Great vid I'm sure that just like there has been a evolution when it comes to ERA I'm sure the same will be with APS systems. I'm sure down the road an APS system will be made to be able to defeat a FPV drone 100%. Though still how would Trophy go as its the only system I've seen that works in combat agianst ATGM and RPGs it may have a better technologically over the Russian afghanit system and the new Iron fist.
Ok, here is the thing. Trophy APS in fact does work and already proved itself in the combat, against drones. Anyone who claim otherwise is ignorant or lying. It is because Trophy in fact was designed against the drones. But it is true that many conventional APS systems do not work. First, it is because most systems is designed to trick sensors of the active guiding systems, rather then stop missile directly. But with first person guidance, or at least semi-remote systems, those countermeasures are not so effective (though arguably already didn't work against Western systems). Also in many cases (look Russia) those systems are based on fragmentation grenades detonated on expected trajectory of the missile, so that may not work when pilot actively avoid those. Generally new generation of active SHORAD systems is only introduced and new generation of tanks may actually use them. With either automatic MG systems or even dedicated 30mm airburst cannons. But war in Ukraine is example of war straight from the 90's and there are no modern systems there.
'Cope Cage' meme was for as a defense against ATGMs like Javelins, not FPV drones -which started to gain attention/use much later. The FPV defense/meme is the 'Turtle Tank'.
Yes I guess this is true, cope cages try to trigger the 2 stage munition and turtle tanks try to protect multiple parts like the engine and turrets from multiple smaller RPG7 strikes by slow flying drones
Yeah a lot of people miss this, this is really the first war where cheap drones became such a threat to armored vehicles. Cope cages were used since before people realized that threat, originally they were used with intentions to stop top attack atgms like javelin and NLAW, and in that they are completely ineffective. What they are good for is grenades dropped from above, either by drones or tossed down by someone on a building: Which is why the israelis also use them. against fpvs they can help because it reduces the angle they can approach from but it doesn't thwart them completely.
@@kahlzun It was created by the NonCredibleDefense community just before the start of the invasion as the first images of Russian tanks with addition roof armor appeared.
@@nemanja162 Doesn't matter the name cemented itself, also cope can mean "To contend with difficulties and act to overcome them." so it fits either way.
@@nemanja162 For a different purpose. the original Russian "cope cages" were intended to stop top-attack ATGMs and failed horribly at doing so. The modern interpretation used by both sides is to stop drone attacks.
The speed limit sounds more like an identification problem where machine learning could be used to distinguish drones from other kinds of threats. The good thing with drones is that you can be gathering data for a longer time than there is for an rpg round coming in. More data should make it easier to distinguish if the target is on a ballistic trajectory like debree or if it is flying towards the tank like an fpv.
Conversely, identifying a missile threat (RPG, etc.) could be easier since it's following a strictly ballistic trajectory and not maneuvering once it's fired.
Then again, they could just change the shape of the drone to defeat the ai, similar to the story of the troops sneaking up on an ai security camera by just wearing a box and shuffling along like he’s Snake. Like, imagine if they made a drone that looks like Shrek’s head or something. The ai would have no idea what that’s supposed to be
@@TheIronHipThat assumes the system uses shape to determine if it’s a drone, which isn’t a given. And if different shape is successfully used, the following week the software would be updated to spot it. Simply the back and forth nature of warfare.
an alternative approach would be to design a system where certain types of false positives are acceptable. an example would be an automated rapid fire, high velocity but small caliber machine gun set to shoot at any flying object above a certain size that is actively getting closer (even if not on an collision course). the result if able to aim quickly enough could counter everything from missiles to drones abet at the cost of it just randomly shooting down birds as part of normal operations.
@roboticgamer8990 guns do not typically make great defenses against Arial targets, they tend to traverse to slowly, the amount of lead/bullets it would have to expend to knock out a target would make it more than likely cost prohibited vs drones. just look at the cwis or mantis systems, both fire hundred of rounds per second just for a chance to hit their targets with far more complicated radar systems than you'd ever find on a Russian tank.
Yep that's actually my understanding directly from Oryx members. I double checked with them to see if they'd seen any APS I'd missed, they said no, and that the one I pointed out most likely wasn't functional
They never had APS hard kill. Just soft kill, like smoke and early warning laser. The T90m equipt with arena-M was just Patton last year. In the history of the Russian military they finally stick on the release date witch I believe 2024-2025. It will be interesting to see them on the battlefield
@@filonin2 APS hard kill?? They literally just Patton the Ariana-M for the t90m. They are under way as of this year or 2025. Now there's other Variant of the ariana like typ E but it was still in the testing phase. What APS system are you talking about?
Cope cages were ridiculed mainly in the beginning of the invasion when the drones weren't that ubiquitous and they were believed to be an attempt at protecting the tanks against top down attack munitions like javelin. I don't think people ridicule those cages anymore, or at least not to the same degree.
I do recall that one of the more charitable assessments of cope cages back then stated they would be much more useful against drone-dropped grenades. I believe the cages were presented in Russian state media as anti-Javelin missile armor. And it proved decisively ineffective against such threats.
Cages increase standoff distance from shaped charge. Against a PG7 warhead FPV, it acts as probabilistic armor, either making it a UXO, or increasing penetration if the warhead detonates. Netting based cages work much better against FPVs and other low velocity drones like Lancet, whereas hard slat works as regular probabilistic armor against all non-shoulder fuzed shaped charges, whether slow or fast moving. The peculiar thing with Lancet is that it already comes with the optimal standoff distance upon contact detonation due to the frontal mounted EO/IR globe. This means on Lancet, increased standoff actually decreases penetration. Most shaped charge warheads have less standoff distance than the warhead ideal since it doesn't have the frontal seeker to take up that space.
Tanks and infantry are trying to keep their distance from eachother in this war. The reason for "Turtle Tanks" being used is that tanks are being used in a much more "WW 1" style as assault guns.
I suspect that Russia may just never have built enough active protection systems for an actual war. It's probably cheaper to just stuff a couple conscripts in to a fifty+ year old tank with a photocopied copy of the tank manual to share and point them in the general direction of the enemy, then claim that they deserted after their tank's ammo cooks off and incinerates them in order to avoid paying their next of kin.
my personal opinion is to bring back SPAAGs potentially higher caliber flak based spaags like proxy fuse 40mm bofors or 57mm bofors or even 76mm otomatic, lasers seem like they would need too much infrastructure for ground based mobile self propelled systems but would work for static sites or warships, i mean flak is proven and you might even be able to use 360 cameras instead of exposed crew
My branch in the Army was Air Defense, I am intensely interested in this. 76 OTO is a helluva round but all you need is goose-hunting level of firepower to take out FPVs. A belt-fed 12 gauge slaved to a detection system will neutralize drones out to 50-60 meters, which is often all is available. Drones can lurk right above a woodline, can a 76 or 57mm arm and safely engage at very short range? Maybe a MK19 grenade launcher, which already has airburst capabilities is the ultra-short-range solution. Affordable, already in service, and multi-purpose. Airburst rounds? Canister/shotgun/flechette rounds? Bolo/net flingers? Rotor-drones are very fragile. Ai drone swarms scare the 💩 out of me, as they should anyone. And there needs to be multiple detection systems; radar, camera and acoustic.
