10 ms·

Russian tanks in Ukraine are sprouting cages

65 points by acqbu 5y ago

katcher 5y ago
Paywalled
- acqbu 5y ago
  sorry, please try this: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/russian-tanks-in-ukraine-are-sprouting-cages/21808191 https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/science-an...
HstryrsrBttn 5y ago
derbOac 5y ago
There was discussion of this fairly early on in the invasion and the consensus from experienced military seemed to be they were totally useless.
tyingq 5y ago
The picture shows an empty cage with thin bars, far apart. You would want sandbags or steel plating on the cage, so that it works properly. The idea is that it reduces the effectiveness of two stage anti-tank weapons. Where the weapon first has a sacrificial payload that gets any reactive armor to explode...then the real payload to penetrate the normal armor. The cage is supposed to get the first, sacrificial, payload to explode without setting off the reactive armor. They do supposedly work (at least some reduced effectiveness of the weapon, in some way) if they are done right. That is, that they are wide enough to cover the incoming attack angle of the anti-tank weapon...and dense enough to keep the reactive armor from going off on the first payload.
- arethuza 5y ago
  Do they have reactive armour on the top of the turrets?
  - tyingq 5y ago
    The picture appears to be a T-90, and yes, it does have reactive armor on the top.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - arethuza 5y ago
      From a search of top views of T-90s it looks like they do have some panels of reactive armour on top of the turret - but there are a lot of areas (sensors, hatches) that don't seem to be covered.
      - tyingq 5y ago
        There's lots of different types, even two distinctly different turrets, etc.
- NelsonMinar 5y ago
  Did you read the part of the article about weight concerns?
  - tyingq 5y ago
    It's paywalled for me, but the picture seems to show the cage is made from pretty thin stock, so I'm not sure how useful it is in it's current state. Zoom in on it: https://www.economist.com/img/b/1280/720/90/sites/default/files/images/2022/03/articles/main/20220319_stp501.jpg https://www.economist.com/img/b/1280/720/90/sites/default/fi...
- _kbh_ 5y ago
  The reactive armour and cope cages cannot be helping too much, the Russians have lost 214 tanks so far in barely 3 weeks, of which 16 where T-90's, and this is only visually so the actual number is likely much higher. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-docum...
  - tyingq 5y ago
    Well, yes, but a cage with thin bars spaced far apart is perhaps part of the problem. And the cages seem to be appearing now.
- pedroma 5y ago
  I also expect the purpose is to act as spaced armor. Though I don't know how much spaced armor helps against things like Javelin missiles, but anything to slightly change the angle of the projectile should help increase effective armor thickness.
  - RobertMiller 5y ago
    It's not really the same thing as spaced armor. The hope with statistical slat armor is that the tip of an RPG, where the detonator is, passes between the slats but the rest of the wider warhead behind that detonator is destroyed by the slats, which are too narrow for the warhead to thread through. The aim is to destroy the shaped charge warhead before the detonator has a chance to set it off; it only works some of the time, hence 'statistical'. It doesn't do much good against javelins, TOWs, improvised EFPs, etc. These sort of weapons aren't impact fused, the slat armor never has a chance to disable these warheads before they go off and the slats themselves won't do much to stop or deflect the penetrating jet created by the detonation of such warheads.
daedlanth 5y ago
That's not first stage armor, roflmao. These are molotov guards. Most of the bottles will bounce off this and break open elsewhere and keep the upper crew hatch clear of fire.
- kasey_junk 5y ago
  If that is the goal why would you use such wide cable routes? Something like chickenwire would seem to accomplish the same goal much better and its a widely available material.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    Will it last log enough?
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    That assumes you have time to stop at home depot and the foresight to plan what your building. I imagine many crews grab whatever they can find when they stop for the night or while refueling. And being away from your tank, in enemy territory (at night?) is usually minimised.
- merpkz 5y ago
  why would a glass bottle bounce off a steel frame? imho it would shatter on impact and spill all over and underneath it? we need Mythbusters set on this one.
  - littlestymaar 5y ago
    Also, why would you protect the turret from a molotov cocktail and not the more vulnerable parts to this type of weapons: air admission & exhaust…
    - arethuza 5y ago
      I think if I was in a tank I'd be most worried about a molotov cocktail going into an open hatch.
oneoff786 5y ago
> They have indeed been mockingly dubbed by Western analysts as “emotional support armour” or “cope cages”. That got a chuckle from me It looks like these things would impair entry/exit. Are there other ways to enter a tank? Walking dead S1E1 leads me to believe you can get in through the bottom?
- RealityVoid 5y ago
  I credit the origin of the name mostly to /r/noncredibledefense - It's a whole community pride thing over there.
  - 0cVlTeIATBs 5y ago
