170 ms·

Primer: Statistical Armour

178 points by germinalphrase 5y ago

george_ciobanu 5y ago
Super helpful and well documented article, thank you!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
chrisseaton 5y ago
So why are the Russians using the very specific small and flat turret-mounted type 'Javelin' cages? The article says they're not-designed for that and would be ineffective anyway and of course RPG has no top-attack (unless you're firing from a building, which as we've seen is tricky to get it to arm in time)... so why are they doing it?
- Goronmon 5y ago
  One easy answer is that something being ineffective doesn't mean people won't try it anyways.
  - blamazon 5y ago
    In the /r/NonCredibleDefense subreddit, it's been called the "cope cage" among other similar mocking terms. https://old.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/t9i7q2/cope_cage_is_becoming_credible_terminology_now_we/ https://old.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/t9i7q2/...
    - ckozlowski 5y ago
      I'll submit another: TheChieftan on YouTube has referred to it as "emotional support armor". He posted a good video on his views (and cautions!) on some of this subject matter to date: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9pVEP0AzZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9pVEP0AzZ4
- dragontamer 5y ago
  You can't stop a Javelin. Its too sophisticated. If a Javelin is launched your tank is dead. > and of course RPG has no top-attack (unless you're firing from a building, which as we've seen is tricky to get it to arm in time) These tanks were planning to assault Kyiv. The assumption was that cheaper RPGs (such as the AT4) would be used against these tanks. The AT4 isn't designed to be used vs main-battle-tanks (AT4 has penetration of 450mm), the frontal-armor is too thick (500mm to 700mm effective frontal armor, depending on the tank, depending on the angle the attack hits from... Largely due to geometry, not physical thickness). But the "cope-cage" might be strong enough to deflect an attack against the turret (especially if the AT4 is "top down", because it was fired from an urban building). There's many, many, many weapons of war. There are many different types of "anti-armor" weapons. The Russians also know that the turret has the critical weakpoint of the tank: the autoloader. If the autoloader is hit, the entire tank's munitions blow up simultaneously (aka: cooks off), and everyone inside the tank dies. Protecting the turret with a "cope cage" (even if ineffective vs Javelins) to try and mitigate damage from other RPGs (AT4, RPG7, Panzerfaust 3) just makes sense. ---------- Javelins are the most expensive man-portable anti-tank weapon. There's relatively few of them (yes, I know USA sent thousands of Javelins, but we also sent far more simpler anti-tank weapons as well). Javelins are $170,000 per shot, and the AT4 is $1500. The other man-portable weapon discussed, NLAWs, are like $40,000, much cheaper than a Javelin but still an incredibly sophisticated and expensive weapon. Media ignores the cheap stuff (AT4, RPG7) because they're not really interesting. But those are probably the workhorses and the more common weapon in the battlefield.
  - frickinLasers 5y ago
    nitpick--The AT4 is a recoil-less round with the propelling charge in the launch tube--not a Rocket-Propelled Grenade. I imaging firing one from inside a building would be a regrettable decision.
    - chipsa 5y ago
      Nit: RPG didn't stand for rocket propelled grenade. It's a Russian acronym: Ruchnoy Protivotankovy Granatomyot.
  - 5y ago
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  Those aren't javelin cages, they're called "cope cages"[1], because they're just a psychological coping mechanism for the troops inside, but offer no protection against modern smart munitions like NLAW or Javelin. They're a relic since Russia's war in Chechnya where those cages could protect against ancient RPGs fired from buildings in narrow city streets. [1] https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/324/004/043.png https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/324/004/043...
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > They're a relic since Russia's war in Chechnya where those cages could protect against RPGs fired from buildings in narrow city streets. USA sent IIRC 3x as many "dumb" RPGs (the AT4) as Javelins, assuming that the Ukrainians would be fighting in narrow city streets. Turned out that urban warfare didn't really happen much. But... I think everyone's plan was for urban combat, and then everybody turned out to be wrong. On the USA side, not a big deal, we sent the wrong mix of weapons but we're fixing that with lend-lease / additional aid packages.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      Dumb RPGs are still very useful. Not every target is an armoured tank. An old RPG aimed at a fuel truck is very effective.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        It's more of a range thing. Hitting an enemy fuel truck from 5000m away is a lot safer than running up and shooting it at 200m. 200m shots are common in a city, because cover / concealment is everywhere. Sure, there are still trees and hills to hide in the countryside, but having the option for super long range really helps.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