@@CorePathwaythe current western upcoming solution is radar guided 30mm guns with airburst shells. Some of the tanks at that recent tank/arms expo already had these on them, though not yet in mass production / looking for contracts
A single 57 or 76 advance airburst ammo cost more than the fpvs they shot down, the cost exchange equation is not with the defender. Even 40mm is stretching it a little bit tbh. You also always want to put multiple interceptor for every single incoming because nothing works perfectly 100% of the time. Those make the cost exchange equation even more unfavorable for the defender. Oh, then there is how do you sustain the fire. 57 are huge. You are looking at about 100 rounds for most vehicle. Your ready round is going to be around 20. Even worse for the 76. You might have maybe 50 round in total. 40 is marginally better than 57 in both the ready rack and total round. Then there is the reaction time. How fast can your gun engage drone coming in from multiple different vector both against you and the unit you are suppose to protect? I don't get the entire section on "laser is simply too much for mobile defense". We now has laser that fit comfortably at the back of a hilux. Same with microwave, but those tend to be slightly bigger needing 8x8. Anyway, those are likely the future. Lastly, I suggest I suggest rheinmetall strike shield for aps optimized against drone.
How about the good old reliable soviet HSA? (Human shield Armour). It is cheap and light weight. You can even equip that with RS (random sticks) to down any incoming drone and reuse that part of your HSA+RS protection.
I was in the Army's Future Combat Systems Brigade and when the engineers were telling us about APS, we asked about infantry near us. They were dumbfounded bc they hadn't thought of that.
Interesting, when you get to use a tank with APS one of the things you're specifically told to do is turn the system off when people are around, you're getting out or when you're in a safe spot etc.
Sloped armor is exactly as heavier than the non sloped version as thicker it seems from the front. You can imagine slicing it horizontally and moving the slices on top of each other to create the non sloped version of the same size.
Shtora doesn’t work against any in service SACLOS missile. TOW has been protected against that for decades now. Both Shtora and our equivalent were obsolete not long after entering service.
Just because they show stuff at a tradeshow doesn't mean it's anywhere ready for mass production or works (see also; su-57, T-14 ak-102 etc...) This is also true for west/NATO too btw. We keep seeing these cyberpunk tank/IFV demonstrators, metal storm, automatic fire self propelled mortars etc.. all these wheeled drone platforms.. where are they in the real world ? Nowhere atm still. USA barely is greenlighting sending 1970-1980s stuff thats at expiration date for the most part.
It's kinda different for both Russia and western countries. In western countries these shows are made by defence companies to advertise/show off to the military ( foreign and domestic) and media what they can do. In Russia it's kinda the same thing but they also advise new equipment that the military says it's going to adopt, has massive issues with procurement and manufacturing said equipment and by the end it's either a half baked version of what was promised or is never produced in any significant amount and is never brought up again or just becomes a propaganda pice e.g the AK-12, T-14, T-15, Su-57 and Su-75.
The magazine size of most current APS is also way to small against drones. We're talking about single digits per side. For some types it isn't feasible to carry more, the large rockets some Russian systems use come to mind. The Israeli shotgun-type has a fairly long reload if I recall correctly.
I know about one company that is working on dual purpose hard kill APS, for intercepting high speed threats like ATGMs it would use something like trophy or similar systems, and for slow targets like drones it would use remote weapon station, one radar for both but two different interceptors. Issue for now is integrating both to work properly and that guns on current remote weapon stations are to small, minimum reliable gun to intercept drones by them was 20mm autocannon with programable ammunition, so redesign of tank turret would be needed to fit everything.
What about trying 12 gauge? There's a lot of case volume for a programmable warhead and you can use full brass cases for more finicky designs. Imagine a miniaturized Mk. 19 I suppose. I'm also curious how well flechettes would work in other scenarios. If possible it seems a lot more compact than any 20mm autocannon I'm familiar with.
@@sqeeye3102 It must perform all duties of old 12.7mm or for my American friends .50 cal, 20mm is the only suitable gun to fulfill all requirements, and you still need dual feed for ammo, programable and APDS
Russia isn't using APS's on their tanks at all. The old APS's from the 80s are long past their expiration date, and have simply been removed. Russia won't install new APS's because the T-72 is old and obsolete anyway, and the crew is expendable as far as Russia is concerned. But they won't work against drones because they were never designed to counter drones in the first place. A new APS designed to counter drones is necessary, and is exactly what is being developed by other countries. The best idea is to tie a radar to an autocannon firing shells with a proximity fuse, and shoot the drones down at range. But honestly, the best counter to drones, is to use drones. A hunter-killer drone armed with automatic shotguns (AA-12's), firing birdshot is probably best.
Hard kill APS systems can be reprogrammed or upgraded to recognize and attack slow flying drones, machine learning should classify correctly drones and birds. If an army introduce hard kill APS on their armored vehicles, opponent army will respond by using EFP (explosively formed penetrator) warheads on their anti-tank missiles and FPV drones. Typically EFP is effective when is activated 50m to 100m from the target. To be near 100% effective against dedicated anti-tank weapons, range of APS must be above 100 meters.
Why don't they use the warheads from BONUS (or SMArt) artillery rounds? These can be dropped by the drone from high above. It would mean the drone can be reused and also that you only have to get v roughly above the tank which would mean less training for the pilots.
@@mikebikekite1 This type of sub-ammunition You mentioned is build to withstand acceleration during artillery shot hence is very expensive. One can build cheap self-guided gliding bomb using motherboard from cheap mobile phone with camera. Cheap servo motors and control surfaces from model shop. And put it around appropriate antitank warhead. Cheap 3d printed body to hold it together. Guidance software is not that difficult to write and processor one can find in a cheap phone is sufficient. But for now not guided bombs made from anti-tank warheads taken from grande launchers with 3d printed fins are sufficient.
@@mikebikekite1 EFPs are very inefficient in terms of penetration ability / weight. For example, the BONUS submunitions penetrate 100-140mm RHA and weigh 6.5 kg. A shaped-charge warhead from PG-7VL weighs 1.5 kg and penetrates 500mm RHA. So unless you have a specific reason(like defeating APS by firing from far away) it's better to use shaped charges.
@@_DarkEmperor I think most antitank drones are flown by operators rather than by guidance software. A BONUS round costs $5K but contains 2 sub-munitions so it's not that expensive (IF it kills the target).
They never had APS hard kill. Just soft kill, like smoke and early warning laser. The T90m equipt with arena-M was just Patton last year. In the history of the Russian military they finally stick on the release date witch I believe 2024-2025. Don't get confused with Wikipedia.
Interesting. During GWOT, my unit didn't call them cope cages, but it was standard procedure to have cammoflage steel-mesh cages over vehicle turrets to protect from insurgents dropping grenades/molotov cocktails/bricks/etc. down into our vehicles.
@@fleecejohnsonn I WAS infantry. Mostly we patrolled on foot, sometimes we get from point A to point B in various vehicles with turrets, hence the protection scheme learned through experience.
They are called cope cages considering they do nothing to protect the tank, or even hinder your ability to exit or enter the tank, they are anything but standard procedure in the beginning when they originally were made, what ever buts of scrap the Russians could steal was welded on-top
@@fleecejohnsonnprobably because of this thing called "teamwork" and "ambushes". Having infantry support is no guarantee for safety against such weapons. It's hard to spot someone in the second floor who's waiting until the convoy is already passing to grab something and throw it out the window, or if an ambush happens the infantry can be distracted and something can be thrown from another direction.
