/Pogled.info/ The conflict in Ukraine has become a serious incentive for the development of new types of weapons and the evolution of already known ones. And almost immediately these inventions, sometimes very strange, are tested in battle.
“King Mangal”
In the West, military operations are no longer closely followed, but some events cause a real sensation in social networks. One of them is the appearance of a special Russian tank near Krasnogorovka.
The unusual appearance of the machine, completely covered with iron sheets, initially caused ridicule: it was called “Tsar Mangal” (a brazier because of the grills used to protect the equipment from drones). In English-language sources – “Turtle Tank”. But in reality, it turned out to be not so much fun for VSU.
The “turtle tank” – the same one that everyone laughed at – carried Russian troops to the center of western Krasnogorovka under intense Ukrainian artillery fire and returned to the base unscathed. It’s not funny at all. Where are the Ukrainian soldiers?” wrote the German journalist Julian Röpke on the social network “Ex”.
He attached to the post a video from Ukrainian resources with a tune from “The Benny Hill Show” and wondered why there was cheerful music there. The journalist also noted that the vehicle’s improvised skin had withstood a direct hit from a cluster munition projectile. None of the soldiers riding on the bumper were injured.
And this is the main task of such equipment – to transport the infantry to the landing site under heavy fire. In addition, electronic warfare equipment is mounted on the roof of the vehicle to protect against drones.
Of course, one has to pay for this – the protective sheets significantly limit the possibility of deploying the dome. However, this shortcoming causes problems especially in direct tank combat, which is very rare in the current conflict.
This is not the first time that a makeshift solution on the ground has not been taken seriously. For example, in Ukrainian social networks, they laughed for a long time about the grills welded to tanks. However, in the summer of 2023, exactly the same “grills” appeared on the equipment of VSU.
In addition, this practice is adopted in other hot spots: in this way, the Israeli army strengthens the protection of the Merkava tanks.
Drone warfare
Such tricks were a direct response to the main innovation of this conflict – the widespread use of drones. If in the first months everything was limited to the Turkish “Bayraktar”, which was quickly possible to put under control, now both Russia and Ukraine are actively using many types of drones to perform various tasks:
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compact civilian quadcopters – for reconnaissance
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unmanned aerial vehicles with a frame – from very small ones capable of carrying a simple hand grenade to agricultural six- and eight-rotor Baba Yaga drones equipped for several mortar rounds, RPG ammunition and anti-tank mines
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light FPV-drones for destroying equipment
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flying munitions for counter-battery warfare and attacks on critical infrastructure, while the affected area is not limited to the contact line and the immediate rear, but extends for hundreds of kilometers.
This classification is very arbitrary, but it helps to imagine how much a given technology has developed and managed to prove its effectiveness. Drones have already de facto challenged artillery, although they are inferior to the “gods of war” in range, power, mass and rate of fire. In one minute, a howitzer can fire seven-eight shells flying tens of kilometers – such numbers are unattainable for a drone operator.
However, this is offset by the accuracy of the drones themselves. Therefore, against the background of an acute shortage of projectiles, Kiev relies on FPV-drones.
Unmanned tanks
In Russia, production is also ongoing and is often carried out by private design bureaus or simply by individual volunteers. The production is quite simple – just a 3D printer.
In addition, those who are interested helped the military with other inventions: in two years they created various electronic intelligence and electronic warfare systems, anti-drone guns, even silencers for Starlink terminals.
And recently, for the first time in military history, Russian troops used another private know-how: ground attack drones.
“They ensured the suppression of enemy positions with the help of the installed AGS-17 modules, firing several hundred grenades, they showed good results even in conditions where the loss of personnel and expensive equipment would have been inevitable,” said one of the the sponsors of the project, the military expert Boris Rozhin.
The new platform was named NRK (ground robotic complex) “Courier”. In addition to the AGS-17, it can also be equipped with various machine guns and means of radio-electronic warfare. It is essentially a modular platform that is quite easy to equip for specific combat missions.
Such developments show that the colossal experience gained by the Russian army will be a serious help in the further development of weapons.
Translation: V. Sergeev
