The recent defeat of the Abrams confirms that armored vehicles are very vulnerable to drone attacks, notes Ihor Lutsenko, a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Special protection is needed, and there are technologies, but for some reason Ukraine is in no hurry to use them.
News broke about the alleged destruction of the first Abrams.
I will not comment on a specific case now, but will speak about the problem of protecting armored vehicles from drones.
For some reason, all the photos of Abrams and Leopards that I come across are without protection from drones. The same goes for Soviet tanks, not to mention Bradleys and other infantry fighting vehicles.
For an FPV pilot (or bomber, it doesn’t matter) armored vehicles are the number one target. In some areas of combat, it is with the help of small UAVs that up to 75% of the damage is achieved by drones. Either an FPV with a Soviet charge for a grenade launcher, or a drone with a discharge with something similar, starting from grenades on MK19 and ending with heavy cumulative charges — all of them hunt for large prey.
The armor is the least protected from above. While the frontal armor of a tank is sometimes very thick, which even an anti-tank bomb or ATGM cannot penetrate, from above it is too thin, both on the turret and in the rear of the hull.
A separate story is artillery, that is, self-propelled guns. They are trying to hit them with double force, because they cost a lot, can shoot far and cause a lot of trouble to the enemy. Despite the fact that such artillery usually lives away from the front line - 10 km, for example, but more technically advanced drones like the “Lancet” are also hunting for it, and they cause a lot of trouble. But now, even for a regular FPVikha, 10 km is a completely realistic distance, if the radio horizon allows.
At the beginning of last year, in addition to my direct duties, I also took up the protection of artillery from the Lancets. Together with specialists, we developed structures with nets to cover self-propelled guns from the Lancets. As of now, more than fifty of them have been delivered to the troops. The second generation of the structure has already been released. There are several cases when this structure saved from the arrival of the FPV.
Why are there so few, only 50? After all, we have hundreds and hundreds of artillery installations that need to be covered? The banal answer is that all this is done with sponsorship money. The state of Ukraine is not in a hurry to cover its own, Ukrainian equipment from UAVs.
My (i.e. conditionally “my”) solution for protection is not the only one. A year ago, one military unit, understanding the need to protect armored vehicles, also developed an excellent solution for protecting tanks, etc. I would like to emphasize that these esteemed gentlemen and I thought in sync, although we were not familiar at that time. They went through the proper process, drew up documentation for their development.
And the result is zero, almost like mine. The state hasn't needed their decision yet.
As far as I know, the mesh protection against drones is produced by a company owned by a famous oligarch. The protection is quite clumsy, in my opinion, but it's better than nothing.
That is, on the conditional “market” there are at least three solutions, three players-developers, players-producers. Take and bet AT LEAST SOMETHING on expensive foreign tanks!
But they don't. Mostly bare tanks, bare infantry fighting vehicles, and bare armored personnel carriers went to the so-called counteroffensive of 2023.
By the way, our enemy is also taking care of the problem of protection against drones. They have thrown a lot of resources into it. You can see exotic designs on the enemy’s armored vehicles. But our designs are much better (both my colleagues’ and “mine”). But there are very few of them. And the enemy will have more and more of them.
And it's not that the Ukrainian military leadership doesn't know about this problem. Back in the summer of last year, I personally talked about it with the command. I informed them that the people who were tasked with dealing with this issue weren't pulling the trigger. They haven't pulled it out yet(
Now that the bosses have changed, I'm starting all over again. New people in the General Staff, among whom are those who have simply enormous front-line experience. Maybe they will take a systematic interest there and squeeze out money, push to design even better solutions?
Because now NO armor should go into a combat zone without cover from above from drops and anti-tank missiles. This is a matter of life and death. And now it is a matter of “pressure from below”. There are solutions, we just need to take them and start implementing them en masse.