- baud147258 5y ago
  the same author did another article on that subject, btw: https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/russian-turret-cages https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/russian-turret-cages
- vpribish 5y ago
  in urban environments an RPG could definitely be coming down from above.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    As I said - it's tricky to get them to arm in time. We've seen that problem in practice in videos from Ukraine.
Decabytes 5y ago
It's clear that the writer is very passionate about this topic. I didn't realize that the idea was for the RPG to get stuck in the bar. I always though it was so the explosion was outside of the vehicle. This article doesn't paint a particularly good picture for the armor. Which makes me believe that the person who came up with this got a lot of good money, but the value for the soldiers isn't there.
- burnished 5y ago
  How did you come to that conclusion?
  - meatmanek 5y ago
    Indeed. The author of the article came to the opposite conclusion: > Is bar armour worth it? It depends, but broadly yes, it is cheap, simple, and adds a layer of increased protection against a common and widely proliferated threat that would otherwise be very likely to do significant damage to a vehicle, particularly lighter classes of vehicle like protected patrol and utility vehicles (MRAPs in old money) that are vastly overmatched by the threat.
  - laichzeit0 5y ago
    > The reality of this myth is actually more significant - detonating the warhead on the bars can be at least as bad as if it had hit the defended vehicle and, in some cases, actually a worse result for the defended vehicle. Probably from this paragraph. It confused me as well. Throughout the whole article he’s building a case for how bad the armour is, if not worse than no slat armour, then concludes the article with “well broadly, it’s probably still better”.
    - burnished 5y ago
      Aha, I think I can see how that would be confusing. My interpretation was that it had a small chance of making a bad event worse - but I assumed a regular hit would usually be lethal anyway, and you cant kill some one more dead, so whatever probability of deflection they got out of it was pretty 'free'. I think he was going into extra detail on how the weapon performed to dispel rumours, and perhaps inadvertently created one (now some people are convinced this armor is somehow out there to line a fat cats pocket!
LambdaTrain 5y ago
Multiplying the saved cost by probability of a defeat (which is ineffective mentioned by writer) does not seem bad considering the grid is low-cost design. But placing timer/accelerator in RPG as a backup plan for fusing in case the warhead is shortcircuited also seems low-cost. I must be missing something here.
- mrguyorama 5y ago
  Good luck retrofitting your extra fusing system into thousands and thousands of RPG-7s.
h2odragon 5y ago
Says a lot that the folks employed to be inside the tanks are reaching out for enhanced armor however they can.
nomilk 5y ago
> Hopefully the effect is becoming obvious - by impacting the statistical armour and detonating at that point, the armour has given the RPG a free c.300+ mm of free standoff extension. The armour just amplified the threat capability by a good 20%, making life worse for you inside that vehicle. For an APC with ~5cm of armour, pretty much any garden variety shaped charge will penetrate it with ease. If the chance of penetration is already 100% it doesn't matter if the charge is 20% stronger. But having the cage at least gives a small chance of stopping the charge from ever detonating. Different story with tanks though, where the extra 20% could mean the difference between a badly damaged hull and the complete destruction of both tank and crew.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  > Different story with tanks though, where the extra 20% could mean the difference between a badly damaged hull and the complete destruction of both tank and crew. This kind of additional armor is usually on the rear, which is much less protected. In fact it wouldn't make sense to put them in front of a piece of armor thick enough to survive and RPG shot by itself. So in practice this extra 20% would never change anything?
picture 5y ago
I'm quite interested about military technology like this, are there any good books or resources HN would recommend to learn more about anything from engineering to tactics?
- nomilk 5y ago
  Military History Visualised is great: https://www.youtube.com/c/MilitaryHistory/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/MilitaryHistory/videos These two playlists by Ryan McBeth (a SWE, former anti-tank infantryman) are very interesting: Military equipment, tactics and strategy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2s0Szx-kVs&list=PLt670_P7pOGmLWZG78JlM-rG2ZrpPziOy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2s0Szx-kVs&list=PLt670_P7pO... 40 short Q&A videos about Ukraine : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8mJ7hG9xM8&list=PLt670_P7pOGmGLeg_0lknMUNjAyB-uxgX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8mJ7hG9xM8&list=PLt670_P7pO...
- openasocket 5y ago
