Recently, during a fierce battle in Novomykhailivka, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, two T-72 tanks of the attacking Russian army unfortunately collided on the battlefield. Due to the lack of traffic signs and traffic police command at the scene, one of the tanks took the road and walked away, directly causing the other tank of its own to be paralyzed on the spot.
Geolocation of the place where the fighting took place in Novomykhailivka.
Although the two tanks that caused the accident were not equipped with dash cams, fortunately, the Ukrainian drone over the battlefield was not absent, but diligently and completely recorded the "famous" scene at that time, which not only provided evidence for the follow-up "traffic accident responsibility determination" and "vehicle damage assessment", but also made this crash another "joke" of the Russian army.
Two days before the battleWhenlandBattlefieldSatellite images show a large number of traces of shelling on the ground, possibly caused by the preparation of fire by the Russian army before the offensive.
However, in all fairness, this time the Russian army is really a bit "wronged". Because although the collision of their own tanks may seem funny, it is not unique, especially in the highly nerve-wracking environment of the battlefield. Moreover, the fact that the Russian offensive armored formations that occurred after the "crash" incident were all destroyed is what the majority of military enthusiasts should really pay attention to.
On the battlefield north of Avdiivka in December 2023Two BTR-80 wheeled vehicles of the Russian armyArmored personnel carriersThere was also a collisionField crashes are by no means uncommon.
Let's take a closer look at this battle through the Battlefield**.
Novomikhailivka is located about 30 kilometers southwest of the city of Donetsk, south of Maryinka and northeast of Vuhledar where heavy fighting has taken place between Russian and Ukrainian forces. According to the ** note released by the Ukrainian army, the battle took place on January 30, 2024. The attacking Russian army is likely to be a company-sized unit belonging to the 20th Guards Motor Infantry Division, while the defending Ukrainian army is the famous 72nd Mechanized Brigade.
Map of the battle line near the city of Donetsk on January 30, 2024, released by the American think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW).The location of Novomykhailivka is shown in Chinese on the map.
According to the battle ** released by the Ukrainian army, the Russian armored formation preparing for the offensive seemed to have a problem when maneuvering behind the battle line, two T-72 tanks met in a narrow way, and after the collision, one of the tanks grabbed the right front of the other tank and squeezed through, so that the latter was paralyzed on the spot and could not move.
Screenshots of related **It can be seen that two Russian tanks have collided
According to Article 52 of the Regulations for the Implementation of the Road Traffic Safety Law of China, motor vehicles pass through intersections that are not controlled by traffic lights and are not commanded by traffic police ......If there are no traffic signs or markings, you should stop and look out before entering the intersection and let the oncoming traffic on the right road go first.
Therefore, although the tank on the right side of the screen was more damaged after the collision and was unable to move, it still needs to be fully responsible for the accident because it did not let the oncoming vehicle on the right go first, and still rushed to cause the collision when the oncoming vehicle on the right had already entered the intersection.
After the collision, the tank could no longer move, and other armored vehicles in the formation had to go around it.
**1: The Russian offensive tank formation collided on the way in
Of course, these are all jokes, there are so many rules and regulations on the battlefield, and from the construction of the tank itself, it is understandable that there will be a collision. When designing the T-72 tank, Soviet engineers prepared only a single-window observation periscope with a rather narrow field of view for the driver, as shown below.
The driver's head is exposed to the window of his observation periscope under the front of him, and note that there is only one observation window in front of him.
From the inside of the tank, the driver's position looks like this.
So you can understand that the driver of the T-72 tank can only see directly in front of the tank inside the tank, and the view on the sides is almost 0. Moreover, when the driver observes the outside world inside the tank, the body is in a very difficult posture, and it is not easy to maintain a high level of concentration for a long time, as shown in the figure below.
T-72 driverSchematic diagram of the manipulation posture, readers are invited to evaluate their ergonomic design by themselves.
Compared to the T-72, the T-80 improved in this regard, with three smaller periscope viewing windows designed for the driver, and improved side visibility, but to a limited extent.