Jamming on the tank most likely won't be helpful in near future. Drones are getting auto-targeting system for last mile already, in future it will be a default functionality for a combat FPV drone. So jamming it around the tank won't save the tanks from a drone just visually targeting and completing it's route into tank's hull. But this jammers would be quite easy to look for, therefore finding the tank in the first place.
When APS sensors resolution, frequency, multi-aspect and computing power increase, fuse and are supported by AI, only then tank APS are going to be effective against all threats at once. This capability is already here, in air defence anti-drone systems like APSystems SKYctrl. Ofc land warfare has its own set of unique rules, but many apply from AD and SP systems.
*ERA Nope, ERA can be designed more against kinetics or more against chemical rounds or somewhat inbetween (and a bazillion other factors). So that's not a defining factor.
Russians don't have installed any form of hard kill APS on any of there active service tanks. Armata does have Afganit HK APS but it is not in active service. There are plans to install Arena M aps in future on tanks (first of which will be T-90M )which they plan on installing starting from 2025. I think many people get confused becuase many Western and Russian sources say there tanks have APS. Only some T-80 and all T-90 but they have soft kill aps called Shtora (iconic red eyes) but it is only a LWR and nothing more. T-90 M also only has LWR, and even if the tanks have aps no HK APS right now can detect and itercept drones.
While Active Protection Systems (APS) can effectively counter some anti-tank threats, they are not foolproof against drones. Drones' small size, agility, and ability to change direction quickly can make them difficult to intercept. Additionally, the low cost of drones allows adversaries to employ swarm tactics, overwhelming APS systems and potentially destroying tanks or armored vehicles.
6:47 Shtora has always been used till today! It is a much smaller APS than the previous version. Like you said, it is a softkill APS to make the weapons lose tracking and miss, like deploying smokes or jamming. Even if they lose their combat effectiveness against FPV drones, they would still be fighting against armored vehicles or tanks. If they would remove the Shtora, would the commander trust the crew intrusive thoughts to survive anything? Not to mention that there's probably a chance that most of the Russians tank crews are inexperienced.
I would assume APS is exactly the solution against drones, but with an entirely new suite of sensors to detect them and some sort of friend/foe detection so it doesn't keep downing their own drones. As for infantry, proximity sensors could block APS from triggering when people are in the danger zone (and warn the crew so it can override in case those are not friendlies or the sensor bad).
If I remember correctly in WW2 one reason why the Germans on the Bismarck had trouble shooting down British Swordfish biplanes was that the anti-aircraft guns on the Bismarck weren't designed to hit planes moving so slowly.
I think the only solution to drones jamming and remote machine guns, 2 radars sets, one for APSs (ATGMs/shoulder launched grenades) and one for slow moving drones that alerts the tank commanders and then proceeds to mannually aim and shoot at the drone through a remote machine gun.
I do not concur with the opinion that era tend to work better against scj. ERA simply works better against all type of penetrator per mass and per volume when compare to more passive armor. Also, we have pretty good idea how most aps works, as they are often not classified and advertised widely with pretty detail animations, test report, documentations, etc.
@@easygroove Indeed, others countries should not wage war. But lets be honest. War in Ukraine is one sided agression. Ukraine is defending its country and russians are dying for putin and for washing machines. Simple as so dont bring in other wars into talks about Ukraine war
Optical identifiers. Just as seek & destroy loitering munitions can identify friend from foe & specific vehicles to target, next gen hard kill will need to have some sort of method to see incoming items and then bed able to autonomously decide go/ no to.
the hard kill aps has shown a problem, when troops are on the ground in the vicinity of the tank and the aps activates the projectiles it fires to take out the incoming also take out all the friendly troops withing the spread pattern
Another thing I was wondering about are the CIWS systems. You know, the US has R2D2 with a hard on called the Phalanx, Russia has it's own, so why don't those protect their ships against the Ukrainian drones? Wikipedia says Kortik CIWS can be employed against fast attack boats.
They do use them. Thing is what Ukraine does is send so many drones that they can’t hit them all, and on top of that the Russian navy isn’t exactly the most well trained or equipped navy on the planet. With the Moskva for e morale a major reason it was able to be sunk was because the crew didn’t have the radar running due to it interfering with other systems on the ship, so they didn’t see the Ukrainian drones approaching.
I have not been getting notifications from your channel for weeks, maybe a month or 2 now. I dropped and resubscribed now to try and jump start the algorithm BS.
1: I'd argue APS isn't as effective as always claimed (in the 95 to 100% range). Or it'd be adapted to kill drones rathee than equip jammers. 2: off the top of my head you could use a dual system. A radar which functions as a detection radar after which a laser is pointed at the target. With the laser you can track the speed of the wingbeat... or turning of the propellor(s). Which would make it easy to detect what it is that is flying at you. And that's just off the top of my head, there should be more ways to determine what is flying there especially since they are slower and take more time to get to you. Also compared to APS systems against RPG's it would be cheaper per shot since you don't need munitions with enough speed and force to take out an RPG, only a drone. But that requires the APS system it's based on to function well in the first place
Like the vast majority of russian gear, 1) it doesnt live up to expectations, 2) The makers scammed to govt for money and 3) its too expensive and parts arent available to make more, so the few vehicles that had them mounted when purchased are the only ones that will ever have them....
Spaced armor should be filled with water. Water deflects well and absorbs thermal energy. The weight would be added on the spot so the transportation would be easy. How comes no one came with the idea yet?
I think that hard kill with a laser will the the next solution to the drone threat. A single laser top mounted in a turret could sweep the sky from the top of the turret up. I am not sure how to differentiate birds from drones, but I am sure that there are very capable weapons engineers who can solve that problem. People should be easier with thermal imaging given their size and temperature range. Machine learning and battlefield intelligence sharing should help as well. I think that drones are a game changer, but I also think that they can be countered.
Combat doctrine both in the West and former Soviet states has infantry providing support alongside tanks. APS could make Swiss cheese of any infantry trying to support the tank.
Drones moving too slowly for APS to be effective...immediately reminds me of a HALO book about the SPARTAN IIIs encountering Forerunner drones that would flash up energy shielding if a munition was fired at it, but the spartan kids were able to kill the drones with thrown/dropped rocks. LOL
I imagine that top attack ATGMs will be further modified to appear to be flying well over a tank, so not appearing to be a threat, then diving very steeply when they are almost over the tank. Also, using hard kill active defenses means no dismounted infantry anywhere near the tank for fear of friendly fire casualties, which causes other tactical problems.
My thougjt was why not make a sleathy atgm, take the front of a f32 nose cone for example and use the same shape for a missile, and same with body shape etc to deflect radar
Why don't they have automated shotgun turrets that track drones via AI targeting on-top of tanks? They could have an automated rotary launcher that shoots 4 gauge, 2 gauge or 40mm birdshot.
Radar and AI are not magic...the top of the line radars have a hard time tracking very small, slow moving, low altitude targets. Those are being improved for that. Let alone a piece that need to be very compact to fit on the turret of a tank and can be knocked out by debris and shrapnel. So many things to consider. So many things in the way at the level of a tank. And it costs a lot and requires more maintenance, with no system being 100% effective. It's an evolving field. Always consider the balance and what it would take to counter the counter measures. The portable jammers seem to work effectively when used on hot areas, albeit it has its downsides too.
point to add. Ukraine is also suffering from the same FPV attacks, in smaller scale. And like Russia, Ukraine is also one of the pioneers of APS. And unlike Russian ones with no real field tests, Ukrainian APS Zaslon/Zaslin forms the basis of the Turkish stopgap APS solution Pulat, found on M60TMs. Pulat is combat proven in Syria against ISIS atgms, even Kornets. Why doesn't Ukraine work on APS?
