Improved armor doesn’t work on Russian tanks

The 15th day of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine has shown that bizarre-looking ad-hoc cage armor fitted on the modern Russian main battle tanks clearly did not work the way that they intended it to.

Ukrainian Soldiers successfully destroyed dozen Russian T-72B3 main battle tanks which were fitted with raised mesh screens above their turrets.

Russian tanks proved to be absolutely unprepared for attacks by US-made Javelin complexes, NLAW anti-tank systems and Bayraktar TB2 drones developed in Turkey.

- ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW -

These screens appear were be designed to defeat top-attack weapons by detonating high-explosive anti-tank warheads before they contact a tank’s turret roof, but in real battles, they turned out to be just an extra load that these tanks unmasked.

Among the Ukrainian military, this type of armor received the comic name “Barbecue” because of its bizarre shape.

On top of that, visually confirmed losses of the Russian main battle tanks now exceed 160 combat vehicles during its invasion of Ukraine.

In a statement, the Ukrainian General Staff said that since the beginning of the war, the Ukrainian army has destroyed 355 Russian-owned main battle tanks.

Readers who wish to follow our weekly coverage can subscribe to the Weekly Defense Roundup.

If you wish to report a grammatical or factual error in this article, please let us know by using the online form.

Executive Editor

Support The Defence Blog

Independent reporting takes resources. Join us on Patreon.

Become a patron

More Like This

Russia turns Mi-8 helicopter into a flying drone jammer

Russian engineers have turned one of their most common military helicopters into a flying jammer built specifically to blind Ukraine's long-range strike drones, Militarnyi...

Ex-UK defense chief says Israel snubbed Ukraine to appease Russia

Britain's longest-serving Conservative defense secretary since Winston Churchill says he personally urged Israel's government to help Ukraine early in the war, and that Benjamin...

Satellite image appears to confirm destroyed Tu-95 at Engels base

A satellite photograph taken Sunday appears to confirm what Ukraine's president claimed just two days earlier: a Russian strategic bomber sitting at Engels air...

Canada orders more ACSV armored vehicles, some for Ukraine

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney traveled to General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada's facility in London, Ontario, alongside National Defence Minister David J. McGuinty, to formally...

Russia’s decoy tactic aims to blunt Ukraine’s relentless drone strikes

Russian forces have grown increasingly willing to sacrifice a fake air defense system rather than a real one, a pattern that keeps surfacing in...

Germany and France scale back their joint tank program

Germany and France just reduced one of Europe's most ambitious tank programs to a single, carefully worded sentence about "platform-independent technology," and defense analysts...