    There are posts on 4chan from Feb 20th. Anything that early in that sub?
    - RobertMiller 5y ago
      'Cope' has been a meme word on 4chan for a while now (along with 'seethe' and another that I won't repeat.) I believe 'cope cage' originally came from 4chan's /k/. 4chan culture bleeds out into the rest of the internet though, so it's hard to say for sure.
    - RealityVoid 5y ago
      Hmm, i think you are right. That is where I first encountered it though. This is the first instance I could see in the subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/t2tgnw/comment/hyo3xz1/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/t2tgnw/...
- throwanem 5y ago
  I don't know the show, but I believe it's set in the US, and the last American tank I know of with a belly hatch was the M60 that left frontline service a few years after I was born. Abrams don't have them, and after recent decades' experiences with IEDs and development of hull designs to reduce or defeat their effects, I suspect it'll likely be a while before they turn up again.
neonate 5y ago
https://archive.ph/EeVvK https://archive.ph/EeVvK
unethical_ban 5y ago
>They have indeed been mockingly dubbed by Western analysts as “emotional support armour” or “cope cages”. Really, Economist? I know they are a blend of news and perspective, but this is cheap and uninformed. @daedlanth here mentions it is a Molotov deflector, and the Economist has a "related story" on that very page about breweries in Ukraine making Molotovs! Goodness.
- RobertMiller 5y ago
  The Economist is not misinformed. Those western analysts might be misinformed, but the Economist isn't. The cages are being called cope cages. Incidental to that, I'm not so sure the analyists are actually wrong. Most of the cope cages look a lot like statistical slat armor to me; e.g. designed to disable AT shaped charges, but utterly ineffective at stopping burning petrol from covering the top of the turret. Molotovs break open on these slats, they don't bounce off. Furthermore, at least some of the cope cages have been augmented with sandbags piled up on top. If they were meant to shield the tank and crew from burning petrol, they'd get more mileage out of sheet metal than sandbags. If anything, these cope cages turn into BBQ grills for Russian tankers trying to bail out.
  - RealityVoid 5y ago
    Not to mention so far most causes of Russian armor loss was not caused by motolovs but by actual AT weaponry. Not one case of Molotov damaged tank that I am aware of. Related to statistical armor, it only woks on RPG fired and I picked off of some subreddit the following article that explains how it is supposed to work: https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/statistical-armour https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/statistical-armour
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    I'm not saying they aren't being called "cope cages", I'm saying it sounds, eh, sophomoric to put that in the leading paragraphs of an article.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
phtrivier 5y ago
> The last possibility, then, is that the gibes about the cages being emotional support armour are actually correct, and that they have been added simply to improve morale by convincing the troops inside that they are safe. As Dr Benham-Crosswell notes, soldiers often take the view that every little helps. Once again, the general point of the article is "Russian army is soooo imcompetent, of course Putin is going to loose". I would not mind reading that into a cheap "troop-morale-boosting" stand-up act. However, even though I understand the Economist stands against pretty much everything Putin stands for - shouldn't we expect a little less blatant wishfull thinking and propaganda ? As an alternative, what would a _relevant_ source for info about the current warfare (a decent primer on who has what weapons, what they can do, etc...) be ? One that would aknowledge that _maybe_, the Russian army is not entirely made of clowns ?
- dncornholio 5y ago
  The war won't be won on the battlefield, it will be won by all the multinationals leaving the country. For the best context, look up Russians on social media and see what is going on inside. I've never been in favour of multinationals and subscription based services, but it seems these are what really are making the change now. Software like AutoCAD, Photoshop, etc etc, all stopped working in the last 48h. Russians begin to wonder why the whole world is against them. NAVO Sanctions alone couldn't do that. The Russian media jokes that they don't need western companies suddenly all stopped. It's like COVID. Russians only joked COVID won't reach them because vodka, but when the first case hit Moscow, all the jokes stopped. Same happening now. Companies leaving Russia seemed to hit hard on the people.
  - phtrivier 5y ago
    > Software like AutoCAD, Photoshop, etc etc, all stopped working in the last 48h. Do you have a source for that ? Unless those apps are now systematically "phoning home" and the servers are setup to refuse requests from Russia, it's not obvious how they would "stop working".
- kozikow 5y ago