As can be seen in the figure, the T-80TanksThe driver's periscope viewing window was changed to three smaller windows, slightly expanding the driver's lateral viewing field.
In addition, with the exception of the T-90M and a small number of T-72B3s, Russian tanks are basically not equipped with commander's periscopes, which greatly limits their battlefield situational awareness. In other words, it is okay for the Russian tanks to look forward during the battle, and it is basically up to guess what is going on the sides and rear.
To add insult to injury, in order to guard against the ubiquitous drones on the battlefield in Ukraine, the Russian army had to install all kinds of protective nets and camouflage on its own tanks, and even did not hesitate to wrap the upper part of the tank in an airtight airtight manner, further compressing the already not very good observation field. After all, it's more important to survive than to not be seen.
If the tank is made like this, don't be too extravagant about battlefield situational awareness.
What the Russian army thinks is probably this: I may not be able to see you, but you can't kill me! However, as practice turned out, these cumbersome protective facilities were of limited use and did not seem to save the fate of the tank. Further analysis of this battle will prove this later.
Compared with the M1 "Abrams", "Leopard 2", "Challenger 2" and other Western main battle tanks used by the Ukrainian army, the Russian army seems to be particularly keen on adding things to the tank.
The reason for this is that the design of the Soviet tank ignores the survivability of the crew members too much, even if it is hit by a small FPV drone, it is easy to explode or even fly the turret, and the tanker often disappears with the tank, and seriously lacks a sense of security on the battlefield.
It's easy to bring a tanker like thisTrapeze, just ask if you are afraid.
On the other hand, Western armored vehicles such as tanks and infantry fighting vehicles consider the survivability of crew members as an important indicator from the beginning of their design, and take various measures to improve the survival probability of crew members when the vehicle is damaged. Therefore, although Western tanks cannot escape the fate of being hit on the battlefield, they can often leave "whole corpses" behind, so that crew members have a chance to escape, so that of course they do not have to tremble like Russian tanks.
However, in terms of driver's visibility, the third-generation Western main battle tank, which was also designed around the 70s of the last century, is only slightly better than the Soviet tank.
US M1AbramsThe driver of the main battle tank also had only three small observation periscope windows, and the lateral view was somewhat better than that of the T-72.
m1AbramsThe driver's position of the main battle tank, comfort is definitely not to talk about.
Early Federal Republic of GermanyLeopard 2The driver's position of the main battle tank shows that the field of view from the outside is also relatively limited.
However, the above-mentioned Western main battle tanks are basically equipped with a commander's circumferential mirror, which has a 360° viewing angle, which coordinates with the driver's field of vision and can help improve the battlefield situational awareness of the entire fleet.
Early M1AbramsThe commander's optical periscope viewing window of the main battle tank.
Even so, Western main battle tanks are also inevitably involved in collisions. In the final analysis, watching the scenery in a main battle tank, which is armed to the teeth in all aspects, is definitely not as good as the most ordinary and cheap family car, and these big guys weighing dozens of tons are not easy to control.
British ArmyTwo carsChallenger 2Main battle tanks collide during training.
However, the natural flaws in the tank's vision do not hide the major problems exposed by this Russian tank collision. The first is the issue of coordination and tactical organization of armored formations during the offensive. It can be seen from the ** that many tanks and armored vehicles of the Russian army have walked out of quite strange trajectories during the march, and it is not clear whether the commander asked to drive to different predetermined combat positions, or simply lost their way, or is they using the labyrinth of positions to confuse the Ukrainian army?
AnywayAlsoCan't understand the Russian armyManyArmored vehicles huddled around in palm-sized places, what kind of fame is being done.
As a result, the Ukrainian army was not stunned, but his family members collided together, and a tank was damaged before the fight started, what kind of play is this? And judging by the chaotic formation, the radio communication inside the armored formation does not seem to work, and it looks organized and undisciplined. I suddenly remembered a sentence that we often said at the wine table: If you want to drink well, pour yourself down first! It seems that before going to war, vodka really didn't drink less.