  In addition to military history visualized (mentioned by another commenter), I recommend: * The Chieftain: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChieftainsHatch https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChieftainsHatch . He has a series on the development of Armored doctrine for various nations prior to WW2 which is a very interesting dive into what military doctrine is and how it is formed. * Battle Order https://www.youtube.com/c/BattleOrder https://www.youtube.com/c/BattleOrder covers how troops are organized and divided into squads/platoons/companies/battalions/etc in various countries and at various times. * If you are interested in World War 2, the World War 2 in real time series on YouTube is also fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo . * For getting the perspective of national security experts dealing with current events, I would take a look at https://warontherocks.com https://warontherocks.com , which has a mix of articles and associated podcasts. The war on the rocks podcast has been doing weekly updates on the state of the war in Ukraine with Michael Kofman, director for the Russia Studies Program at CNA. I've found those very informative. * Arms Control Wonk (https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/ https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/ ) the blog and podcast are interesting for looking at the military from the point of view of strategic stability. * https://acoup.blog/ https://acoup.blog/ is run by a professor of military history. He covers a variety of topics; he does several series analyzing the historical realism of video games and movies for example. But he also discusses some of the fundamentals of military theory, and tends to focus a lot on what the popular imagination gets right and wrong about the military and warfare throughout the ages. * There are think tanks like the RAND corporation, CSIS, and CNA that publish papers on a variety of topics in military theory and policy. With a little effort, a lot of them are fairly readable to the layman * For the deepest dive, the US Army field manuals are publicly available if you search around. Skimming through them gave me a much better understanding of how an officer goes about planning an attack, preparing a defense, setting up an ambush, etc.
sorokod 5y ago
Given the apparent vulnerability of MBTs (main battle tanks) as demonstrated in Ukraine to cheap-ish weapons, is this the end of the road for MBTs?
- ceeplusplus 5y ago
  I'm guessing we're going to see more active protection [1] that tries to detonate incoming projectiles at a distance to nullify the effectiveness of shaped charges. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKeuVHKc92U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKeuVHKc92U
  - picture 5y ago
    Good lord.. While I know about existence of APS especially on Merkava tanks, this video really shows how modern warfare can brush right up against science fiction. We're able to detect an incoming round and automatically kill it with a directed explosion, all faster than you can blink. What, are we going to see munitions that has submunitions of its own to counter the countermeasure next? (That might be a reasonable development actually) Either way I'm fortunate that these things aren't used around me, and I'm not in any danger. I would love to one day see those C-beams glitter, as a spectator in safety
    - Someone 5y ago
      > Either way I'm fortunate that these things aren't used around me, and I'm not in any danger. At the 2m20s mark, they claim this leaves personnel 10m away unharmed. So, it seems you can watch from quite nearby. You’d have to avoid being hit by the incoming stuff, though, and I guess wearing hearing protection is strongly advised, too. As to countermeasures, I would guess this doesn’t work well against kinetic energy projectiles that don’t explode but depend on mass and velocity to do damage. Or would it?
- cwmma 5y ago
  Not really, everybody has known that tanks on their own, unsupported by infantry are incredibly vulnerable to anti-tank missiles since, at least the Yom Kippur War (50 years ago) probably longer. The Russians for various reasons didn't and the results were predictable. So no MBTs aren't obsolete they just are very easy to break if you use them wrong. Also there are newer active protection systems that can defeat missiles like the ones being used, the Russian tanks in the invasion either don't have them or don't have the ones that can detect threats from above.
nosianu 5y ago
I thanked my good star that when I was drafted into the German army (1991, freshly reunified) I got to be a Leopard 1A5 electronicd and weapons systems mechanic (EloWaMech), instead of having to fight in one. Closer on topic, that tank had an additional no-holes layer of armor in front of the actual armored turret mostly on the two sides, and in the back with much more distance. Here is a model that nevertheless shows it pretty well: https://www.super-hobby.at/zdjecia/0/7/3/35478_rev03320-4.jpg https://www.super-hobby.at/zdjecia/0/7/3/35478_rev03320-4.jp... If "detonate at a distance" does not work I wonder what the function of that kind of add-on armor was, on the sides specifically? It should have worked fine against RPG from the back because as you can see it extended quite a bit there, creating external storage space and probably providing ample room that an RPG detonating there would not have done anything to the main unit. But on the sides it was just a few centimeters of space between the additional armor layer and the main armor. I do remember it was really good steel. We had to replace one of those armor plates, and the new ones had the holes slightly different than the tank we were working on. Getting a new hole drilled into the armor plate proved to be impossible with the drilling tools we had.