  There is a lot of clownery: - They destroyed their own secret comms system by accident, used civilian phones and general was killed based on the geolocation from the call. Amount of high rank leadershipo KIA would be embarassing even if they fought on-paper much stronger opponent than Ukraine opponent. Even visually confirmed losses from satellite imagery or 1/3 of reported losses by Ukraine is very embarrassing. - With the advantage in air they have not being able to establish air superiority is a clownery of it's own. Photos of planes with civilian GPS taped in. Stingers shouldn't be so effective against planes. - Many photos of Russian soldiers (even photos released by Russians) with cheap walkie takies from aliexpress that are easily jammed - Lots of photos of expensive equipment that got abandoned without standard procedure of sabotaging it - Supposedly elite units (especially VDV) getting massacred by barely trained territorial groups There are good reasons for clownery: Massive corruption. Nepotism. Army is intentionally crippled to not present threat to Putin. They never fought a real war. Nukes, submarines and navy are a huge resource drain. They didn't prepare for what happened. Outdated doctrine not adapted to modern war.
rr808 5y ago
A common problem I've seen with Russian tanks is that they're supposed to be protected by soldiers on the ground. Tanks are vulnerable as we've seen. They aren't supposed to be driven in by themselves, infantry is supposed to go in first and check there is no threat before the tanks arrive. Of course this feels more risky.
- mauvehaus 5y ago
  This is pretty much all tanks, as I understand it. Tanks have very limited situational awareness for obvious reasons, and similarly limited means to engage nearby threats.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    They've improved leaps and bounds in the last 20yr (360deg cameras, infrared, automated ATGM detection/countermeasures) but yeah, it's still fundamentally a box without windows.
- justin66 5y ago
  That’s not just Russian tanks. You’re right about the reasons. Tanks without infantry support are highly vulnerable to enemy infantry with antitank weapons, particularly in an environment where the enemy infantry has a lot of cover and concealment to operate from.
msandford 5y ago
It's just incredible how people who are seeing pictures and lack the imagination to understand what purpose they serve then assume it must be no real purpose and that the folks who are doing it are just absolute morons. Perhaps it's not there for when you're out and about and actively being seen by the enemy. Perhaps it's there for when you're hiding in the woods and you want to hold a tarp off of the top of your tank so that you can get in and out easily. Perhaps it's there to hold up camo netting for hiding the tank better while stopped in the woods. Perhaps the mesh on top is to hold up branches that you cut down to try and better hide your tank while you're in the woods, not moving. I'm not saying that any of these reasons are THE reason. I'm suggesting that if some idiot on the internet (me) can come up with some reasons that aren't entirely moronic it's too bad that better informed folks aren't trying a little harder to imagine what they might be used for.
- snek_case 5y ago
  Camo netting support seems like a probable explanation. This video makes it look like the US does something similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kY4Xygh9DQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kY4Xygh9DQ
  - treeman79 5y ago
    There’s an excellent YouTube video that I can’t find because it keeps thinking I want tank top t-shirts. Anyway anti-tank rounds have two levels to them the first is a charge that explodes to weaken the armor and the second one goes through that to penetrate. If the first part explodes prematurely in theory it will have a lot less penetrating force.
  - tyingq 5y ago
    That's an Oshkosh M-ATV, and if it has camo netting on top, it's a much lighter/simpler structure than the big cage on the pictured tank. There are some versions of the Oshkosh with light armor on top, but just regular old armor plate...probably for overhead snipers.
- orbifold 5y ago
  It is almost as if most of western media just actively engages in propaganda, or reporting "objectively" on propaganda by citing "cope cages" ...
mauvehaus 5y ago
This is improvised slat armor[0]. It is intended as defense against projectiles that use shaped charges[1] which are most effective when detonated at a designed distance from the target. The slat armor is meant to detonate them at a larger than optimal distance. It is not expected to defend against all weapons, rather it's part of defense in depth. Whether it's effective against shaped charge projectiles will largely depend on the construction and spacing of the slats. To dismiss it outright displays a pretty shocking level of ignorance or agenda on the part of TFA. Edited to add: I read T-entire-FA via the archive link up-thread. There is meaningful discussion of slat armor in it. I remain convinced that there's room in the taster portion of the article to suggest that the improvised armor isn't a purely ignorant addition to the tanks. I would further suspect that hinting at substantive analysis below the fold stands to sell more subscriptions to The Economist than what they've included, which is, at best, one-sided. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slat_armor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slat_armor [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge
- madaxe_again 5y ago
  Did you read TFA? It talks about all of that.
  - mauvehaus 5y ago