Afganit isn’t designed for drones…..it’s designed for hard kill of kinetic APFSDS rounds, and it’s not an add on system so it’s not deployed on older equipment
So I feel like I'm missing something quite obvious here. Why isn't there some sort of auto-turret set up with a lmg sized belt-fed gun guided by optical sensors on top of the tank? Have the thing set up to give a couple bursts to airborne things nearby, with an automatic mode and manual mode. Maybe some cameras, a range finder, maybe some sort of cheap radar like a cop would use set up feeding their info into a smart phone level computer. This feels like a simple solution, but no one seems to be doing it. Is there an obvious reason why this wouldn't work?? (other than it is complicated)
I have the same feeling. I can see of two reasons : it is complicated to discriminate FPV drones from birds, or people walking by. But even an imperfect system would do, the crew would use it only when under threat. Or designs are under way and are not ready yet.
Because expensive radars have a hard time detecting very small and slow moving targets, especially at low altitudes. So a '' cheap '' one won't do it at all. It is a specialized tool anyway, not a generic tech. If you really want the answer you need to be ready to deep dive on radars, youtube gave access to a lot of informations but it gives viewers the bias that we are well informed on pretty much everything, which is wrong.
@@H0kram no, radars have no problems detecting slow moving targets and working at low altitude (we are far from the horizon where the curvature of Earth hides low flying objects) The issue is more in the processing of data. Slow moving objects are simply ignored, filtered off, to concentrate on what was thought to be the real threat : fast flying objects, like missiles and AT rounds. Adding the processing of slow moving objects mays overload the computer, which will have to discriminate between birds, tree leaves in the wind, other vehicles, etc… it may require another type of computers, that cannot process fast moving targets but only slower ones (the computer has more data to process, but more time to process them as there are slow). It is not the sensor which is an issue, more the way the data will be processed to make sure only the threats are detected and engaged.
@@chefchaudard3580 I think that the bird aspect is a problem with these fancy anti-missile systems that really only have a handful of shots before they need to be basically replaced. With a machine gun, just pop your head out the hatch and throw a new belt in. The ecological impact would be fairly minimal compared to all the nearby war stuff. As for people, well I'd hope that the system would be smart enough to be able to tell the difference between a bipedal figure on the ground and a quad copter. I'm just mostly confused why every defense contractor in the world isn't showing off their new auto-turret drone denial system prototype, seems like there is gonna be a market for it
@@darthalpha1525 it means you need some processing that can tell apart drones aimed at the tank, people, other vehicles, tree leaves that move with the wind… and, why not, friendly drones that take off close by. It is shape recognition. And remember radars have a low resolution compared to human eyes and are « color blind ». It is certainly something that can be done, but it requires some work
Even an advanced APS programed to engage the velocity of drones, would probably start blasting at any low-flying bird like swallows the moment it gets switched on.
Someone should try a chain flail attached like a helicopter rotor. It would give protection similar to a cage against slow moving drones, at a fraction of the weight. Even better if the hub can pivot 10-15 degrees. And repairs would be as simple as swapping in a new chain or cable. Wouldn’t require a whole lot of power either.
Interestingly, the Russians have just announced a few days ago that they will start installing Arena-M systems on their T-90M tanks, I believe by the end of this year or possibly starting next year. While this is obviously not 100% a sure thing, it is important to mention it as context to this video. Also, they have only mentioned putting it on the T-90M, so most likely there aren't any plans yet to put these systems on other tanks.
If active systems worked well on drones, you'd likely get rid of the cope cage. So it would have to be one of the other factors, like limited ammo or they just aren't effective enough given the cost.
Damn i hate this missunderstanding that sloped armor saves weight because projectile needs to go through more armor when it's sloped- NO! Imagine that you push that armor into vertical plate, this sloped width will be the width of this plate, same weight. What sloped armor does is firstly higher the chance of ricochet and secondly when projectile hits it it alters trajectory making projectile punching with bigger surface spreading the energy, at the end of the day it gives better protection so it saves weight but in different way.
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Great vid I'm sure that just like there has been a evolution when it comes to ERA I'm sure the same will be with APS systems. I'm sure down the road an APS system will be made to be able to defeat a FPV drone 100%. Though still how would Trophy go as its the only system I've seen that works in combat agianst ATGM and RPGs it may have a better technologically over the Russian afghanit system and the new Iron fist.
❤
Ok, here is the thing. Trophy APS in fact does work and already proved itself in the combat, against drones. Anyone who claim otherwise is ignorant or lying. It is because Trophy in fact was designed against the drones.
But it is true that many conventional APS systems do not work. First, it is because most systems is designed to trick sensors of the active guiding systems, rather then stop missile directly. But with first person guidance, or at least semi-remote systems, those countermeasures are not so effective (though arguably already didn't work against Western systems). Also in many cases (look Russia) those systems are based on fragmentation grenades detonated on expected trajectory of the missile, so that may not work when pilot actively avoid those.
Generally new generation of active SHORAD systems is only introduced and new generation of tanks may actually use them. With either automatic MG systems or even dedicated 30mm airburst cannons. But war in Ukraine is example of war straight from the 90's and there are no modern systems there.
"The slow drone bypasses the APS"-Duncan Idaho, I think.
Yes
I think it was the other guy, but yes
Gurney said that. Both with and without Pug
*MILES TEG GOES BRRRT*
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'Cope Cage' meme was for as a defense against ATGMs like Javelins, not FPV drones -which started to gain attention/use much later.
The FPV defense/meme is the 'Turtle Tank'.
Yes I guess this is true, cope cages try to trigger the 2 stage munition and turtle tanks try to protect multiple parts like the engine and turrets from multiple smaller RPG7 strikes by slow flying drones
Yeah a lot of people miss this, this is really the first war where cheap drones became such a threat to armored vehicles. Cope cages were used since before people realized that threat, originally they were used with intentions to stop top attack atgms like javelin and NLAW, and in that they are completely ineffective. What they are good for is grenades dropped from above, either by drones or tossed down by someone on a building: Which is why the israelis also use them. against fpvs they can help because it reduces the angle they can approach from but it doesn't thwart them completely.
IRC, the cope/top attack cages evolved from urban fighting in Chechnya.
imagine if US invaded China (just hypothetically) and China's controls DJI 😂
Slat armour is effective against RPG's, plenty of NATO vehicles used it in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Naming them cope cages will never not be funny
Ironically, that name existed before the modern interpretation of cope.. I think
@@kahlzun It was created by the NonCredibleDefense community just before the start of the invasion as the first images of Russian tanks with addition roof armor appeared.
Ukraine does the same now though?
@@nemanja162 Doesn't matter the name cemented itself, also cope can mean "To contend with difficulties and act to overcome them." so it fits either way.
@@nemanja162 For a different purpose. the original Russian "cope cages" were intended to stop top-attack ATGMs and failed horribly at doing so. The modern interpretation used by both sides is to stop drone attacks.
The speed limit sounds more like an identification problem where machine learning could be used to distinguish drones from other kinds of threats. The good thing with drones is that you can be gathering data for a longer time than there is for an rpg round coming in. More data should make it easier to distinguish if the target is on a ballistic trajectory like debree or if it is flying towards the tank like an fpv.