- mrguyorama 5y ago
  >If "detonate at a distance" does not work I wonder what the function of that kind of add-on armor was, on the sides specifically? It depends on the shell/threat you expect to come at you. I don't know if "capped" armor piercing shells were still a concept when those tanks were built. In that case, an initial, small amount of spaced armor is designed to "decap" the shell, because the shell under the cap has significantly less armor penetrating capability.
nonrandomstring 5y ago
Well written. Sad how misunderstanding the function of cage armour makes the AT warheads more effective. Who'd want to be in a tank? An armour guy told me they call them "iron coffins". A bit off-topic, but wrt statistical defences and tanks - I read an old Home Guard manual about how to stop a tank column using dinner plates. You need a few anti-tank mines too, which look similar. One of every 200 dinner plates covered with dirt is an actual AT mine. Infantry sweepers have to check each one. Another in every 200 dinner plates is booby trapped with an AP device. Infantry want to check each one really slowly and carefully.
jacobn 5y ago
I'm wondering why tank armor is (appears to be) basically flat, when the AT warheads appear to be based on creating that super-heated jet, optimized for striking a flat surface? Why not stack a few layers of corrugated steel/ceramic plates to try to split the jet apart? Basic theory would be to present the projectile with a surface that has drastically different amounts of resistance across the front of the projectile, in the hope of destabilizing it & the jet it creates. I guess it would make the armor quite thick, but with varying density/composition it may not end up that much heavier? (And maybe it just wouldn't work ;)
- jiggawatts 5y ago
  You basically invented composite armour, which is a thing already, and actually somewhat outdated. The problem is that at such high velocities, during the impact everything acts like a fluid. Tensile strength and shape is almost irrelevant. You can think of the atoms in the armour not as a solid but as individual particles just hanging in space. Their mass — and hence inertia — is more important than anything else! Modern armour design is about trying to have moving components that present “fresh” volume/mass to increase the effective thickness. Either via rubber layers that can distort, moving steel plates, or explosive reactive armour that do the same thing but faster.
- chipsa 5y ago
  Not super heated jet. It's still roughly room temperature. It's being moved fast enough that it acts like a fluid more than a solid.
Terry_Roll 5y ago
Its a metal version of cricket nets!
gfd 5y ago
> Statistical armour is exclusively for defeat of shaped charge munitions using a double-skinned nose as conductive path for a piezoelectric-based fuzing system. Is there a reason for this to be a common design for RPGs? If it turns out everyone is using statistical armor, shouldn't RPG designers "catch up" by redesigning them to trigger when any part of the tip is collapsed, instead of just the tip, thus defeating this entire category of defense?
- chipsa 5y ago
  A piezo based fuse in the nose is an easy way to construct the fuse. It's also easy to construct a safety for it: stick a cap to protect the piezo from getting hit. That said, the safety cap doesn't help if you accidentally trip and fall after taking the cap off. Most western single use AT designs use a different safety that deactivates on firing.
greedo 5y ago
The thing that is really dooming Russian armor in Ukraine isn't really the ATGMs and RPGs being deployed, it's the complete lack of functional thermal gear. Other than IR spotlights on most of the tanks I've seen, they're lacking in the high quality thermal sights found on most Western tanks and IFVs. If they use the IR spotlight, it's like shining a flashlight in a dark room. Everyone knows exactly where you are... This means two things. First the UA owns the night to a large extent. This gives their SOF and TDF troops the ability to hunt the Russian vehicles at night and survive the encounters. It also helps them during the daytime as well; thermal sites are very handy in low light conditions. A hot tank engine stands out a long ways to a thermal site. Even the Javelin CLU used by the UA has incredible thermal sites. This give troops armed with it much better situational awareness. I believe the NLAW has a good thermal sight as well, but it's disposable.
- simonebrunozzi 5y ago
  I'm sure yours is a great comment, but too many acronyms for an average reader to be able to follow.
  - stickfigure 5y ago
    Not sure if I'm an average HN reader or not: * ATGM - anti tank guided missile * RPG - rocket propelled grenade * IR - infrared * IFV - infantry fighting vehicle * UA - Ukranian army * SOF - special operations forces * TDF - territorial defense forces * CLU - (I did have to look this up, though I understood it from context) command launch unit ie the screen+trigger * NLAW - next generation anti tank weapon

