2024-04-22 17:34:34
These T-72 tanks have wide metal skins that cover almost the entire turret and hull. And the ends of the 125 millimeter caliber main guns stick out from under the hull, making these armored tanks look like mechanical turtles – hence their nickname: “turtle tanks”.
All the turtle tanks apparently belong to the 5th Motorized Rifle Brigade, a former Ukrainian separatist unit now under Russian command.
Both sides in the wider war are beefing up their tanks with a variety of additional armor designed to block missiles and explosive drones. However, this improvised armor is usually in the form of “cages” or transoms, which do not obstruct the view of the war machine crew, and only slightly restrict the rotation of their gun turrets.
“Turtle” armor, on the other hand, leaves only a small gap in the front for the crew to see through, and likely prevents the turret gun from turning more than a few degrees left and right. The obvious shortcomings of homemade armor make us wonder: what is the 5th Motorized Rifle Brigade really thinking?
Arms historian Matthew Moss has a theory. The turtle tank’s “role seems to be a breakthrough,” he writes.
Demining machine breacher) is a plow-equipped engineering vehicle whose main task is to guide other vehicles through a minefield so that they can approach the enemy line and attack. It is assumed that the enemy will also shoot at the demining vehicle as it destroys the mines, so this specialized vehicle must also be heavily armored.
The US military has the world’s best machine of its kind, a nearly 70-ton machine that’s essentially an M-1 tank without the gun, but with mine clearance equipment attached. At the end of last year, the Americans gave the Ukrainians some of these machines.
The Russian army does not have the same class of demining machines. For the Russians, this function is usually performed by IMR engineering demolition machines, which weigh only about 50 tons and have inferior protection and a clumsy crane.
Faced with Ukraine’s minefields and swarms of tiny drones, and with no dedicated demining machines, the technicians of the 5th Motorized Rifle Brigade may have decided to make their own demining machines, or so Moss suggests.
If this version is correct, the Russians could have taken older T-72 tanks—perhaps ones that already had turret problems—and added two things that every minesweeper needs: additional armor and demining equipment.
Analyst Rob Lee of the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies in Philadelphia noted that the third “Turtle” tank that led the Russian assault on Krasnohorivka last Tuesday was equipped with mine rollers, large wheels that set off mines slightly in front of the vehicle.
This turtle tank was also the first of its kind to have radio jamming equipment aimed at drones — “and after running over a few mines, it kept moving forward,” Lee noted.
The characteristics and actions of the third turtle tank seem to support Mr. Moss’s thesis that the strange improvised machines are home-made demining equipment. If so, they can indeed play this role successfully.
Demining is an incredibly dangerous thing. The Ukrainians have already lost at least two of their six or so minesweepers in intense fighting around Berdych (north of Krasnohorivka). However, so far, only one of the “turtle” tanks has been destroyed – and it was hit by artillery when it was launched after April 8. battle tried to return to their base.
And if there’s any reason to worry about the long-term future of turtle tanks, it’s only because they’re clearly optimized to counter small drones that typically carry no more than a couple of kilograms of explosives.
However, it seems that after the decision of the US Congress in favor of Ukraine, the shortage of ammunition in Ukraine will soon end. And if the Ukrainian minefield-defying turtle-shaped tanks survive well when their biggest threat is small drones, will they survive when the Ukrainians open fire on them with rockets and artillery?
Retired Australian Army General Mick Ryan described the turtle tanks as “one of the really strange adaptations in Ukraine.” But any advantage they give the Russian military “is likely to be temporary,” he added.
Adapted from Forbes.
2024-04-22 17:34:34