    I read the part that was viewable without a subscription, which we can fairly safely guess is all that most people will read. I realize that they have limited space for content in the "free" part of the article, but to leave it as one-sided as that doesn't give me a lot of faith that the rest of the reporting is any more substantive.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  This. We called them "rpg cages" in Afghanistan. It causes the explosively formed penetrator to detonate prematurely.
nabla9 5y ago
Tanks with cages come from the southern districts. They are not intended against Javelins or NLAW. They are against UAV launched weapons and loitering munitions like Harop used in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and they probably work against those. Slat armor is effective against HEAT rounds when the slat is the right size and right distance (slat must be hit before the warhead explodes). Those cages are too low for Javelins and probably against NLAW (top attack)
tablespoon 5y ago
> Slat and bar add-on armours are a lighter and cheaper way to counter RPGs, though even if used correctly they are, literally, hit or miss protection. The spacing of the bars or slats is crucial. If a rocket hits a bar it makes little difference, for its warhead will detonate anyway. But if it gets trapped between bars it will probably be damaged in a way which means that the signal from the nose-mounted fuse cannot reach the detonator. Is that correct? I thought the idea was the slats were supposed to trigger the warhead to detonate, but at an unexpected distance where it couldn't defeat the armor.
Markoff 5y ago
priort reading the article my first idea was it's base for camouflage netting to hide the shape of the tank and mask it/soldiers, it's odd to me it's not mentioned in the article at all
uberman 5y ago
Perhaps it is as simple as a way to keep heads out with out being pelted with rocks by angry civies or a way to attach sun/rain cover. I imagine that it gets hot and stinky inside on long trips.
Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
IANAL, but I think this might be infringing on US patent 9280157B2.
motohagiography 5y ago
I would be very surprised if they were useless. Even if they were just racks for hanging chaff that disrupted FLIR targeting scopes, repelling hand thrown molotov cocktails, or as the article states, bouncing drone dropped IEDs and RPGs, and preventing blocks of rubble from covering the hatch when it pushed down walls and buildings, the cost/benefit of such a hack seems plausible. A lot of our western messaging about the invasion is not very powerful and "cope cages," and "useless," are weak and backbiting. Snide doesn't win, it's a loser attitude, and the staff at The Economist above all should understand this. It was the conceit that cost them their empire, I don't see how they should expect it will win any more wars.
- RobertMiller 5y ago
  > Snide doesn't win Javelins do. > it's a losers attitude Losing their lives is what those Russian tankers are doing. People laughing at dead Russian tankers on the internet aren't losing much of anything, except maybe their innocence.
  - lm28469 5y ago
    > aren't losing much of anything, except maybe their innocence. I'd say they're, and we're, losing much more than that, the current trend is kind of worrying, nothing better than 12 years old reddit users calling for the death of Russian soldiers and very often even Russian civilians. It's funny how little time it takes to go from "never again" to "lmao kill them all" and the whole war porn surrounding the conflict, which seems unquestioned, is equally worrying. People, including kids, are sharing almost real time pictures and videos of charred and shredded bodies while cheering as if they were watching a soccer game
    - RobertMiller 5y ago
      That's what I mean by losing their innocence. This war (probably not unlike any other war) is desensitizing a ton of people to violence. The ramifications of this will be felt for generations. But this sort of harm needs to be considered in the context of all the other harm being done by the war. Reddit teenagers laughing at the charred corpses of conscripts their own age is saddening, but the people who are actually doing the dying are losing much more than just their innocence and dignity. The real losers are those that are dead, maimed, had their country invaded, etc.
cmyr 5y ago
Really enjoyed this article on « statistical armor » (of which this is presumably an example) https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/statistical-armour https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/statistical-armour
chmod775 5y ago
If they're actually armor, this is the idea: https://streamable.com/8y9z00 https://streamable.com/8y9z00 Two caveats though: - This kind of armor is pretty much useless against modern weapons. - They may not be intended as armor at all, but serve another purpose.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
If it can disrupt when anti-tank missiles pre-fire their molten metal arm or piercer, then it can serve its purpose.
chernevik 5y ago
It's amazing/depressing how much ingenuity goes into killing people. It reminds me of this: "Ask a Soviet engineer to design a pair of shoes and he'll come up with something that looks like the boxes that the shoes came in; ask him to make something that will massacre Germans, and he turns into Thomas Fucking Edison." -- "Cryptonomicon", Neal Stephenson
CodeGlitch 5y ago
Probably to stop the NLAWs, watch how the rocket explodes above the tank here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hupsUq-fzq8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hupsUq-fzq8