george_ciobanu 5y ago

Super helpful and well documented article, thank you!

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

chrisseaton 5y ago

So why are the Russians using the very specific small and flat turret-mounted type 'Javelin' cages? The article says they're not-designed for that and would be ineffective anyway and of course RPG has no top-attack (unless you're firing from a building, which as we've seen is tricky to get it to arm in time)... so why are they doing it?

Goronmon 5y ago
One easy answer is that something being ineffective doesn't mean people won't try it anyways.
- blamazon 5y ago
  In the /r/NonCredibleDefense subreddit, it's been called the "cope cage" among other similar mocking terms. https://old.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/t9i7q2/cope_cage_is_becoming_credible_terminology_now_we/ https://old.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/t9i7q2/...
  - ckozlowski 5y ago
    I'll submit another: TheChieftan on YouTube has referred to it as "emotional support armor". He posted a good video on his views (and cautions!) on some of this subject matter to date: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9pVEP0AzZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9pVEP0AzZ4
dragontamer 5y ago
You can't stop a Javelin. Its too sophisticated. If a Javelin is launched your tank is dead. > and of course RPG has no top-attack (unless you're firing from a building, which as we've seen is tricky to get it to arm in time) These tanks were planning to assault Kyiv. The assumption was that cheaper RPGs (such as the AT4) would be used against these tanks. The AT4 isn't designed to be used vs main-battle-tanks (AT4 has penetration of 450mm), the frontal-armor is too thick (500mm to 700mm effective frontal armor, depending on the tank, depending on the angle the attack hits from... Largely due to geometry, not physical thickness). But the "cope-cage" might be strong enough to deflect an attack against the turret (especially if the AT4 is "top down", because it was fired from an urban building). There's many, many, many weapons of war. There are many different types of "anti-armor" weapons. The Russians also know that the turret has the critical weakpoint of the tank: the autoloader. If the autoloader is hit, the entire tank's munitions blow up simultaneously (aka: cooks off), and everyone inside the tank dies. Protecting the turret with a "cope cage" (even if ineffective vs Javelins) to try and mitigate damage from other RPGs (AT4, RPG7, Panzerfaust 3) just makes sense. ---------- Javelins are the most expensive man-portable anti-tank weapon. There's relatively few of them (yes, I know USA sent thousands of Javelins, but we also sent far more simpler anti-tank weapons as well). Javelins are $170,000 per shot, and the AT4 is $1500. The other man-portable weapon discussed, NLAWs, are like $40,000, much cheaper than a Javelin but still an incredibly sophisticated and expensive weapon. Media ignores the cheap stuff (AT4, RPG7) because they're not really interesting. But those are probably the workhorses and the more common weapon in the battlefield.
- frickinLasers 5y ago
  nitpick--The AT4 is a recoil-less round with the propelling charge in the launch tube--not a Rocket-Propelled Grenade. I imaging firing one from inside a building would be a regrettable decision.
  - chipsa 5y ago
    Nit: RPG didn't stand for rocket propelled grenade. It's a Russian acronym: Ruchnoy Protivotankovy Granatomyot.
- 5y ago
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
Those aren't javelin cages, they're called "cope cages"[1], because they're just a psychological coping mechanism for the troops inside, but offer no protection against modern smart munitions like NLAW or Javelin. They're a relic since Russia's war in Chechnya where those cages could protect against ancient RPGs fired from buildings in narrow city streets. [1] https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/324/004/043.png https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/324/004/043...
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > They're a relic since Russia's war in Chechnya where those cages could protect against RPGs fired from buildings in narrow city streets. USA sent IIRC 3x as many "dumb" RPGs (the AT4) as Javelins, assuming that the Ukrainians would be fighting in narrow city streets. Turned out that urban warfare didn't really happen much. But... I think everyone's plan was for urban combat, and then everybody turned out to be wrong. On the USA side, not a big deal, we sent the wrong mix of weapons but we're fixing that with lend-lease / additional aid packages.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    Dumb RPGs are still very useful. Not every target is an armoured tank. An old RPG aimed at a fuel truck is very effective.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      It's more of a range thing. Hitting an enemy fuel truck from 5000m away is a lot safer than running up and shooting it at 200m. 200m shots are common in a city, because cover / concealment is everywhere. Sure, there are still trees and hills to hide in the countryside, but having the option for super long range really helps.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
baud147258 5y ago
the same author did another article on that subject, btw: https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/russian-turret-cages https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/russian-turret-cages
vpribish 5y ago
in urban environments an RPG could definitely be coming down from above.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  As I said - it's tricky to get them to arm in time. We've seen that problem in practice in videos from Ukraine.