Conversely, identifying a missile threat (RPG, etc.) could be easier since it's following a strictly ballistic trajectory and not maneuvering once it's fired.
Then again, they could just change the shape of the drone to defeat the ai, similar to the story of the troops sneaking up on an ai security camera by just wearing a box and shuffling along like he’s Snake. Like, imagine if they made a drone that looks like Shrek’s head or something. The ai would have no idea what that’s supposed to be
@@TheIronHipThat assumes the system uses shape to determine if it’s a drone, which isn’t a given.
And if different shape is successfully used, the following week the software would be updated to spot it. Simply the back and forth nature of warfare.
an alternative approach would be to design a system where certain types of false positives are acceptable. an example would be an automated rapid fire, high velocity but small caliber machine gun set to shoot at any flying object above a certain size that is actively getting closer (even if not on an collision course). the result if able to aim quickly enough could counter everything from missiles to drones abet at the cost of it just randomly shooting down birds as part of normal operations.
@roboticgamer8990 guns do not typically make great defenses against Arial targets, they tend to traverse to slowly, the amount of lead/bullets it would have to expend to knock out a target would make it more than likely cost prohibited vs drones.
just look at the cwis or mantis systems, both fire hundred of rounds per second just for a chance to hit their targets with far more complicated radar systems than you'd ever find on a Russian tank.
That one they discovered on a wrecked t80 was a weird prototype one from the 80s that didn’t even have its canisters/ammo in it and couldn’t be used.
Yep that's actually my understanding directly from Oryx members. I double checked with them to see if they'd seen any APS I'd missed, they said no, and that the one I pointed out most likely wasn't functional
They were probably doing testing stuff or something and just left the shell of the aps on after honestly
They never had APS hard kill. Just soft kill, like smoke and early warning laser. The T90m equipt with arena-M was just Patton last year. In the history of the Russian military they finally stick on the release date witch I believe 2024-2025. It will be interesting to see them on the battlefield
@@johng8967 There's literally video of their APS system in use in this video you commented on, so yeah they had it.
@@filonin2 APS hard kill?? They literally just Patton the Ariana-M for the t90m. They are under way as of this year or 2025. Now there's other Variant of the ariana like typ E but it was still in the testing phase. What APS system are you talking about?
Cope cages were ridiculed mainly in the beginning of the invasion when the drones weren't that ubiquitous and they were believed to be an attempt at protecting the tanks against top down attack munitions like javelin. I don't think people ridicule those cages anymore, or at least not to the same degree.
I do recall that one of the more charitable assessments of cope cages back then stated they would be much more useful against drone-dropped grenades.
I believe the cages were presented in Russian state media as anti-Javelin missile armor. And it proved decisively ineffective against such threats.
Cages increase standoff distance from shaped charge. Against a PG7 warhead FPV, it acts as probabilistic armor, either making it a UXO, or increasing penetration if the warhead detonates.
Netting based cages work much better against FPVs and other low velocity drones like Lancet, whereas hard slat works as regular probabilistic armor against all non-shoulder fuzed shaped charges, whether slow or fast moving.
The peculiar thing with Lancet is that it already comes with the optimal standoff distance upon contact detonation due to the frontal mounted EO/IR globe. This means on Lancet, increased standoff actually decreases penetration. Most shaped charge warheads have less standoff distance than the warhead ideal since it doesn't have the frontal seeker to take up that space.
We found better things to make fun of, like the Blyatmobile "assault sheds", which are really just the natural evolution of cope cages.
They were protection against drone dropped grenades, but people falsely concluded that they were for defeating Javelins.
@@Crosshair84 Then why did Russia make the assault sheds that are worse in every conceivable way?
video starts at 6:05
Another reason is if that system goes off while friendly infantry is around they are going to have a bad day.
Lol Russians don't use infantry next to tanks. You could toggle it off once they dump out as drones hit them
Seems like a feature. Use your boots, private.
Tank being ammo racked with dismounts next to it probably isn't very good either.
Tanks and infantry are trying to keep their distance from eachother in this war. The reason for "Turtle Tanks" being used is that tanks are being used in a much more "WW 1" style as assault guns.
@@up4openwhat’s your 2 mile time Private?
I suspect that Russia may just never have built enough active protection systems for an actual war. It's probably cheaper to just stuff a couple conscripts in to a fifty+ year old tank with a photocopied copy of the tank manual to share and point them in the general direction of the enemy, then claim that they deserted after their tank's ammo cooks off and incinerates them in order to avoid paying their next of kin.
Congrats comrade, you just completed brief russian tank tactics! Grade A.
idiots😁
my personal opinion is to bring back SPAAGs potentially higher caliber flak based spaags like proxy fuse 40mm bofors or 57mm bofors or even 76mm otomatic, lasers seem like they would need too much infrastructure for ground based mobile self propelled systems but would work for static sites or warships, i mean flak is proven and you might even be able to use 360 cameras instead of exposed crew
My branch in the Army was Air Defense, I am intensely interested in this. 76 OTO is a helluva round but all you need is goose-hunting level of firepower to take out FPVs. A belt-fed 12 gauge slaved to a detection system will neutralize drones out to 50-60 meters, which is often all is available. Drones can lurk right above a woodline, can a 76 or 57mm arm and safely engage at very short range?
Maybe a MK19 grenade launcher, which already has airburst capabilities is the ultra-short-range solution. Affordable, already in service, and multi-purpose.
Airburst rounds? Canister/shotgun/flechette rounds? Bolo/net flingers? Rotor-drones are very fragile.
Ai drone swarms scare the 💩 out of me, as they should anyone.
And there needs to be multiple detection systems; radar, camera and acoustic.
@@CorePathwayyeah MK19 could be effective
@@CorePathwaythe current western upcoming solution is radar guided 30mm guns with airburst shells.
Some of the tanks at that recent tank/arms expo already had these on them, though not yet in mass production / looking for contracts
@@TheBaldrickk I wonder what is the minimum range is for high velocity 30mms leaving the barrel at 2800 fps
A single 57 or 76 advance airburst ammo cost more than the fpvs they shot down, the cost exchange equation is not with the defender. Even 40mm is stretching it a little bit tbh. You also always want to put multiple interceptor for every single incoming because nothing works perfectly 100% of the time. Those make the cost exchange equation even more unfavorable for the defender.
Oh, then there is how do you sustain the fire. 57 are huge. You are looking at about 100 rounds for most vehicle. Your ready round is going to be around 20. Even worse for the 76. You might have maybe 50 round in total. 40 is marginally better than 57 in both the ready rack and total round.
Then there is the reaction time. How fast can your gun engage drone coming in from multiple different vector both against you and the unit you are suppose to protect?
I don't get the entire section on "laser is simply too much for mobile defense". We now has laser that fit comfortably at the back of a hilux. Same with microwave, but those tend to be slightly bigger needing 8x8. Anyway, those are likely the future.
Lastly, I suggest I suggest rheinmetall strike shield for aps optimized against drone.
How about the good old reliable soviet HSA? (Human shield Armour). It is cheap and light weight. You can even equip that with RS (random sticks) to down any incoming drone and reuse that part of your HSA+RS protection.
I was in the Army's Future Combat Systems Brigade and when the engineers were telling us about APS, we asked about infantry near us. They were dumbfounded bc they hadn't thought of that.
Not to be that asshole but isn't that what the M2 or M240 on the top is 4?
