biggest takeaway from this conflict, is going to be that it doesn't matter if you have the high-speed gear, if you can't apply the high speed gear.  The Russians had this problem because they let rot and corruption set in and as a result, ground troops were sent in without the suppleis and gear their handbills said they had, (teh stuff went out on the black market instead, with everyone from the generals to the ncos' taking a cut of the sales.)

The Ukrainians, because they had so few of...well, everything that individual equipment losses actually HURT, and they're getting most of their supplies from people who didn't build to the same specs, design documents, or doctrine so they're aLSO having to learn on the fly, and this kind of war hasn't happened between near-peer adversaries since the 1950s. (We won't look at the ongoing hell show in North Africa, which would be 'near peer' but largely badly organized armies fighting limited wars or committing genocides.)

Lessons are having to be re-learned, and new lessons are having to be learned-as a result, we're going to get juicy images of improvisations, some of them will work, some will be a joke.

but 'tis a Context thing.  This isn't the U.S. patrolling Asskrakistan for twenty years dealing with insurgents, this is big-scale formal conventional war between near-peer adversaries with high levels of education and deep commitment on all sides.

[SteelRaven]

Another quick reminder that the Allies in WW2 added all sorts of crap to their tanks in the field to try to counter new anti-tank weapons, from logs to bed frames. There where US troops using scrap metal to up armor humvees to counter IEDs when the armor packages for the vehicles where still no where to be seen. But yeah, god forbid soldiers try armature engineering, it might make you look unprepared for a tactic no one was prepared for previously.

[Elmoth]

My impresion. All tanks are basically the same.when the modern drones hit them. Western tanks and russian tanks both go boom. It shows the limits of the armored vehicles. Wunderwaffe armor.is not changing that by much. Thw vehicle is still a loss even if some armors peitect against some types of hit better than others. In general, modern drones are besting modern (and obviously less modern)  tanks. Tanls arw stull useful, but far from unbeatable in most situations. These are my conclusions here. Yours might differ.
 

[Daryk]

The real world is biased toward weapons, not armor.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Another quick reminder that the Allies in WW2 added all sorts of crap to their tanks in the field to try to counter new anti-tank weapons, from logs to bed frames. There where US troops using scrap metal to up armor humvees to counter IEDs when the armor packages for the vehicles where still no where to be seen. But yeah, god forbid soldiers try armature engineering, it might make you look unprepared for a tactic no one was prepared for previously.

A lot of that improvised armor was worse than useless: adding weight to the tank (and thus making it use more fuel as well as becoming more prone to mechanical failure) and actually deflecting shots into the tank in a way that negated angling or the sloped front plate on tanks like the M4.

[SteelRaven]

A lot of that improvised armor was worse than useless: adding weight to the tank (and thus making it use more fuel as well as becoming more prone to mechanical failure) and actually deflecting shots into the tank in a way that negated angling or the sloped front plate on tanks like the M4.

Not saying that it was effective but I'm not judging them, I'm not the one getting shot at with weapons beating the armor meant to protect me

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNf78D3z-AU

[Daryk]

That's a REALLY good video! :)

[glitterboy2098]

Those aren't slats at all. That looks like wire of the kind used in a chain link fence or chicken coop.

which is something you can make slat armor out of.



in fact it was the basis of some of the earliest forms of it.


and some of the most advanced derivations of the tech have been moving to semi-flexible meshes..



the reason the russian stuff is called 'cope cages' is because they're just metal parasols that while they might work as slat armor against lighter warheads (like an RPG-7), are useless against the heavy warheads of the javelins and NLAW missiles that employ top attack.. which are the weapons the metal monstrosities were made to counter. they're an emotional coping strategy against weapons they can't actually protect from.


an example of some of the more nice looking cope cages, that might actually work as slat armor against grenades and RPG's



and some more typical examples, which wouldn't stop anything, and is why they got the name 'cope cage'.

Chicken wire and looks like welded square channel tubing.  Also it looks uneven, like it was improvised, there's no visible support to make it useful, either-it's apparent that it's more or less laying on top of the turret and held down with gravity.

it was almist certainly improvised, no one has provided proper slat armor kits yet. so they did like the USarmy did in iraq and afghanistan, and designed their own to be made from avaialble materials. which is something they've been doing since day one of the conflict. but it also clear they actually designed it, they didn't just weld some scrap together, the way the russians did.
and you can see the welded to the turret supports in the picture, so no it is not just sitting on the hull.

nor is it something done for a photo-op, the picture came from the social media account of a ukranian soldier near the front lines. this is a deployed vehicle.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Tank security blankets.

[truetanker]

TT