Decabytes 5y ago

It's clear that the writer is very passionate about this topic. I didn't realize that the idea was for the RPG to get stuck in the bar. I always though it was so the explosion was outside of the vehicle. This article doesn't paint a particularly good picture for the armor. Which makes me believe that the person who came up with this got a lot of good money, but the value for the soldiers isn't there.

burnished 5y ago
How did you come to that conclusion?
- meatmanek 5y ago
  Indeed. The author of the article came to the opposite conclusion: > Is bar armour worth it? It depends, but broadly yes, it is cheap, simple, and adds a layer of increased protection against a common and widely proliferated threat that would otherwise be very likely to do significant damage to a vehicle, particularly lighter classes of vehicle like protected patrol and utility vehicles (MRAPs in old money) that are vastly overmatched by the threat.
- laichzeit0 5y ago
  > The reality of this myth is actually more significant - detonating the warhead on the bars can be at least as bad as if it had hit the defended vehicle and, in some cases, actually a worse result for the defended vehicle. Probably from this paragraph. It confused me as well. Throughout the whole article he’s building a case for how bad the armour is, if not worse than no slat armour, then concludes the article with “well broadly, it’s probably still better”.
  - burnished 5y ago
    Aha, I think I can see how that would be confusing. My interpretation was that it had a small chance of making a bad event worse - but I assumed a regular hit would usually be lethal anyway, and you cant kill some one more dead, so whatever probability of deflection they got out of it was pretty 'free'. I think he was going into extra detail on how the weapon performed to dispel rumours, and perhaps inadvertently created one (now some people are convinced this armor is somehow out there to line a fat cats pocket!

LambdaTrain 5y ago

Multiplying the saved cost by probability of a defeat (which is ineffective mentioned by writer) does not seem bad considering the grid is low-cost design. But placing timer/accelerator in RPG as a backup plan for fusing in case the warhead is shortcircuited also seems low-cost. I must be missing something here.

mrguyorama 5y ago
Good luck retrofitting your extra fusing system into thousands and thousands of RPG-7s.

h2odragon 5y ago

Says a lot that the folks employed to be inside the tanks are reaching out for enhanced armor however they can.

nomilk 5y ago

> Hopefully the effect is becoming obvious - by impacting the statistical armour and detonating at that point, the armour has given the RPG a free c.300+ mm of free standoff extension. The armour just amplified the threat capability by a good 20%, making life worse for you inside that vehicle. For an APC with ~5cm of armour, pretty much any garden variety shaped charge will penetrate it with ease. If the chance of penetration is already 100% it doesn't matter if the charge is 20% stronger. But having the cage at least gives a small chance of stopping the charge from ever detonating. Different story with tanks though, where the extra 20% could mean the difference between a badly damaged hull and the complete destruction of both tank and crew.

littlestymaar 5y ago
> Different story with tanks though, where the extra 20% could mean the difference between a badly damaged hull and the complete destruction of both tank and crew. This kind of additional armor is usually on the rear, which is much less protected. In fact it wouldn't make sense to put them in front of a piece of armor thick enough to survive and RPG shot by itself. So in practice this extra 20% would never change anything?

picture 5y ago

I'm quite interested about military technology like this, are there any good books or resources HN would recommend to learn more about anything from engineering to tactics?