Secondly, since the first team is well aware of the problem of narrow observation field of tank drivers, the combat regulations of the armored forces require that the hatch cover should not be closed until the last moment before the start of the battle, which is of course the standard of the Soviet army. But judging from the battle, it is clear that this Russian armored formation did not carry out in accordance with the requirements of the order.
It was declassified by the U.S. Intelligence Agency on August 6, 2003TitledInformation on "Tank Artillery and Training in the Soviet Army" was disclosed, at the request of the Soviet ArmyIn principle, the hatch cover of the tank should be opened as much as possible. The very obvious reason was that the hatch cover was closed with limited visibility and poor visibility of the driver, which limited the maneuverability of the tank and reduced the overall observation ability of the tank commander.
From the above two points, it can be seen that the Russian army, which may not have had a very high level of pre-war training, has fallen to what kind of state it has fallen to so far. This is consistent with what was reflected in the battle of Sinkivka, which I analysed earlier. (See this historical article: "Has the combat effectiveness of the Russian army improved after two years of fighting?") Analysis of the Sinkiivka battle ** or there is an answer).
In that article, the author wrote: "Looking at the Russian army, the biggest feeling is that they have now degenerated into a seriously untrained army. The experienced and capable grassroots backbone of the troops may indeed have suffered great losses, and only a few soldiers can still show the proper fighting qualities, while most of the personnel are in a state of blind instinctive reaction when they arrive on the battlefield, losing the ability to think and act. The same is true of the crews of armored vehicles, who panic when they are hit and appear to be untrained or sent to the battlefield after a brief training. ”
The battle for Novomykhailivka once again confirmed the above judgment. For armored forces, the problem may be even more acute, because, as already mentioned, many experienced crew members are lost with the destruction of vehicles, and the same quality of personnel takes considerable time and cost to develop.
A group of Russian tank vehicles being trained,Training tankers is not availableTrainingIt's so easy for ordinary infantry.
In the two years since the start of the war, it is conservatively estimated that the Russian army has lost at least more than 2,000 tanks and a larger number of other armored vehicles, and this catastrophic battle loss rate will inevitably lead to difficulties in replenishing personnel.
If the Russian army continues to launch a continuous offensive as it does now and does not effectively reduce its own attrition, it is expected that the problem of replenishment and training of personnel will become more and more prominent, and the armored forces will be affected more than ordinary infantry. In other words, later we may see more "humorous" scenes like Novomykhailivka.
In the next battle, the unlucky armored formation of the Russian army on the attack mission was densely blocked by the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Army a few kilometers away from the front line. From 12:50 p.m. to 15:20 p.m., the Ukrainian army launched wave after wave of attacks on it in three and a half hours from 15:20 p.m.
Just like the battle of Sinkiivka, the Ukrainian army's multiple battlefield observation and surveillance drones always controlled the rhythm of the battle, guided the target, and evaluated the results, and the result was not surprising: the Russian armored formation was finally wiped out before reaching the attack position, and even the T-72 tank that was hit and paralyzed was not spared. In this battle, the Russian army lost a total of 3 T-72 main battle tanks, 7 MT-LB amphibious armored personnel carriers and 1 BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle, a total of 11 combat vehicles.
**2: Battle of Novomykhailivka
If it was just a tank collision, I'm afraid that Russian military bloggers would just laugh it off - do they see less of these funny things made by their own army? However, the tragic ending that happened afterwards made it difficult for them to suppress the anger in their hearts.
A military blogger affiliated with the Russian government believes that due to repeated serious damage to equipment, the generals commanding the Russian army in combat should immediately stop using mechanized columns to attack. Another well-known Russian military blogger, Romanov Wright, expressed extreme disappointment with the tactics of the Russian army in his article, calling it "complete stupidity and incompetence."
**3: The Russian armored formation was completely annihilated
Wright wrote: "How can you afford to lose so much equipment, so many people, in one day? He also criticized the leadership of the Russian army for ignoring the widespread use of drones in combat by the Ukrainian army for a long time, and for not equipping Russian armored vehicles with electronic warfare systems.