65 points by acqbu 5y ago

katcher 5y ago

Paywalled

acqbu 5y ago
sorry, please try this: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/russian-tanks-in-ukraine-are-sprouting-cages/21808191 https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/science-an...

HstryrsrBttn 5y ago

derbOac 5y ago

There was discussion of this fairly early on in the invasion and the consensus from experienced military seemed to be they were totally useless.

tyingq 5y ago

The picture shows an empty cage with thin bars, far apart. You would want sandbags or steel plating on the cage, so that it works properly. The idea is that it reduces the effectiveness of two stage anti-tank weapons. Where the weapon first has a sacrificial payload that gets any reactive armor to explode...then the real payload to penetrate the normal armor. The cage is supposed to get the first, sacrificial, payload to explode without setting off the reactive armor. They do supposedly work (at least some reduced effectiveness of the weapon, in some way) if they are done right. That is, that they are wide enough to cover the incoming attack angle of the anti-tank weapon...and dense enough to keep the reactive armor from going off on the first payload.

arethuza 5y ago
Do they have reactive armour on the top of the turrets?
- tyingq 5y ago
  The picture appears to be a T-90, and yes, it does have reactive armor on the top.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - arethuza 5y ago
    From a search of top views of T-90s it looks like they do have some panels of reactive armour on top of the turret - but there are a lot of areas (sensors, hatches) that don't seem to be covered.
    - tyingq 5y ago
      There's lots of different types, even two distinctly different turrets, etc.
NelsonMinar 5y ago
Did you read the part of the article about weight concerns?
- tyingq 5y ago
  It's paywalled for me, but the picture seems to show the cage is made from pretty thin stock, so I'm not sure how useful it is in it's current state. Zoom in on it: https://www.economist.com/img/b/1280/720/90/sites/default/files/images/2022/03/articles/main/20220319_stp501.jpg https://www.economist.com/img/b/1280/720/90/sites/default/fi...
_kbh_ 5y ago
The reactive armour and cope cages cannot be helping too much, the Russians have lost 214 tanks so far in barely 3 weeks, of which 16 where T-90's, and this is only visually so the actual number is likely much higher. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-docum...
- tyingq 5y ago
  Well, yes, but a cage with thin bars spaced far apart is perhaps part of the problem. And the cages seem to be appearing now.
pedroma 5y ago
I also expect the purpose is to act as spaced armor. Though I don't know how much spaced armor helps against things like Javelin missiles, but anything to slightly change the angle of the projectile should help increase effective armor thickness.
- RobertMiller 5y ago
  It's not really the same thing as spaced armor. The hope with statistical slat armor is that the tip of an RPG, where the detonator is, passes between the slats but the rest of the wider warhead behind that detonator is destroyed by the slats, which are too narrow for the warhead to thread through. The aim is to destroy the shaped charge warhead before the detonator has a chance to set it off; it only works some of the time, hence 'statistical'. It doesn't do much good against javelins, TOWs, improvised EFPs, etc. These sort of weapons aren't impact fused, the slat armor never has a chance to disable these warheads before they go off and the slats themselves won't do much to stop or deflect the penetrating jet created by the detonation of such warheads.

daedlanth 5y ago

That's not first stage armor, roflmao. These are molotov guards. Most of the bottles will bounce off this and break open elsewhere and keep the upper crew hatch clear of fire.

kasey_junk 5y ago
If that is the goal why would you use such wide cable routes? Something like chickenwire would seem to accomplish the same goal much better and its a widely available material.
- nine_k 5y ago
  Will it last log enough?
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  That assumes you have time to stop at home depot and the foresight to plan what your building. I imagine many crews grab whatever they can find when they stop for the night or while refueling. And being away from your tank, in enemy territory (at night?) is usually minimised.
merpkz 5y ago
why would a glass bottle bounce off a steel frame? imho it would shatter on impact and spill all over and underneath it? we need Mythbusters set on this one.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  Also, why would you protect the turret from a molotov cocktail and not the more vulnerable parts to this type of weapons: air admission & exhaust…
  - arethuza 5y ago
    I think if I was in a tank I'd be most worried about a molotov cocktail going into an open hatch.

oneoff786 5y ago

> They have indeed been mockingly dubbed by Western analysts as “emotional support armour” or “cope cages”. That got a chuckle from me It looks like these things would impair entry/exit. Are there other ways to enter a tank? Walking dead S1E1 leads me to believe you can get in through the bottom?