nomilk 5y ago
Military History Visualised is great: https://www.youtube.com/c/MilitaryHistory/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/MilitaryHistory/videos These two playlists by Ryan McBeth (a SWE, former anti-tank infantryman) are very interesting: Military equipment, tactics and strategy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2s0Szx-kVs&list=PLt670_P7pOGmLWZG78JlM-rG2ZrpPziOy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2s0Szx-kVs&list=PLt670_P7pO... 40 short Q&A videos about Ukraine : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8mJ7hG9xM8&list=PLt670_P7pOGmGLeg_0lknMUNjAyB-uxgX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8mJ7hG9xM8&list=PLt670_P7pO...
openasocket 5y ago
In addition to military history visualized (mentioned by another commenter), I recommend: * The Chieftain: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChieftainsHatch https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChieftainsHatch . He has a series on the development of Armored doctrine for various nations prior to WW2 which is a very interesting dive into what military doctrine is and how it is formed. * Battle Order https://www.youtube.com/c/BattleOrder https://www.youtube.com/c/BattleOrder covers how troops are organized and divided into squads/platoons/companies/battalions/etc in various countries and at various times. * If you are interested in World War 2, the World War 2 in real time series on YouTube is also fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo . * For getting the perspective of national security experts dealing with current events, I would take a look at https://warontherocks.com https://warontherocks.com , which has a mix of articles and associated podcasts. The war on the rocks podcast has been doing weekly updates on the state of the war in Ukraine with Michael Kofman, director for the Russia Studies Program at CNA. I've found those very informative. * Arms Control Wonk (https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/ https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/ ) the blog and podcast are interesting for looking at the military from the point of view of strategic stability. * https://acoup.blog/ https://acoup.blog/ is run by a professor of military history. He covers a variety of topics; he does several series analyzing the historical realism of video games and movies for example. But he also discusses some of the fundamentals of military theory, and tends to focus a lot on what the popular imagination gets right and wrong about the military and warfare throughout the ages. * There are think tanks like the RAND corporation, CSIS, and CNA that publish papers on a variety of topics in military theory and policy. With a little effort, a lot of them are fairly readable to the layman * For the deepest dive, the US Army field manuals are publicly available if you search around. Skimming through them gave me a much better understanding of how an officer goes about planning an attack, preparing a defense, setting up an ambush, etc.

sorokod 5y ago

Given the apparent vulnerability of MBTs (main battle tanks) as demonstrated in Ukraine to cheap-ish weapons, is this the end of the road for MBTs?

ceeplusplus 5y ago
I'm guessing we're going to see more active protection [1] that tries to detonate incoming projectiles at a distance to nullify the effectiveness of shaped charges. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKeuVHKc92U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKeuVHKc92U
- picture 5y ago
  Good lord.. While I know about existence of APS especially on Merkava tanks, this video really shows how modern warfare can brush right up against science fiction. We're able to detect an incoming round and automatically kill it with a directed explosion, all faster than you can blink. What, are we going to see munitions that has submunitions of its own to counter the countermeasure next? (That might be a reasonable development actually) Either way I'm fortunate that these things aren't used around me, and I'm not in any danger. I would love to one day see those C-beams glitter, as a spectator in safety
  - Someone 5y ago
    > Either way I'm fortunate that these things aren't used around me, and I'm not in any danger. At the 2m20s mark, they claim this leaves personnel 10m away unharmed. So, it seems you can watch from quite nearby. You’d have to avoid being hit by the incoming stuff, though, and I guess wearing hearing protection is strongly advised, too. As to countermeasures, I would guess this doesn’t work well against kinetic energy projectiles that don’t explode but depend on mass and velocity to do damage. Or would it?
cwmma 5y ago
Not really, everybody has known that tanks on their own, unsupported by infantry are incredibly vulnerable to anti-tank missiles since, at least the Yom Kippur War (50 years ago) probably longer. The Russians for various reasons didn't and the results were predictable. So no MBTs aren't obsolete they just are very easy to break if you use them wrong. Also there are newer active protection systems that can defeat missiles like the ones being used, the Russian tanks in the invasion either don't have them or don't have the ones that can detect threats from above.

nosianu 5y ago

I thanked my good star that when I was drafted into the German army (1991, freshly reunified) I got to be a Leopard 1A5 electronicd and weapons systems mechanic (EloWaMech), instead of having to fight in one. Closer on topic, that tank had an additional no-holes layer of armor in front of the actual armored turret mostly on the two sides, and in the back with much more distance. Here is a model that nevertheless shows it pretty well: https://www.super-hobby.at/zdjecia/0/7/3/35478_rev03320-4.jpg https://www.super-hobby.at/zdjecia/0/7/3/35478_rev03320-4.jp... If "detonate at a distance" does not work I wonder what the function of that kind of add-on armor was, on the sides specifically? It should have worked fine against RPG from the back because as you can see it extended quite a bit there, creating external storage space and probably providing ample room that an RPG detonating there would not have done anything to the main unit. But on the sides it was just a few centimeters of space between the additional armor layer and the main armor. I do remember it was really good steel. We had to replace one of those armor plates, and the new ones had the holes slightly different than the tank we were working on. Getting a new hole drilled into the armor plate proved to be impossible with the drilling tools we had.