You must know that these critical remarks were issued at the risk of breaking the law and committing crimes, or even going to prison. Because back in the early days of the war in March 2022, Russia passed a law prohibiting the "discredit" or dissemination of "unreliable information" about the Russian armed forces, state institutions and their actions, and violators were punished with huge fines and imprisonment.
**4: The T-72 main battle tank that was hit and paralyzed was also doomed
However, Romanov Wright's accusation that the leadership of the Russian military has ignored the role of drones may be a relatively common misunderstanding.
As always, the most impressive thing in the battle for Novomykhailivka was the ubiquitous Ukrainian drones on the battlefield, especially during the battle, when the Ukrainian army used FPV drones to hit 10 of the 11 armored vehicles lost by the Russian army, and only 1 was hit by an anti-tank missile.
During the fighting**, there was only one attack that showed signs of the use of anti-tank missiles by the Ukrainian army. In the ** annotation text of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Army, it is also noted that there are 1 Russian troopsMT-LB armored carIt was destroyed by an anti-tank missile.
Considering that the place where the battle took place is actually located behind the Russian front, it is even more shocking that a large number of Ukrainian drones can freely shuttle here, attacking back and forth, and entering a no-man's land. In this case, why is it a misunderstanding to say that the leadership of the Russian army is being criticized?
A soldier of the 80th Air Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Army is preparing to operate an FPV drone to defend against the attack of the Russian army somewhere near **mut**Photo taken on 7 November 2023.
The reason is that the Russian army is not defenseless against this. It's not surprising to think about it, the Russian army has been suffering from the losses of Ukrainian drones for two years since the start of the war, how can it be indifferent? It's just that the electronic warfare equipment they installed on the vehicles in advance seems to have been cracked by the Ukrainian army long ago. It is clear from the battle for Novomykhailivka that any interference defense of the Russian army against UAVs did not play its due role.
It is known that electronic jamming is the best means of defense against enemy swarms of UAVs. Since the Ukrainian army's FPV drones replaced artillery as the most serious threat to the Russian ground forces, the Russian army has begun to generally install RP-377 portable jammers and higher-powered "Volnoriz" jammers on armored vehicles, the latter of which is magnetically attached to the outside of armored vehicles.
The Russian army BTR series with a small RP-377 radio jammer installed on the roofArmored personnel carriers
The RP-377 small radio jammer was originally designed by the Russian army in response to irregular combat scenarios such as anti-terrorism in Syria, and is mainly used to block the radio-controlled detonation signal of simple ** devices such as roadside bombs. Now the Russian army is using them on the battlefield in Ukraine, obviously not to deal with improvised ** devices, but to hope that these jammers can also play a role against the extremely troublesome Ukrainian FPV drones.
In April 2020, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that the Russian army had successfully suppressed a simulated adversary's drone using the RP-377 during the exercise. In a press release issued at the time, the Ministry of Defense said: "The electronic warfare units of the Eastern Theater of Operations used the latest radio jamming stations Borisoglebsk-2, RTUT-BM, Loranit, as well as other special equipment, to suppress the enemy's radio networks and drones." ”
The lorandit in this case is the RP-377 small radio jammer. The Russian Ministry of Defense says that it can be used to reconnoiter radio emission sources, conduct jamming and counter-jamming, and the effective jamming frequency band is 3MHz 3GHz.
3D model of the RP-377 small radio jammer.
However, the ideal is always plump, but the reality is often skinny. The actual combat results show that the RP-377 is basically ineffective against the FPV UAVs of the Ukrainian army, and in some of the battles that flowed out**, the FPV UAVs of the Ukrainian army even rushed directly to the RP-377 installed on the Russian combat vehicles and destroyed them.
Screenshot of the surveillance ** sent back by the Ukrainian FPV drone before hitting the RP-377 installed by the Russian armored vehicle.
This is not because of the design of the RP-377 itself. Ukrainian drone expert Serhey Beskristnov wrote after dismantling an RP-377 captured by the Ukrainian army, "I saw the spectrogram [of the RP-377] and the interference quality was very high. ”
A Russian T-80BVM main battle tank with a small RP-377 radio jammer in the rear of the hull.