RealityVoid 5y ago
I credit the origin of the name mostly to /r/noncredibledefense - It's a whole community pride thing over there.
- 0cVlTeIATBs 5y ago
  There are posts on 4chan from Feb 20th. Anything that early in that sub?
  - RobertMiller 5y ago
    'Cope' has been a meme word on 4chan for a while now (along with 'seethe' and another that I won't repeat.) I believe 'cope cage' originally came from 4chan's /k/. 4chan culture bleeds out into the rest of the internet though, so it's hard to say for sure.
  - RealityVoid 5y ago
    Hmm, i think you are right. That is where I first encountered it though. This is the first instance I could see in the subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/t2tgnw/comment/hyo3xz1/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/t2tgnw/...
throwanem 5y ago
I don't know the show, but I believe it's set in the US, and the last American tank I know of with a belly hatch was the M60 that left frontline service a few years after I was born. Abrams don't have them, and after recent decades' experiences with IEDs and development of hull designs to reduce or defeat their effects, I suspect it'll likely be a while before they turn up again.

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.ph/EeVvK https://archive.ph/EeVvK

unethical_ban 5y ago

>They have indeed been mockingly dubbed by Western analysts as “emotional support armour” or “cope cages”. Really, Economist? I know they are a blend of news and perspective, but this is cheap and uninformed. @daedlanth here mentions it is a Molotov deflector, and the Economist has a "related story" on that very page about breweries in Ukraine making Molotovs! Goodness.

RobertMiller 5y ago
The Economist is not misinformed. Those western analysts might be misinformed, but the Economist isn't. The cages are being called cope cages. Incidental to that, I'm not so sure the analyists are actually wrong. Most of the cope cages look a lot like statistical slat armor to me; e.g. designed to disable AT shaped charges, but utterly ineffective at stopping burning petrol from covering the top of the turret. Molotovs break open on these slats, they don't bounce off. Furthermore, at least some of the cope cages have been augmented with sandbags piled up on top. If they were meant to shield the tank and crew from burning petrol, they'd get more mileage out of sheet metal than sandbags. If anything, these cope cages turn into BBQ grills for Russian tankers trying to bail out.
- RealityVoid 5y ago
  Not to mention so far most causes of Russian armor loss was not caused by motolovs but by actual AT weaponry. Not one case of Molotov damaged tank that I am aware of. Related to statistical armor, it only woks on RPG fired and I picked off of some subreddit the following article that explains how it is supposed to work: https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/statistical-armour https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/statistical-armour
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  I'm not saying they aren't being called "cope cages", I'm saying it sounds, eh, sophomoric to put that in the leading paragraphs of an article.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

phtrivier 5y ago

> The last possibility, then, is that the gibes about the cages being emotional support armour are actually correct, and that they have been added simply to improve morale by convincing the troops inside that they are safe. As Dr Benham-Crosswell notes, soldiers often take the view that every little helps. Once again, the general point of the article is "Russian army is soooo imcompetent, of course Putin is going to loose". I would not mind reading that into a cheap "troop-morale-boosting" stand-up act. However, even though I understand the Economist stands against pretty much everything Putin stands for - shouldn't we expect a little less blatant wishfull thinking and propaganda ? As an alternative, what would a _relevant_ source for info about the current warfare (a decent primer on who has what weapons, what they can do, etc...) be ? One that would aknowledge that _maybe_, the Russian army is not entirely made of clowns ?

dncornholio 5y ago
The war won't be won on the battlefield, it will be won by all the multinationals leaving the country. For the best context, look up Russians on social media and see what is going on inside. I've never been in favour of multinationals and subscription based services, but it seems these are what really are making the change now. Software like AutoCAD, Photoshop, etc etc, all stopped working in the last 48h. Russians begin to wonder why the whole world is against them. NAVO Sanctions alone couldn't do that. The Russian media jokes that they don't need western companies suddenly all stopped. It's like COVID. Russians only joked COVID won't reach them because vodka, but when the first case hit Moscow, all the jokes stopped. Same happening now. Companies leaving Russia seemed to hit hard on the people.
- phtrivier 5y ago
  > Software like AutoCAD, Photoshop, etc etc, all stopped working in the last 48h. Do you have a source for that ? Unless those apps are now systematically "phoning home" and the servers are setup to refuse requests from Russia, it's not obvious how they would "stop working".
kozikow 5y ago
There is a lot of clownery: - They destroyed their own secret comms system by accident, used civilian phones and general was killed based on the geolocation from the call. Amount of high rank leadershipo KIA would be embarassing even if they fought on-paper much stronger opponent than Ukraine opponent. Even visually confirmed losses from satellite imagery or 1/3 of reported losses by Ukraine is very embarrassing. - With the advantage in air they have not being able to establish air superiority is a clownery of it's own. Photos of planes with civilian GPS taped in. Stingers shouldn't be so effective against planes. - Many photos of Russian soldiers (even photos released by Russians) with cheap walkie takies from aliexpress that are easily jammed - Lots of photos of expensive equipment that got abandoned without standard procedure of sabotaging it - Supposedly elite units (especially VDV) getting massacred by barely trained territorial groups There are good reasons for clownery: Massive corruption. Nepotism. Army is intentionally crippled to not present threat to Putin. They never fought a real war. Nukes, submarines and navy are a huge resource drain. They didn't prepare for what happened. Outdated doctrine not adapted to modern war.

