It looks like we finally have an answer to just what the “cope cages” seen on some Russian tanks were meant to accomplish:
The Red Effect guy went back and looked at the original specs for the original factor-manufactured slat armor purpose-built for advanced Russian tanks like the rear of the Armata, and found it was spaced to capture incoming RPG-7 round and prevent effective formation of the penetration jet based on extensive studies of which gap sizes worked best. However, the cope cages added at the last minute before the invasion didn’t follow any of the meticulous research that went into the real slat armor. The result is armor that provides some minimal protection to drone-dropped munitions, but probably won’t do squat against a Javelin, and brings with it some new drawbacks (like a high profile that makes them easier to spot, and impeding easy crew escape.
Tags: cope cages, Military, RPG, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, tanks, Ukraine, video
So, like slat armor on a Striker…
…or Vietnam era cyclone fencing around an M113.
(IIRC it was referred to as an RPG fence or cage.)
There’s a lot of magical thinking that goes into these things. The Soviets/Russians are notorious for carefully reasoned and calculated ideas coupled with truly idiotic implementation.
“Oh, look… Amerikanski’s are putting slat armor on their vehicles… We copy…”
Slat armor can work, for a given value of “work”, when it’s designed, installed, and then maintained properly. But, it has to have all three going at the same time, and be confronted with the weapon it was designed against. Slat armor works a treat for basic infantry AT weapons like the RPG-7, but if you were to go after a Stryker with an improvised EFP weapon…? LOL. No. Those slats are only going to deflect or delay the effect by microseconds. If at all…
What’s really laughable is that if I remember right, a lot of these top-attack munitions use EFP effects these days, not shape charge ones. You really can’t disrupt an EFP–Too much mass in the slug, and it doesn’t really care about jet formation all that much. An EFP is like Gregor Clegane bashing through your armor, and a shape charge is like Syrio Forel sticking that rapier blade through it. You can’t do much about that battering ram effect, but you can hope to disrupt the rapier…
[…] written about the Russian tank cope cages before, and how they were probably ineffective against top-attack antitank weapons like Javelin. […]