However, the RP-377, designed to deal with roadside bombs, is clearly not suitable for electronic countermeasures with the FPV UAVs of the Ukrainian army. On the one hand, drones can easily perform frequency hopping to avoid interference from the RP-377, and on the other hand, they can also adjust the control algorithm so that the drone can maintain its last flight direction until it hits the target when it loses signal.
Since the RP-377 is a portable device, powered by a small battery, it has a limited range of action, while the FPV drone flies relatively fast, so the drone is often able to successfully hit the target even if the jamming is in effect. In particular, when the RP-377 tries to expand the jamming band by trying to deal with the drone's frequency hopping, the energy is further dispersed and the range is greatly reduced, making the situation even worse.
A Russian MT-LB armored vehicle with a small RP-377 radio jammer on the roof was destroyed.
Will these simple electronic countermeasures common sense be unclear to the experts of the Russian Ministry of Defense? However, they still selectively ignore it, claiming that the RP-377 is effective against drones. Of course, this attitude does not come without a price, but they do not have to pay for it.
Perhaps the Russian army is equipped with more and more "Volnoritz" jammers to alleviate this problem. This jammer is powered by a vehicle and therefore has a higher transmitting power, and it is said that its range can reach 800 1000 meters. However, the effectiveness of Russian equipment still needs to be observed and verified in actual combat.
A heavily protected Russian tank,Within the two red circlesVolnorizjammers.
It is worth mentioning that the Russian and Ukrainian troops facing each other on the battlefield of Novomykhailivka have the same historical origins, all of them come from the red blood of the former Soviet Army, and they have left memorable "deeds" on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, so this section will give a brief introduction to them.
The 20th Guards Carpathian-Berlin Motorized Infantry Division of the Russian Guards, first formed on September 18, 1942 in Kalinin of the Moscow Military District, was the second unit of the 3rd Mechanized Army. During World War II, the 3rd Mechanized Army was transferred to the Eastern Front within the establishment of the ** Front and the First Belorussian Front, and made many meritorious achievements, and was awarded the title of "Guards" in October 1943, renamed the 8th Guards Mechanized Army, in April 1944 it was awarded the honorary title of "Carpathians", in June 1945 it was awarded the honorary title of "Berlin", in addition to the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Suvorov of the 2nd degree.
After the war, the 8th Guards Mechanized Corps was reorganized into the 8th Guards Mechanized Division, and in May 1957, it was again reorganized into the 20th Guards Carpathian-Berlin Motorized Infantry Division, which continues to this day. After the collapse of the USSR, part of the division's units took part in the First and Second Chechen Wars. In 2009, the division was changed to the 20th Guards Motorized Infantry Brigade, and in 2021, it was reverted back to the division level.
20th Guards of the Russian ArmyCarpathians-Berlinof motorized rifle divisionsDivision emblem
The famous "deeds" of the 20th Guards Motorized Infantry Division on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield are: From the evening of July 9 to the early morning of July 10, 2022, the division was hit by a precision strike by the Ukrainian army's "Hippocampus" rocket artillery, causing heavy losses to senior commanders
division commander, Colonel Alexei Grobez;
Chief of Staff and First Deputy Division Commander of the Division, Colonel Sergei Nikolayevich Kens;
Deputy Division Commander Colonel Kanat Mukatov;
Deputy Division Commander Colonel Alexei Avramchenko;
Divisional artillery commander, Colonel Nikolai Korneliuk;
Division Commander Lieutenant Colonel Koval, Chief of Operations;
The division was Lieutenant Colonel Evgeny Verodov, Deputy Head of the Logistics Department;
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Godive, deputy commander of the division's artillery.
Alexei, former commander of the 20th Guards Motorized Infantry Division of the Russian ArmyColonel Grobez has been confirmed dead on the battlefield in Ukraine.