mrguyorama 5y ago
>If "detonate at a distance" does not work I wonder what the function of that kind of add-on armor was, on the sides specifically? It depends on the shell/threat you expect to come at you. I don't know if "capped" armor piercing shells were still a concept when those tanks were built. In that case, an initial, small amount of spaced armor is designed to "decap" the shell, because the shell under the cap has significantly less armor penetrating capability.

nonrandomstring 5y ago

Well written. Sad how misunderstanding the function of cage armour makes the AT warheads more effective. Who'd want to be in a tank? An armour guy told me they call them "iron coffins". A bit off-topic, but wrt statistical defences and tanks - I read an old Home Guard manual about how to stop a tank column using dinner plates. You need a few anti-tank mines too, which look similar. One of every 200 dinner plates covered with dirt is an actual AT mine. Infantry sweepers have to check each one. Another in every 200 dinner plates is booby trapped with an AP device. Infantry want to check each one really slowly and carefully.

jacobn 5y ago

I'm wondering why tank armor is (appears to be) basically flat, when the AT warheads appear to be based on creating that super-heated jet, optimized for striking a flat surface? Why not stack a few layers of corrugated steel/ceramic plates to try to split the jet apart? Basic theory would be to present the projectile with a surface that has drastically different amounts of resistance across the front of the projectile, in the hope of destabilizing it & the jet it creates. I guess it would make the armor quite thick, but with varying density/composition it may not end up that much heavier? (And maybe it just wouldn't work ;)

jiggawatts 5y ago
You basically invented composite armour, which is a thing already, and actually somewhat outdated. The problem is that at such high velocities, during the impact everything acts like a fluid. Tensile strength and shape is almost irrelevant. You can think of the atoms in the armour not as a solid but as individual particles just hanging in space. Their mass — and hence inertia — is more important than anything else! Modern armour design is about trying to have moving components that present “fresh” volume/mass to increase the effective thickness. Either via rubber layers that can distort, moving steel plates, or explosive reactive armour that do the same thing but faster.
chipsa 5y ago
Not super heated jet. It's still roughly room temperature. It's being moved fast enough that it acts like a fluid more than a solid.

Terry_Roll 5y ago

Its a metal version of cricket nets!

gfd 5y ago

> Statistical armour is exclusively for defeat of shaped charge munitions using a double-skinned nose as conductive path for a piezoelectric-based fuzing system. Is there a reason for this to be a common design for RPGs? If it turns out everyone is using statistical armor, shouldn't RPG designers "catch up" by redesigning them to trigger when any part of the tip is collapsed, instead of just the tip, thus defeating this entire category of defense?

chipsa 5y ago
A piezo based fuse in the nose is an easy way to construct the fuse. It's also easy to construct a safety for it: stick a cap to protect the piezo from getting hit. That said, the safety cap doesn't help if you accidentally trip and fall after taking the cap off. Most western single use AT designs use a different safety that deactivates on firing.

greedo 5y ago

The thing that is really dooming Russian armor in Ukraine isn't really the ATGMs and RPGs being deployed, it's the complete lack of functional thermal gear. Other than IR spotlights on most of the tanks I've seen, they're lacking in the high quality thermal sights found on most Western tanks and IFVs. If they use the IR spotlight, it's like shining a flashlight in a dark room. Everyone knows exactly where you are... This means two things. First the UA owns the night to a large extent. This gives their SOF and TDF troops the ability to hunt the Russian vehicles at night and survive the encounters. It also helps them during the daytime as well; thermal sites are very handy in low light conditions. A hot tank engine stands out a long ways to a thermal site. Even the Javelin CLU used by the UA has incredible thermal sites. This give troops armed with it much better situational awareness. I believe the NLAW has a good thermal sight as well, but it's disposable.

simonebrunozzi 5y ago
I'm sure yours is a great comment, but too many acronyms for an average reader to be able to follow.
- stickfigure 5y ago
  Not sure if I'm an average HN reader or not: * ATGM - anti tank guided missile * RPG - rocket propelled grenade * IR - infrared * IFV - infantry fighting vehicle * UA - Ukranian army * SOF - special operations forces * TDF - territorial defense forces * CLU - (I did have to look this up, though I understood it from context) command launch unit ie the screen+trigger * NLAW - next generation anti tank weapon