Adaptation, adaptation and adaptation again. The war survives the 1 who adapts more rapidly to the conditions of the battlefield. This applies both to the full army (ba, all active in the conflict of states) and to a single soldier. It is simply a continuous process, with many dead ends. Sometimes it can take the form of bizarre solutions and patents – specified as Russian "turtles" and "stocks", increasingly seen on Ukrainian steppes.
A small communicative first. In 2003, the Polish Army went to Iraq with equipment that left much to be desired. The best example was Honker. highly suspended, unarmed and with besides weak a motor to play the function of a patrol car. The military rapidly realized these weaknesses. And they started to quickly, to their own extent, improve the properties of the equipment. First of all, by armoring cars utilizing available scrap (mainly discs removed from abandoned BRDMs of the Iraqi Army).
The converted cars became somewhat safer, but slower, with a poorly distributed centre of gravity. They were harder to stop. Fellow trucks were so traded for fresh cars. First the modified Honkers, and then the American Humvee cars. Since then, ‘Honeker's revenge’ or, as anyone preferred, ‘Madmaxy’ served only to decision around the bases.
Soon past repeated itself. In the summertime of 2007, Afghanistan had its first Rosomak armored transporters. The Polish contingent operating there needed something better armed and armored than Humvee wagons. It shortly turned out that the factory's armor "Rosieka" was not adequate that it did not defend adequate against the impact of armor grenades fired from an RPG launcher. So the cars began to be equipped with additional CDs. Rosomak ‘swelling’, however, had the power to deal with this ‘overbag’.
But the arms race continued. "The problem is Chinese erpegi with double heads that burn even those reinforced armours," a colleague from Afghanistan wrote to me in the fall of 2009. The hazard forces creativity – and so the Rosomak crew began to improve safety on their own. Polish soldiers came up with another idea. A grid of metallic rods on the frame attached to the side of the car was intended to intercept an incoming grenade before the armor was penetrated. nevertheless improvised, the solution worked. As a result, a fewer months later, mill LSO grids appeared on Polish cars (short for: light shield system). Unfortunately, there are no perfect solutions – LSO modules bent, hit, did not defend all components of the car, and sometimes did not withstand contact with the incoming projectile. "Erpegas" continued to "burn" armor, sometimes with tragic effect to the crew. Nevertheless, the LSO allowed a crucial simplification in losses. That's what this was all about.
Let's get back to the present. respective weeks ago a photograph of the Russian T-72 tank appeared on the network, which was named "the turtle". This is due to the circumstantial improvised armor that the “engineers” have supplied. The fact is, that this "roof" – a form that besides resembles a barn – took distant from the tank 1 of the basic advantages: the anticipation of conducting circular fire. The scope of traffic topped by the barrel of the tower does not appear to be greater than 45–60°, the ‘cover’ most likely did not stay indifferent to the reflection instruments. Yeah, but individual thought the targets of the tank were consecutive ahead, and he himself is expected to drive only forward, attack, from poorness to backfire.
What would happen if he hit a mine? The crew would have problem leaving the car quickly, which importantly increases the hazard of death or wounds. However, it is not mines that are the biggest concern for Russian tankers, but drones falling from the sky. The analysis of the British services shows that three-quarters of Russian tanks were destroyed this year utilizing pilots, as Ukrainians call flying unmanned. And with specified a threat, the roof – according to the assumptions of the designers – should deal with it.
Did he truly make it? “The turtle” survived respective tiny drone strikes and was successfully withdrawn to the rear so that respective modifications could be made. However, in the area of the Donetsk metropolis, his good streak ended. “The turtle”, in the garage (with another machines), was caught by Ukrainian far-reaching artillery.
Soon we saw that the Russians considered the heavy overbuilt tanks as a promising solution – there were photos of the next “turtle” and “table” on the network, and the acquisition of 1 of the wagons by the Ukrainian army was even reported in the bulletin of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Inexperienced conflict observers are inexcusably commenting on Russian desperate improvisations. In their own way, they entertain me and me, but I remember the welded plates to the jeep cabins or filled with sandbags of trucks in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the Americans besides rapidly got armored, though more frequently they simply exchanged vehicles for new, better parameters. So there's usually nothing peculiar about what the Russians do. A soldier on the battlefield will do much to last – and this is simply a universal feature. Only the degree of improvisation can be different, and the wealth of an army is affected. The mediocre gotta do more than that.
