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>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 a

>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.
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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.

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