Interesting, when you get to use a tank with APS one of the things you're specifically told to do is turn the system off when people are around, you're getting out or when you're in a safe spot etc.
@danthevanman294 then they've picked up some things since then.
This guy's theme music is the soundtrack of my Saturday afternoons. I love getting high and learning about jets and tanks.
Shameless junkie, how far we have fallen.
Puff puff pass
Sloped armor is exactly as heavier than the non sloped version as thicker it seems from the front. You can imagine slicing it horizontally and moving the slices on top of each other to create the non sloped version of the same size.
Very interesting look into drones VS tanks, thanks!
Very well summarised a very complex topic! Well done.
Shtora doesn’t work against any in service SACLOS missile. TOW has been protected against that for decades now. Both Shtora and our equivalent were obsolete not long after entering service.
Just because they show stuff at a tradeshow doesn't mean it's anywhere ready for mass production or works (see also; su-57, T-14 ak-102 etc...)
This is also true for west/NATO too btw. We keep seeing these cyberpunk tank/IFV demonstrators, metal storm, automatic fire self propelled mortars etc.. all these wheeled drone platforms.. where are they in the real world ? Nowhere atm still. USA barely is greenlighting sending 1970-1980s stuff thats at expiration date for the most part.
It's kinda different for both Russia and western countries. In western countries these shows are made by defence companies to advertise/show off to the military ( foreign and domestic) and media what they can do.
In Russia it's kinda the same thing but they also advise new equipment that the military says it's going to adopt, has massive issues with procurement and manufacturing said equipment and by the end it's either a half baked version of what was promised or is never produced in any significant amount and is never brought up again or just becomes a propaganda pice e.g the AK-12, T-14, T-15, Su-57 and Su-75.
Mr Cabal, welcome back!
We missed you...
His last video was uploaded 7 days ago...
The magazine size of most current APS is also way to small against drones. We're talking about single digits per side. For some types it isn't feasible to carry more, the large rockets some Russian systems use come to mind. The Israeli shotgun-type has a fairly long reload if I recall correctly.
I know about one company that is working on dual purpose hard kill APS, for intercepting high speed threats like ATGMs it would use something like trophy or similar systems, and for slow targets like drones it would use remote weapon station, one radar for both but two different interceptors. Issue for now is integrating both to work properly and that guns on current remote weapon stations are to small, minimum reliable gun to intercept drones by them was 20mm autocannon with programable ammunition, so redesign of tank turret would be needed to fit everything.
What about trying 12 gauge? There's a lot of case volume for a programmable warhead and you can use full brass cases for more finicky designs. Imagine a miniaturized Mk. 19 I suppose. I'm also curious how well flechettes would work in other scenarios. If possible it seems a lot more compact than any 20mm autocannon I'm familiar with.
@@sqeeye3102 It must perform all duties of old 12.7mm or for my American friends .50 cal, 20mm is the only suitable gun to fulfill all requirements, and you still need dual feed for ammo, programable and APDS
Always worth the time to watch Covert Cabal
Russia isn't using APS's on their tanks at all. The old APS's from the 80s are long past their expiration date, and have simply been removed. Russia won't install new APS's because the T-72 is old and obsolete anyway, and the crew is expendable as far as Russia is concerned. But they won't work against drones because they were never designed to counter drones in the first place.
A new APS designed to counter drones is necessary, and is exactly what is being developed by other countries. The best idea is to tie a radar to an autocannon firing shells with a proximity fuse, and shoot the drones down at range. But honestly, the best counter to drones, is to use drones. A hunter-killer drone armed with automatic shotguns (AA-12's), firing birdshot is probably best.
If recent history is any judge? Ivan stole some critical parts from it and forged the maintenance log.
Hard kill APS systems can be reprogrammed or upgraded to recognize and attack slow flying drones, machine learning should classify correctly drones and birds.
If an army introduce hard kill APS on their armored vehicles, opponent army will respond by using EFP (explosively formed penetrator) warheads on their anti-tank missiles and FPV drones.
Typically EFP is effective when is activated 50m to 100m from the target.
To be near 100% effective against dedicated anti-tank weapons, range of APS must be above 100 meters.
Why don't they use the warheads from BONUS (or SMArt) artillery rounds? These can be dropped by the drone from high above. It would mean the drone can be reused and also that you only have to get v roughly above the tank which would mean less training for the pilots.
@@mikebikekite1 This type of sub-ammunition You mentioned is build to withstand acceleration during artillery shot hence is very expensive.
One can build cheap self-guided gliding bomb using motherboard from cheap mobile phone with camera. Cheap servo motors and control surfaces from model shop. And put it around appropriate antitank warhead.
Cheap 3d printed body to hold it together.
Guidance software is not that difficult to write and processor one can find in a cheap phone is sufficient.
But for now not guided bombs made from anti-tank warheads taken from grande launchers with 3d printed fins are sufficient.
@@mikebikekite1 EFPs are very inefficient in terms of penetration ability / weight. For example, the BONUS submunitions penetrate 100-140mm RHA and weigh 6.5 kg. A shaped-charge warhead from PG-7VL weighs 1.5 kg and penetrates 500mm RHA. So unless you have a specific reason(like defeating APS by firing from far away) it's better to use shaped charges.
@@MishaAmashukeli I have seen videos of BONUS rounds taking out T90 tanks but maybe they were just lucky shots.
@@_DarkEmperor I think most antitank drones are flown by operators rather than by guidance software. A BONUS round costs $5K but contains 2 sub-munitions so it's not that expensive (IF it kills the target).
They work perfectly! all two of them.
The cycle of measure and countermeasure continues
Yeah. They should decrease minimum velocity on APS, and see how well it will affect their own soldiers :D
Perun and you are my favorite two channels
2000 dollar drone multi million dollar tank, you do the math on how many drones one can afford to lose per tank.
Hey - Thanks!
Very Nice!
Its because most russian tanks were fitted with mockup APS due to the real thing being to expensive, isnt it
Just call it.."cosmetic skin". Lol
They never had APS hard kill. Just soft kill, like smoke and early warning laser. The T90m equipt with arena-M was just Patton last year. In the history of the Russian military they finally stick on the release date witch I believe 2024-2025. Don't get confused with Wikipedia.
Is this NAFO trolling?
Most nato tanks don’t have APS
Red effect triggered right now
Great job as always 🇬🇧
Interesting. During GWOT, my unit didn't call them cope cages, but it was standard procedure to have cammoflage steel-mesh cages over vehicle turrets to protect from insurgents dropping grenades/molotov cocktails/bricks/etc. down into our vehicles.
Why not just have infantry support the tank instead?
@@fleecejohnsonn I WAS infantry. Mostly we patrolled on foot, sometimes we get from point A to point B in various vehicles with turrets, hence the protection scheme learned through experience.
Great sunshade too lol
They are called cope cages considering they do nothing to protect the tank, or even hinder your ability to exit or enter the tank, they are anything but standard procedure in the beginning when they originally were made, what ever buts of scrap the Russians could steal was welded on-top
@@fleecejohnsonnprobably because of this thing called "teamwork" and "ambushes". Having infantry support is no guarantee for safety against such weapons. It's hard to spot someone in the second floor who's waiting until the convoy is already passing to grab something and throw it out the window, or if an ambush happens the infantry can be distracted and something can be thrown from another direction.
