Five Russian jets have been blown up by Ukraine in the past three days, as Britain said drone attacks on targets within Russia were being launched from inside its own territory.
With respect to grenades from drones… you might be right if the Russian tankers didn’t have the turret hatch open practically all the time because of how little air circulation they get.
They’re so uncomfortable in their tanks they’re dying from a weapon they should be nearly immune to.
I mean, it has already happened. Definitely unmanned (there are articles), I want to say out of combat (I vaguely recall hearing about a video of that), and maybe even in combat.
But it is well worth catching that I Did a Thing video where he drops sharp metal spikes on a car from a drone… if only because a lot of the Ukrainian drones look EERILY similar to that setup (I don’t think Alex has spoken to his analytics the past year). Dropping from even a dozen meters in the air is REALLY hard to aim. Let alone high up enough that people wouldn’t hear the quad rotors.
Which is the reality. Just sealing them up in the depot when people aren’t inside more or less negates the ability to attack them there. Hell, putting a canopy over the tanks already gets you a lot of the way there (and is something you would generally want to do for surveillance reasons anyway). As for getting armor in convoys on the way to a battle? After a while you get used to having people listen (and competent countries can use electronics for that) and everyone buttons up the MOMENT anyone hears or sees a drone coming in low enough to aim a grenade or a brick of C4. Taking out trucks is a lot more effective at that point (and likely still delays the convoy to prevent it from being effective).
As for in combat? My understanding is that driving with the hatch open is less about poor ventilation (although, they have that) and more about the doctrine being that a tank commander needs to be able to see all around them. Which is similarly negated with modern technology and cameras. Maybe you can damage the cameras and sensors but those are already placed in a way to have high survivability if the tank gets hit with an RPG anyway.
Which gets back to what I was saying. A tank on city streets is fucked. Even people with grenades are deadly at that point. But a tank on a ridge or even in an open field supporting an attack (or just shelling a town for daring to protect Josh Peck) will have enough open ground and alert troops supporting it that the drone won’t have any chance of threading the needle and taking out the armor with a grenade or even a brick of C4 taped to it.
We’ve seen quadcopter drones destroy Abrams tanks operated by the Iraqi army. The truth is that any shaped charge explosive designed to destroy armor is going to go right through the top armor of any armored vehicle, from the leopard one to an Abrams to a t90. They only have a couple of inches on top.
With respect to grenades from drones… you might be right if the Russian tankers didn’t have the turret hatch open practically all the time because of how little air circulation they get.
They’re so uncomfortable in their tanks they’re dying from a weapon they should be nearly immune to.
I mean, it has already happened. Definitely unmanned (there are articles), I want to say out of combat (I vaguely recall hearing about a video of that), and maybe even in combat.
But it is well worth catching that I Did a Thing video where he drops sharp metal spikes on a car from a drone… if only because a lot of the Ukrainian drones look EERILY similar to that setup (I don’t think Alex has spoken to his analytics the past year). Dropping from even a dozen meters in the air is REALLY hard to aim. Let alone high up enough that people wouldn’t hear the quad rotors.
Which is the reality. Just sealing them up in the depot when people aren’t inside more or less negates the ability to attack them there. Hell, putting a canopy over the tanks already gets you a lot of the way there (and is something you would generally want to do for surveillance reasons anyway). As for getting armor in convoys on the way to a battle? After a while you get used to having people listen (and competent countries can use electronics for that) and everyone buttons up the MOMENT anyone hears or sees a drone coming in low enough to aim a grenade or a brick of C4. Taking out trucks is a lot more effective at that point (and likely still delays the convoy to prevent it from being effective).
As for in combat? My understanding is that driving with the hatch open is less about poor ventilation (although, they have that) and more about the doctrine being that a tank commander needs to be able to see all around them. Which is similarly negated with modern technology and cameras. Maybe you can damage the cameras and sensors but those are already placed in a way to have high survivability if the tank gets hit with an RPG anyway.
Which gets back to what I was saying. A tank on city streets is fucked. Even people with grenades are deadly at that point. But a tank on a ridge or even in an open field supporting an attack (or just shelling a town for daring to protect Josh Peck) will have enough open ground and alert troops supporting it that the drone won’t have any chance of threading the needle and taking out the armor with a grenade or even a brick of C4 taped to it.
The main reason for tank crews(at least the commander) to open their hatches is not for ventilation, but for visibility and situational awareness.
We’ve seen quadcopter drones destroy Abrams tanks operated by the Iraqi army. The truth is that any shaped charge explosive designed to destroy armor is going to go right through the top armor of any armored vehicle, from the leopard one to an Abrams to a t90. They only have a couple of inches on top.