rr808 5y ago

A common problem I've seen with Russian tanks is that they're supposed to be protected by soldiers on the ground. Tanks are vulnerable as we've seen. They aren't supposed to be driven in by themselves, infantry is supposed to go in first and check there is no threat before the tanks arrive. Of course this feels more risky.

mauvehaus 5y ago
This is pretty much all tanks, as I understand it. Tanks have very limited situational awareness for obvious reasons, and similarly limited means to engage nearby threats.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  They've improved leaps and bounds in the last 20yr (360deg cameras, infrared, automated ATGM detection/countermeasures) but yeah, it's still fundamentally a box without windows.
justin66 5y ago
That’s not just Russian tanks. You’re right about the reasons. Tanks without infantry support are highly vulnerable to enemy infantry with antitank weapons, particularly in an environment where the enemy infantry has a lot of cover and concealment to operate from.

msandford 5y ago

It's just incredible how people who are seeing pictures and lack the imagination to understand what purpose they serve then assume it must be no real purpose and that the folks who are doing it are just absolute morons. Perhaps it's not there for when you're out and about and actively being seen by the enemy. Perhaps it's there for when you're hiding in the woods and you want to hold a tarp off of the top of your tank so that you can get in and out easily. Perhaps it's there to hold up camo netting for hiding the tank better while stopped in the woods. Perhaps the mesh on top is to hold up branches that you cut down to try and better hide your tank while you're in the woods, not moving. I'm not saying that any of these reasons are THE reason. I'm suggesting that if some idiot on the internet (me) can come up with some reasons that aren't entirely moronic it's too bad that better informed folks aren't trying a little harder to imagine what they might be used for.

snek_case 5y ago
Camo netting support seems like a probable explanation. This video makes it look like the US does something similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kY4Xygh9DQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kY4Xygh9DQ
- treeman79 5y ago
  There’s an excellent YouTube video that I can’t find because it keeps thinking I want tank top t-shirts. Anyway anti-tank rounds have two levels to them the first is a charge that explodes to weaken the armor and the second one goes through that to penetrate. If the first part explodes prematurely in theory it will have a lot less penetrating force.
- tyingq 5y ago
  That's an Oshkosh M-ATV, and if it has camo netting on top, it's a much lighter/simpler structure than the big cage on the pictured tank. There are some versions of the Oshkosh with light armor on top, but just regular old armor plate...probably for overhead snipers.
orbifold 5y ago
It is almost as if most of western media just actively engages in propaganda, or reporting "objectively" on propaganda by citing "cope cages" ...

mauvehaus 5y ago

This is improvised slat armor[0]. It is intended as defense against projectiles that use shaped charges[1] which are most effective when detonated at a designed distance from the target. The slat armor is meant to detonate them at a larger than optimal distance. It is not expected to defend against all weapons, rather it's part of defense in depth. Whether it's effective against shaped charge projectiles will largely depend on the construction and spacing of the slats. To dismiss it outright displays a pretty shocking level of ignorance or agenda on the part of TFA. Edited to add: I read T-entire-FA via the archive link up-thread. There is meaningful discussion of slat armor in it. I remain convinced that there's room in the taster portion of the article to suggest that the improvised armor isn't a purely ignorant addition to the tanks. I would further suspect that hinting at substantive analysis below the fold stands to sell more subscriptions to The Economist than what they've included, which is, at best, one-sided. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slat_armor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slat_armor [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge

madaxe_again 5y ago
Did you read TFA? It talks about all of that.
- mauvehaus 5y ago
  I read the part that was viewable without a subscription, which we can fairly safely guess is all that most people will read. I realize that they have limited space for content in the "free" part of the article, but to leave it as one-sided as that doesn't give me a lot of faith that the rest of the reporting is any more substantive.
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2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
This. We called them "rpg cages" in Afghanistan. It causes the explosively formed penetrator to detonate prematurely.

