In 2022, Russia launched a large-scale war against Ukraine and launched the Russian-Ukraine war that attracted worldwide attention. With the assistance of various countries in , NATO and , Ukraine suffered heavy casualties, but it still stood firm in its territory and gradually launched a counterattack. In contrast, Russia, which was originally full of momentum, not only was it in a deadlock, but the armored force, which was originally proud, also suffered heavy losses. Surprisingly, the Russian T-72 series tanks (including the most representative new T-90, which has been attacked in recent years, have produced many miserable situations in which ammunition was exploded and the turrets flew high, which quickly became the background of Ukrainian defenders taking photos and checking in, and also became a laughing stock on global social media websites.
1. Anti-armored missile top attack, Russian automatic loading system: Russian tank heavy casualties, mainly
Russia's T-72 series tanks have undergone various improvements after the end of Cold War , including the use of new ammunition, modification of digital firing control devices, and installation of kits to enhance protection. The T-72B3 used in this attack on Ukraine is one of them. The new T-90 tank is the integration of the entire T-72 series tank. It is equipped with advanced composite armor, arrowhead explosion reaction armor, and laser active defense equipment, which logically has strong defense power. However, in the face of anti-tank missiles, the T-72 series tanks, which can be called the classic work of Evergreen, are still tragic situations of turret bombing? There are two important reasons for this.
The first reason is: The new anti-tank missiles (such as javelin and drag 2B) of Western countries after the 1990s have mostly switched to the top attack mode to attack the top of the turret with the weakest defense of the tank. For example, the javelin uses a "initiation" attack. The ballistic is to fly high first and then dive, and directly penetrate the top of the turret from top to bottom; the drag 2B uses a "sweeping top" attack, first maintaining the straight flight trajectory, reaching the target, and then relying on two sensors to determine the position, then detonate two downwardly arranged forming charge warheads, which can also penetrate the top of the turret. Although
T-90 has thick front and side composite armor, the top defense still uses reactive armor blocks. There is no way to stack armor indefinitely. When its urgently installed iron cage grille net against anti-tank missiles, it cannot detonate as early as expected.
In fact, even the main tanks of Western countries may not be able to escape unscathed when facing the anti-tank missiles with a top attack.
As for the second reason, everyone is very familiar with it, it is the automatic loading system design of the Russian tank that is criticized by . This was actually to solve the design difficulties: in the Cold War period, in order to achieve a larger number and cheaper unit price, the firepower had to suppress the tanks of Western countries in the same period, so the main guns of larger caliber were used. For example, when Western countries still used 120mm smoothbore guns or rifled guns, the former Soviet Union had already used 125mm smoothbore guns. The problem is that these ammunitions are heavier than the same-class shells of their opponents in Western countries, and adopt a troublesome design of separation of projectiles and cartridges. It is laborious and time-consuming to load manpower, and it also requires more time to train loaders.
, the former Soviet tank design philosophy emphasizes lower profiles and smaller ammunition area, while the larger caliber artillery , heavier ammunition, and the turret space that accommodates a loader hand, which in turn caused each tank design bureau to simply remove the space of the loader hand and actively develop an automated tank loading system to achieve the purpose of rapid loading, lowering the height of the vehicle, reducing the turret, and making the tank size tighter.
2. Why is the automatic loading system of Russian tanks relatively unsafe?
Although Russian tanks emphasize putting bullet bays in heavy protection, why does its automatic loading mechanism often "flying high in anti-tank weapons"?
The simplest understanding is: the projectiles of the rotating ammunition conveyor are separated from the cartridge, and they are placed together in a circle and pointing to the center. These cartridges are originally powerful propelling drugs. When the tank turret is hit, as long as the fire-proof and explosion-repressing device cannot operate in time, or the performance is insufficient, causing high temperature to detonate one of the propelling drugs, the other cartridges will explode in succession. these cartridges exploded toward the center of the circle at the same time, and then detonated the nearby projectiles. Then, just like we surrounded several strings of firecrackers for the New Year and then lit them. A Mars exploded one after another, one after another, and flew upwards, and flew into the sky, bang bang bang.
What's more, although the Russian tanks significantly strengthened the protection around the turret, the soft box-type reaction armor on the side skirt of the chassis often had cases where blunt explosives were stolen by many officers and soldiers. Even if the blunt explosives inside were intact, facing the plural (more than two) and vertically formed loading warheads of the new anti-armor missile, it may not be possible to prevent the chassis from being penetrated.
