• NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
    13·
    6 days ago

    how effective are these in general? The drone still explodes, but now it’s maybe 3 feet away kinda thing.

    Does it still take damage and can it hurt them, but it reduces the risk a lot, or is the tank able to brush off a detonation a few feet away?

    • IsoKiero@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      12·
      6 days ago

      My very much armchair-general -level understanding is that they do work against simple detonation-on-impact -drones, as long as there’s only few. The tank armor can brush off the shrapnel from explosion (crew might need new boxers and/or pants) but once there’s a hole in that afro the second (or third or…) drone can use that hole and get to the meaty bits. Or a skilled FPV operator can find a existing gap and use that.

      So that does more than nothing, but ideally tank should have infantry support to keep drones and individual enemies with a bazooka away from it.

          • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
            3·
            4 days ago

            You’re right, you can see through it.
            You can see through it so well that you can see the normal armored tank underneath.

            This isn’t a new type of tank. They just attached a cage on top of an existing tank.

      • Mirshe@lemmy.world
        5·
        6 days ago

        If you’re taking on a tank with gunfire, you’ll notice a problem real quick. The barbs there are meant to detonate anti tank rockets and missiles, too. The best way to take these out is mines or armor of your own.

        • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
          2·
          4 days ago

          Antitank missiles or heavy machine gun fire will absolutely mess this kind of armor up bad after a certain point, it all just ends up catching on fire and blinding/trapping the crew inside especially if the armor doesn’t have situational awareness or unimpeded turret travel to respond to and suppress incoming threats. That being said I am sure Ukraine is a lot more thoughtful how it deploys these in general and I am sure there are definitely appliations for this kind of armor under heavy assault conditions against thick drone walls. My point is I just don’t think this is representative of the future of armor design as when it comes to armored vehicles everything always comes down to mobility, mobility, mobility and every successful armored vehicle is just barely light enough to not become obsolete on a dynamic battlefield. There is little chance in my eyes that the future of armored vehicles is a commitment to doubling down on bulkier and bulkier defensive armor rather than leveraging other advantages and capabilities to create survivability for the crew. This isn’t to say I think armor is obsolete, what I am saying is that poorly manuverable armor was already hopelessly obsolete a long time ago before drones even entered the picture.