Samsa

The most recent video shows them banking quite heavily before impact so something has to have been going on. But frankly I doubt it's a topic for this thread.

Thanks! Next aid package to Ukraine needs to include some higher res smartphone cams... I'd really like to get a detail view of those mountings 😅

Do you have a picture of one of those? I googled around a bit but didn't see anything similar. Would be nice for modelling purpose!

Could be, but I wonder why they are shaped the way they are then. Also, it's difficult to see, but I think the challenger in the rear also has them fitted, so I guess its not a one-off improvisation... I hope we get some high-res images of one of those at some point.

Does anyone know what those flat shapes on the turret side are? The parallelogram and the one in front?

Don't they have enough standoff to be outside of the critical area when using AMRAAMs?

Not my opinion, I just paraphrase what the argument against higher russian losses was at the time.

Stuart was making that point a while back, only the other way around. He took quite some flak for that based on the argument that there is no real connection between who is attacking/defending and who is taking more losses. Is that not valid this way around?

It is, but if the ground based thermal can't see the drone, the drone can't see anything groundbased either. So bad weather removes the solution, but also the problem

The (civilian vehicle preception) radars we work with could probably catch a drone at something like 400m, which is, I'd wager, far enough out that the drone operator doesn't have a good ID yet on what he sees of his potential target. I'm fairly sure they are low power enough not to be detected well outside much of that range, though thats just a guess. Admittedly not something we worry about when we work with them As for thermals, an automated system could probably be cobbled together similarly to how Ukrainians and Russians are currently writing custom systems for their drones, at a similar pricepoint. Range wise, its a good question how well drones show up on thermals. Mine do get pretty hot... I'd suppose if they can see a squad on the ground, their themals can pick up the drone as well. Thats a different matter for vehicles of course. I think the critical part there is that your probalby need to develop a doctrine around unit level systems, so that could be employed effectively. And that would have to be tough to everyone, not just to the dedicated drone teams as it is with the other side.

I don't think you'll get a rifle based detection system, but a squad level portable system (RADAR or thermal imaging based) that does that is imaginable IMO. Which could work in conjunction with rifle based effectors. And while drones are cheap indeed, I wouldn't overstate the "cheap drone vs expensive countermeasures" thing. A sufficient radar or thermal imager isn't free, but also not that expensive.

This one? I remeber wondering wether that is normal or not when I watched this... Maybe the round needs some time to stabilize after leaving the barrel?

Thanks for the thorough reply! Agreed, but does not support the idea of focussing on disabling a vehicle instead of destroying it? Especially in a situation where using drones to demolish disabled vehicles seems to become the norm. While I do have the feeling things are moving towards the necessity of better all-round-protection and the fontal arc is indeed mostly applicable to protection from guns I don't want to widen this to discuss towards the protection aspect. Regarding firepower however, would it not make sense to fill the niche of actually destroying a tank via ATGMs - which they can do anyways - and not burden that task on the main gun. Especially if 120/125mm guns seem to be quite capable of disabling a modern vehicle from any aspect - even if they might not destroy it beyond recovery. I have to admit though, I don't have any concrete data on how often tanks got abandoned after taking a main gun hit and how often the armor actually shrugged off the round and the tank could fight on. I am mostly talking based on the impression I got from what we can see in Ukraine OSINT wise. Yet, that impression still is, even more so than it already was in WW2, if a main gun hit lands on the enemy tank before they land one on you, the engagement is won regardless of gun caliber (within reasonable calibers of course).

With the new KNDS and Rheinmetall demonstrators predictably allowing for 130/140mm guns - in my understanding mostly for added armor penetration - I've heard some more doubts about the general usefulness of the larger calibers. Especally with the rather large amount of documented tank losses recently, I myself also wonder wether that is the right move. Many of the tanks getting hit and not penetrated seem to be abandoned or at least need to retreat anyways. That suggests, that the tactical objective of "get the enemy out of that area" can be achieved quite often via mission kill without full penetration. Plus, even if it weren't so, it seems that engagements vs a heavily armed targets in the frontal arc are a rather small percentage of all tank engagements in this war, making smaller guns good enough for most cases. Also the most recent designs seem to reduce turret armor and move the crew below the turret ring anyways, making missions kills vs the turret easier for smaller guns. Crewless turrets also obviously rely on sensors for Situational awareness too which, I suppose, are also susceptible to fragment damage from non penetrating hits or HE hits. I can see the better HE effect of larger rounds as a benefit, but that doesn't seem the driving factor behind these developments to me. Does having the ability to penetrate the crew capsule of an Armata from the front really warrant the costs of increasing caliber? I know this topic comes up mixed in in different threads every now and then. Still, I'd be interested in hearing some opinions on this in a dedicated discussion

Now I have never served so that very much applies to me, but isn't there a myriad of field modifications driving around Ukraine which certainly have an impact on the functionality of the vehicles? I don't think anyone signed any forms that allow crews to weld steel spikes to thin aluminum armor, block engine cooler intakes with improvised armor and put all sorts of cages on every part of any vehicle. Or bolt a rocket pod to a BMW (admittedly on the Ukrainian side )