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> There is no drone that carries the same level of explosiveness as a singular tank round. Yes. That seems to be why Ukrainian drones and Javelin missiles are

> There is no drone that carries the same level of explosiveness as a singular tank round. Yes. That seems to be why Ukrainian drones and Javelin missiles are having such an easy go of popping the turrets off of Russian tanks. You need just a small explosion to get thing started, and then the tank's onboard supply of explosives does the rest of the job for you. > A tank can fire 40 of these at you in something like 5 minutes. Once it gets into position. The major limitations of tanks here are that they are direct-fire platforms, and that they are big and noisy and difficult to hide. That's a real problem if you're up against an enemy with modern indirect fire capabilities, or effective anti-tank small arms.

Sharlin 4y ago
> You need just a small explosion to get thing started, and then the tank's onboard supply of explosives does the rest of the job for you. As mentioned in the article, the T-72/80/90 are uniquely vulnerable to this failure mode due to their carousel autoloader. Ammo cookoff in any MBT means you and your vehicle probably won't go to battle today, but at least it's not an immediate death sentence in most Western tanks.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  Case in point, here's a M1-Abrams (USA's main-battle-tank) cooking off test. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay7bOG2nD6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay7bOG2nD6k You can see them purposefully light the tank's ammunition bay on fire. No damage to the internal components or the crew. I'm sure the crew is sweating and feeling "a bit warm", but they'll survive. Its just that Russian tanks are hilariously vulnerable to this problem. ------ Russia's doctrine / theory for their tanks is to make them *smaller* instead. Russian tanks weigh the same but have no compartmentalization. This means that Russian tanks can navigate smaller roads, and also that Russian tanks can hide in ditches (or other terrain) too small for M1 Abrams to hide in. In effect, Russians "accepted" the cook-off problem, but hoped that a competent crew could hide from the enemy better. Hard to say if it works, because it looks like the Russian crews are horribly trained and have low morale in this fight. I think I can agree with the theory, or at least see that there's a beneficial tradeoff here. https://i.redd.it/mtwtamct1t821.jpg https://i.redd.it/mtwtamct1t821.jpg That's a lot smaller for the T72 compared to the M1 Abrams. If the crew could take advantage of the T72's smaller size, the crew very well could be more survivable on the modern battlefield.

Sharlin 4y ago

> You need just a small explosion to get thing started, and then the tank's onboard supply of explosives does the rest of the job for you. As mentioned in the article, the T-72/80/90 are uniquely vulnerable to this failure mode due to their carousel autoloader. Ammo cookoff in any MBT means you and your vehicle probably won't go to battle today, but at least it's not an immediate death sentence in most Western tanks.

dragontamer 4y ago
Case in point, here's a M1-Abrams (USA's main-battle-tank) cooking off test. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay7bOG2nD6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay7bOG2nD6k You can see them purposefully light the tank's ammunition bay on fire. No damage to the internal components or the crew. I'm sure the crew is sweating and feeling "a bit warm", but they'll survive. Its just that Russian tanks are hilariously vulnerable to this problem. ------ Russia's doctrine / theory for their tanks is to make them *smaller* instead. Russian tanks weigh the same but have no compartmentalization. This means that Russian tanks can navigate smaller roads, and also that Russian tanks can hide in ditches (or other terrain) too small for M1 Abrams to hide in. In effect, Russians "accepted" the cook-off problem, but hoped that a competent crew could hide from the enemy better. Hard to say if it works, because it looks like the Russian crews are horribly trained and have low morale in this fight. I think I can agree with the theory, or at least see that there's a beneficial tradeoff here. https://i.redd.it/mtwtamct1t821.jpg https://i.redd.it/mtwtamct1t821.jpg That's a lot smaller for the T72 compared to the M1 Abrams. If the crew could take advantage of the T72's smaller size, the crew very well could be more survivable on the modern battlefield.