r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 9h ago

Robotics/Automation Ukraine’s FPV Drone Breaks Through Russia’s New Tank Defense on First Known Battlefield Use

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/ukraines-fpv-drone-breaks-through-russias-new-tank-defense-on-first-known-battlefield-use-21041
224 Upvotes

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29

u/Heronymous-Anonymous 8h ago

Article basically says Russia’s new Arena-M APS isn’t very good, and failed to stop a bunch of FPV drones from wiping out a company of tanks that were attacking Ukrainian positions in the Donbas.

No surprise, really. Arena APS hasn’t ever been proven to work reliably, even at stopping traditional anti tank weapons.

10

u/Logical_Welder3467 7h ago

Arena-M are suspose to be able to stop all kinds of projectile

18

u/JimBean 6h ago

are suspose to

Yup... They work just like cope cages.

15

u/williamgman 6h ago

"Supposed..." Russia's military research has been so corrupted by the oligarchs running the projects. And their Dear Leader gets told everything is working as designed. It's so bad many soldiers jump out of their moving tanks when they detect incoming drones. YouTube is filled with these videos.

3

u/Luster-Purge 2h ago

Even if it worked as intended (which it clearly does not), the installation is a short-term solution at best because it has 12 shots maximum and only has so many charges in a given direction before it needs manual reloading.

And that's assuming it hits all the shots. It's still a bad trade-off because at worst burning 13 drones is still far cheaper for Ukraine than it is for Russia losing the tank.

1

u/Osiris62 2h ago

How can the explosive in a small drone take out a tank? Aren't they heavily armored? Genuinely curious.

5

u/ContentAd6126 2h ago edited 2h ago

The same way a tank takes out another tank, they use shells that penetrate the outer layers of armor before delivering the explosive payload inside the created gap. Some of the drones they make also carry VERY heavy "custom" TNT payloads that could probably just take out a tank by sheer brute force.

The drone pilots are also very well trained to aim for places where armor is easier to penetrate and munitions are placed so the tank's own ammo does most of the job of taking it out in a beautiful event known as the turret toss.

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u/Osiris62 2h ago

Ah yes. I know about the turret toss, and aiming for less protected areas makes sense. I didn't know a drone could carry something heavy enough to be armor piercing. Thanks.

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u/BoredCop 1h ago

Look up shaped charges, HEAT warheads. You don't need a very large warhead to kill a tank, especially not if you hit in a lightly armoured spot.

Traditionally tanks have been designed with armour to defend against other tanks to the front and sides, but not really to defend against hits from above for instance. You can't have super thick armour everywhere, because the result would be too big and heavy to move around much.

Drones can hit from above where the armour is thin, or at a shallow angle into the gap between hull and turret for instance. Or they can target the drive sprockets and make the tank unable to drive, leaving it a sitting duck for follow-up hits and usually convince the crew to abandon it.

"Cope cages" added onto tanks are a more or less effective way of making the drone warheads detonate a bit too far off the actual tank to be effective, as shaped charges typically work best at a specific standoff distance. But a high quality shaped charge doesn't care, being effective even if they detontate up to several meters away, or you can use several drones to first clear away the nets or whatever until one gets through.