Jamming on the tank most likely won't be helpful in near future. Drones are getting auto-targeting system for last mile already, in future it will be a default functionality for a combat FPV drone. So jamming it around the tank won't save the tanks from a drone just visually targeting and completing it's route into tank's hull.
But this jammers would be quite easy to look for, therefore finding the tank in the first place.
Supporting dismounts: *exist*
APS: POWER WORD KILL
When APS sensors resolution, frequency, multi-aspect and computing power increase, fuse and are supported by AI, only then tank APS are going to be effective against all threats at once.
This capability is already here, in air defence anti-drone systems like APSystems SKYctrl. Ofc land warfare has its own set of unique rules, but many apply from AD and SP systems.
RedEffect in shambles.
😂 I really feel like he made this just because of Red
*ERA
Nope, ERA can be designed more against kinetics or more against chemical rounds or somewhat inbetween (and a bazillion other factors). So that's not a defining factor.
According to Ukrinform, Ukraine has been taking out ~300 tanks a month this year, but this month looks like it will be less than 200. What's going on?
Good question
Russians don't have installed any form of hard kill APS on any of there active service tanks. Armata does have Afganit HK APS but it is not in active service. There are plans to install Arena M aps in future on tanks (first of which will be T-90M )which they plan on installing starting from 2025. I think many people get confused becuase many Western and Russian sources say there tanks have APS. Only some T-80 and all T-90 but they have soft kill aps called Shtora (iconic red eyes) but it is only a LWR and nothing more. T-90 M also only has LWR, and even if the tanks have aps no HK APS right now can detect and itercept drones.
Ooof your comment just destroyed Red effect’s recent cope video 🤣
While Active Protection Systems (APS) can effectively counter some anti-tank threats, they are not foolproof against drones. Drones' small size, agility, and ability to change direction quickly can make them difficult to intercept. Additionally, the low cost of drones allows adversaries to employ swarm tactics, overwhelming APS systems and potentially destroying tanks or armored vehicles.
6:47 Shtora has always been used till today! It is a much smaller APS than the previous version. Like you said, it is a softkill APS to make the weapons lose tracking and miss, like deploying smokes or jamming. Even if they lose their combat effectiveness against FPV drones, they would still be fighting against armored vehicles or tanks. If they would remove the Shtora, would the commander trust the crew intrusive thoughts to survive anything? Not to mention that there's probably a chance that most of the Russians tank crews are inexperienced.
Cope cages have no effect on FPS drones thats why they have tuttle tanks which limits the role of a tank.
I would assume APS is exactly the solution against drones, but with an entirely new suite of sensors to detect them and some sort of friend/foe detection so it doesn't keep downing their own drones. As for infantry, proximity sensors could block APS from triggering when people are in the danger zone (and warn the crew so it can override in case those are not friendlies or the sensor bad).
If I remember correctly in WW2 one reason why the Germans on the Bismarck had trouble shooting down British Swordfish biplanes was that the anti-aircraft guns on the Bismarck weren't designed to hit planes moving so slowly.
Its more a training and experience issue.
Quick positive comment for CC from AU.🇦🇺
APS should allow the Commander to manually tell the system to engage a slow moving threat like a drone, and engage those that come at a high speed.
Actually slope armor do increase weight…. At least if you keep the protected space….
I love the cover you have done on the Ukraine/Russian conflict. But can you cover other military conflicts like the Israel/Iran conflict.
I think the only solution to drones jamming and remote machine guns, 2 radars sets, one for APSs (ATGMs/shoulder launched grenades) and one for slow moving drones that alerts the tank commanders and then proceeds to mannually aim and shoot at the drone through a remote machine gun.
Great video! 👍
I do not concur with the opinion that era tend to work better against scj. ERA simply works better against all type of penetrator per mass and per volume when compare to more passive armor.
Also, we have pretty good idea how most aps works, as they are often not classified and advertised widely with pretty detail animations, test report, documentations, etc.
The best way to prevent your tanks from being destroyed is to not invade other countries.
Thats layer one o the survivability onion. Don't be there.
tell that to the US, GB, French and Fascistrael Warmongers
@@easygroove Indeed, others countries should not wage war. But lets be honest. War in Ukraine is one sided agression. Ukraine is defending its country and russians are dying for putin and for washing machines. Simple as so dont bring in other wars into talks about Ukraine war
@@easygrooveshifting the goal post doesn't disprove the original statement ivan
@@easygroove be consistent, tell it to Russia as well.
Lasers. We need lasers to counter FPV drones.
They got to modify the software. Maybe add a Mic to listen for the humming. APS can pretty sure defend against Drones. Cope Cages are still cheaper.
Sleep can wait….Covert Cabal has uploaded!
Optical identifiers. Just as seek & destroy loitering munitions can identify friend from foe & specific vehicles to target, next gen hard kill will need to have some sort of method to see incoming items and then bed able to autonomously decide go/ no to.
the hard kill aps has shown a problem, when troops are on the ground in the vicinity of the tank and the aps activates the projectiles it fires to take out the incoming also take out all the friendly troops withing the spread pattern
Another thing I was wondering about are the CIWS systems. You know, the US has R2D2 with a hard on called the Phalanx, Russia has it's own, so why don't those protect their ships against the Ukrainian drones? Wikipedia says Kortik CIWS can be employed against fast attack boats.
They do use them. Thing is what Ukraine does is send so many drones that they can’t hit them all, and on top of that the Russian navy isn’t exactly the most well trained or equipped navy on the planet. With the Moskva for e morale a major reason it was able to be sunk was because the crew didn’t have the radar running due to it interfering with other systems on the ship, so they didn’t see the Ukrainian drones approaching.
I have not been getting notifications from your channel for weeks, maybe a month or 2 now.
I dropped and resubscribed now to try and jump start the algorithm BS.
Great video…
One of the first anti-armour shaped charge devices was the British PIAT device used in early 1940's in WW2
1: I'd argue APS isn't as effective as always claimed (in the 95 to 100% range). Or it'd be adapted to kill drones rathee than equip jammers.
2: off the top of my head you could use a dual system. A radar which functions as a detection radar after which a laser is pointed at the target. With the laser you can track the speed of the wingbeat... or turning of the propellor(s). Which would make it easy to detect what it is that is flying at you. And that's just off the top of my head, there should be more ways to determine what is flying there especially since they are slower and take more time to get to you.
Also compared to APS systems against RPG's it would be cheaper per shot since you don't need munitions with enough speed and force to take out an RPG, only a drone.
But that requires the APS system it's based on to function well in the first place
90+% explains what anti-tank ammo, protection schemes, and APSs are
Like the vast majority of russian gear, 1) it doesnt live up to expectations, 2) The makers scammed to govt for money and 3) its too expensive and parts arent available to make more, so the few vehicles that had them mounted when purchased are the only ones that will ever have them....
Even if they had an operational APS all it would take is more cheap drones to saturate the system.
Off cource slopped armer increases weight. You just have to think about a triangle, there is more wright og hypetonse then then katete.
they move to slowly
Not mentioned: Drunken orcs have trouble maintaining AKs, never mind complex radar on APS systems.
Spaced armor should be filled with water. Water deflects well and absorbs thermal energy. The weight would be added on the spot so the transportation would be easy. How comes no one came with the idea yet?
Rafael Trophy system new version now includes the ability to intercept drones.