nabla9 5y ago

Tanks with cages come from the southern districts. They are not intended against Javelins or NLAW. They are against UAV launched weapons and loitering munitions like Harop used in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and they probably work against those. Slat armor is effective against HEAT rounds when the slat is the right size and right distance (slat must be hit before the warhead explodes). Those cages are too low for Javelins and probably against NLAW (top attack)

tablespoon 5y ago

> Slat and bar add-on armours are a lighter and cheaper way to counter RPGs, though even if used correctly they are, literally, hit or miss protection. The spacing of the bars or slats is crucial. If a rocket hits a bar it makes little difference, for its warhead will detonate anyway. But if it gets trapped between bars it will probably be damaged in a way which means that the signal from the nose-mounted fuse cannot reach the detonator. Is that correct? I thought the idea was the slats were supposed to trigger the warhead to detonate, but at an unexpected distance where it couldn't defeat the armor.

Markoff 5y ago

priort reading the article my first idea was it's base for camouflage netting to hide the shape of the tank and mask it/soldiers, it's odd to me it's not mentioned in the article at all

uberman 5y ago

Perhaps it is as simple as a way to keep heads out with out being pelted with rocks by angry civies or a way to attach sun/rain cover. I imagine that it gets hot and stinky inside on long trips.

Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago

IANAL, but I think this might be infringing on US patent 9280157B2.

motohagiography 5y ago

I would be very surprised if they were useless. Even if they were just racks for hanging chaff that disrupted FLIR targeting scopes, repelling hand thrown molotov cocktails, or as the article states, bouncing drone dropped IEDs and RPGs, and preventing blocks of rubble from covering the hatch when it pushed down walls and buildings, the cost/benefit of such a hack seems plausible. A lot of our western messaging about the invasion is not very powerful and "cope cages," and "useless," are weak and backbiting. Snide doesn't win, it's a loser attitude, and the staff at The Economist above all should understand this. It was the conceit that cost them their empire, I don't see how they should expect it will win any more wars.

RobertMiller 5y ago
> Snide doesn't win Javelins do. > it's a losers attitude Losing their lives is what those Russian tankers are doing. People laughing at dead Russian tankers on the internet aren't losing much of anything, except maybe their innocence.
- lm28469 5y ago
  > aren't losing much of anything, except maybe their innocence. I'd say they're, and we're, losing much more than that, the current trend is kind of worrying, nothing better than 12 years old reddit users calling for the death of Russian soldiers and very often even Russian civilians. It's funny how little time it takes to go from "never again" to "lmao kill them all" and the whole war porn surrounding the conflict, which seems unquestioned, is equally worrying. People, including kids, are sharing almost real time pictures and videos of charred and shredded bodies while cheering as if they were watching a soccer game
  - RobertMiller 5y ago
    That's what I mean by losing their innocence. This war (probably not unlike any other war) is desensitizing a ton of people to violence. The ramifications of this will be felt for generations. But this sort of harm needs to be considered in the context of all the other harm being done by the war. Reddit teenagers laughing at the charred corpses of conscripts their own age is saddening, but the people who are actually doing the dying are losing much more than just their innocence and dignity. The real losers are those that are dead, maimed, had their country invaded, etc.

cmyr 5y ago

Really enjoyed this article on « statistical armor » (of which this is presumably an example) https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/statistical-armour https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/statistical-armour

chmod775 5y ago

If they're actually armor, this is the idea: https://streamable.com/8y9z00 https://streamable.com/8y9z00 Two caveats though: - This kind of armor is pretty much useless against modern weapons. - They may not be intended as armor at all, but serve another purpose.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

If it can disrupt when anti-tank missiles pre-fire their molten metal arm or piercer, then it can serve its purpose.

chernevik 5y ago

It's amazing/depressing how much ingenuity goes into killing people. It reminds me of this: "Ask a Soviet engineer to design a pair of shoes and he'll come up with something that looks like the boxes that the shoes came in; ask him to make something that will massacre Germans, and he turns into Thomas Fucking Edison." -- "Cryptonomicon", Neal Stephenson

CodeGlitch 5y ago

Probably to stop the NLAWs, watch how the rocket explodes above the tank here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hupsUq-fzq8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hupsUq-fzq8