The predecessor of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Army was the 29th Infantry Division of the Soviet Army, and was later awarded the title of "Guards" for its bloody battle with the German army in Stalingrad, which was changed to the 72nd Guards Infantry Division, and was upgraded to a motorized infantry division in 1957. After the independence of Ukraine, the 72nd Guards Motorized Infantry Division, which was formerly part of the Kyiv Military District, became part of the Ukrainian Army, renamed the 72nd Mechanized Infantry Division, received the honorary title of "Kiev", and was reduced to the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade in 2002.
Since 2014, the brigade has participated in the war in Donbass, fighting against Ukrainian separatist militias supported by Russian troops. The brigade commander at that time was the current commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Alexander Syrsky, and the former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zaluzhny, was a battalion commander of the brigade. On August 23, 2017, the 72nd Mechanized Brigade was awarded the honorary title "Black Cossack" in honor of the "Black Cossack" cavalry unit of the Ukrainian People's Republic.
72nd of the Ukrainian armyBlack CossacksThe insignia of the separate mechanized brigade.
After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the 72nd Mechanized Brigade participated in the Battle of Kyiv and twice set up ambushes in the Brovari area on the eastern outskirts of Kyiv to defeat Russian mechanized columns. In November 2022, the 72nd Mechanized Brigade severely damaged the attacking 155th Naval Infantry Brigade of the Russian Army in Vulledar, and in February 2023, it again inflicted heavy losses on the offensive units of the Russian army, mainly the reorganized 155th Naval Infantry Brigade. In these two battles, the Russian army lost a large number of armored vehicles, and the internal society compared the Vuhledar fiasco with the heavy losses of the Russian army at the crossing of the Severodones River, and denounced the Russian commanders in these two battles as "stupid".
The 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Army inflicted heavy losses on the Russian army in Vulledar.
However, the 72nd Mechanized Brigade also lost a commander in Vuhledar. In April 2023, the deputy commander of the brigade, Oleg Koilyak, was killed by Russian artillery fire.
The large-scale successful use of tanks in World War II tilted the scales of land warfare in favor of the offensive again.
No one can deny the power of the Soviet Army's guiding ideology of "wide front, large depth, and high speed" in land warfare, which was built on the basis of the "steel torrent" of tens of thousands of tanks during the Cold War. At that time, NATO could only consider using tactical nuclear ** at the first moment of war to deal with the powerful iron current impact of the Soviet army.
of the Soviet army in those yearsTorrent of steelIt really made the whole world tremble.
Time has passed, since the US military developed the theory of "air-ground integrated warfare" and was fully verified in the Gulf War in the early 90s of the last century, the status of the tank "king of land warfare" began to be in jeopardy, and the rapid rise of unmanned aerial vehicles in recent years has almost pushed the tank into the abyss.
This is clearly observed through the battle of Novomykhailivka. The armored formations were almost powerless in the face of the swarming drones, let alone fight back. These low-cost, and sometimes rather rudimentary, drones have helped the Ukrainian army offset the obvious superiority of the Russian army in armored forces.
FPV drones with RPG-7 warheads used by the Ukrainian army pose a serious threat to the armored forces of the Russian army.
Under the guidance of traditional land warfare theory, the third-generation main battle tank designed in the second half of the last century focused on frontal protection, which was mainly suitable for the combat scenario of tank combat. However, today's drones are extremely flexible and can attack at any point on the top and rear of the tank, like a mosquito biting an elephant, making a clumsy tank unguarded.
An FPV drone that costs only $400 can easily take out a main battle tank worth millions or even tens of millions of dollars, which will inevitably make the "steel torrent" unsustainable - no matter how many tanks you make, how much more can you build than the drones I build? The scales of land warfare were again on the side of the defender.
Fifty years ago, the designers could never have imagined that such a small thing could push a seemingly invincible tank to the brink of extinction.
However, using the tanks of the older generation against the new UAVs is, after all, a kind of misplaced duel. The designers of those tanks never dreamed of having to deal with the overwhelming arrival of drones. When the main opponent of the tank is no longer the enemy's tank, what happens to the tank itself?
The magic is one foot high and the road is one foot high, and the attack and defense of war are forever developing and changing in this spiral confrontation.