I think that hard kill with a laser will the the next solution to the drone threat. A single laser top mounted in a turret could sweep the sky from the top of the turret up. I am not sure how to differentiate birds from drones, but I am sure that there are very capable weapons engineers who can solve that problem. People should be easier with thermal imaging given their size and temperature range. Machine learning and battlefield intelligence sharing should help as well.
I think that drones are a game changer, but I also think that they can be countered.
Combat doctrine both in the West and former Soviet states has infantry providing support alongside tanks. APS could make Swiss cheese of any infantry trying to support the tank.
Drones moving too slowly for APS to be effective...immediately reminds me of a HALO book about the SPARTAN IIIs encountering Forerunner drones that would flash up energy shielding if a munition was fired at it, but the spartan kids were able to kill the drones with thrown/dropped rocks. LOL
Active protection hard kill system cost ALOT to do and require quite elaborate maintenance to work properly.
They should develop small caliber PDS instead
obsolete fear factory 1998- best album ever made prove me wrong!
Good video, survivorship bias is real, even after a century of modern warfare. :)
I imagine that top attack ATGMs will be further modified to appear to be flying well over a tank, so not appearing to be a threat, then diving very steeply when they are almost over the tank. Also, using hard kill active defenses means no dismounted infantry anywhere near the tank for fear of friendly fire casualties, which causes other tactical problems.
My thougjt was why not make a sleathy atgm, take the front of a f32 nose cone for example and use the same shape for a missile, and same with body shape etc to deflect radar
Why don't they have automated shotgun turrets that track drones via AI targeting on-top of tanks? They could have an automated rotary launcher that shoots 4 gauge, 2 gauge or 40mm birdshot.
They're doing this with anti-air assets, they just haven't managed to get it on top of a tank yet.
That's actually a good idea. I'm sure everyone is on it.
30mm auto cannon with airburst would be better.
Radar and AI are not magic...the top of the line radars have a hard time tracking very small, slow moving, low altitude targets. Those are being improved for that. Let alone a piece that need to be very compact to fit on the turret of a tank and can be knocked out by debris and shrapnel.
So many things to consider. So many things in the way at the level of a tank. And it costs a lot and requires more maintenance, with no system being 100% effective. It's an evolving field. Always consider the balance and what it would take to counter the counter measures. The portable jammers seem to work effectively when used on hot areas, albeit it has its downsides too.
New European projects are doing that
Good video!
point to add. Ukraine is also suffering from the same FPV attacks, in smaller scale. And like Russia, Ukraine is also one of the pioneers of APS. And unlike Russian ones with no real field tests, Ukrainian APS Zaslon/Zaslin forms the basis of the Turkish stopgap APS solution Pulat, found on M60TMs. Pulat is combat proven in Syria against ISIS atgms, even Kornets. Why doesn't Ukraine work on APS?
Despite the title, it was a very good video. Thank you.
There’s nothing wrong with the title.
@@Wasattsi I think it was changed. It's fine now, I don't remember original one.
I was a tanker for over 23 years and I get so mad when I see a crewmember passing a round primer down into the tank!!! It's not the proper way!😂
Just like every ship can be a mine sweeper, every tank can be a mortar carrier. Once.
Probably the answer to drones attacking tanks is going to be different drones defending tanks.
Next video…locating Irans tunnel entrances in the mountains
Afganit isn’t designed for drones…..it’s designed for hard kill of kinetic APFSDS rounds, and it’s not an add on system so it’s not deployed on older equipment
So I feel like I'm missing something quite obvious here. Why isn't there some sort of auto-turret set up with a lmg sized belt-fed gun guided by optical sensors on top of the tank? Have the thing set up to give a couple bursts to airborne things nearby, with an automatic mode and manual mode. Maybe some cameras, a range finder, maybe some sort of cheap radar like a cop would use set up feeding their info into a smart phone level computer. This feels like a simple solution, but no one seems to be doing it. Is there an obvious reason why this wouldn't work?? (other than it is complicated)
I have the same feeling.
I can see of two reasons : it is complicated to discriminate FPV drones from birds, or people walking by. But even an imperfect system would do, the crew would use it only when under threat. Or designs are under way and are not ready yet.
Because expensive radars have a hard time detecting very small and slow moving targets, especially at low altitudes.
So a '' cheap '' one won't do it at all. It is a specialized tool anyway, not a generic tech. If you really want the answer you need to be ready to deep dive on radars, youtube gave access to a lot of informations but it gives viewers the bias that we are well informed on pretty much everything, which is wrong.
@@H0kram no, radars have no problems detecting slow moving targets and working at low altitude (we are far from the horizon where the curvature of Earth hides low flying objects)
The issue is more in the processing of data. Slow moving objects are simply ignored, filtered off, to concentrate on what was thought to be the real threat : fast flying objects, like missiles and AT rounds. Adding the processing of slow moving objects mays overload the computer, which will have to discriminate between birds, tree leaves in the wind, other vehicles, etc… it may require another type of computers, that cannot process fast moving targets but only slower ones (the computer has more data to process, but more time to process them as there are slow).
It is not the sensor which is an issue, more the way the data will be processed to make sure only the threats are detected and engaged.
@@chefchaudard3580 I think that the bird aspect is a problem with these fancy anti-missile systems that really only have a handful of shots before they need to be basically replaced. With a machine gun, just pop your head out the hatch and throw a new belt in. The ecological impact would be fairly minimal compared to all the nearby war stuff. As for people, well I'd hope that the system would be smart enough to be able to tell the difference between a bipedal figure on the ground and a quad copter. I'm just mostly confused why every defense contractor in the world isn't showing off their new auto-turret drone denial system prototype, seems like there is gonna be a market for it
@@darthalpha1525 it means you need some processing that can tell apart drones aimed at the tank, people, other vehicles, tree leaves that move with the wind… and, why not, friendly drones that take off close by.
It is shape recognition.
And remember radars have a low resolution compared to human eyes and are « color blind ».
It is certainly something that can be done, but it requires some work
Even an advanced APS programed to engage the velocity of drones, would probably start blasting at any low-flying bird like swallows the moment it gets switched on.
Since the hardkill systems target things at speeds of 150 mph, there is an above zero chance a Peregrine Falcon could be shot down.
Someone should try a chain flail attached like a helicopter rotor. It would give protection similar to a cage against slow moving drones, at a fraction of the weight. Even better if the hub can pivot 10-15 degrees. And repairs would be as simple as swapping in a new chain or cable. Wouldn’t require a whole lot of power either.
Interestingly, the Russians have just announced a few days ago that they will start installing Arena-M systems on their T-90M tanks, I believe by the end of this year or possibly starting next year. While this is obviously not 100% a sure thing, it is important to mention it as context to this video. Also, they have only mentioned putting it on the T-90M, so most likely there aren't any plans yet to put these systems on other tanks.
I love your videos, but sloped armor does not decrease weight.
If active systems worked well on drones, you'd likely get rid of the cope cage. So it would have to be one of the other factors, like limited ammo or they just aren't effective enough given the cost.
The new Arena M utilises effectors with in built thrusters that can reorientate in flight. Designed to defeat javelin and nlaws.
Damn i hate this missunderstanding that sloped armor saves weight because projectile needs to go through more armor when it's sloped- NO! Imagine that you push that armor into vertical plate, this sloped width will be the width of this plate, same weight. What sloped armor does is firstly higher the chance of ricochet and secondly when projectile hits it it alters trajectory making projectile punching with bigger surface spreading the energy, at the end of the day it gives better protection so it saves weight but in different way.
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