West knows Russian tank project failure in Ukraine since the Gulf War

Russian tanks with broken caps are just the latest sign that the Russian invasion of Ukraine does not go as planned.

Hundreds of Russian tanks are believed to have been destroyed since Moscow launched its offensive, with British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace estimating that as of Monday they had lost as many as 580.

But Moscow’s problems go beyond the mere number of tanks lost. Experts say battlefield footage shows Russian tanks are suffering from a defect that Western militaries have known for decades and refer to as the ” jack-in-the-box” (aka “clown jump.” They say Moscow should have foreseen the problem.

The problem is related to the way the tank’s ammunition is stored. Unlike modern Western tanks, Russians carry multiple cartridges inside their turrets. This makes them highly vulnerable, as even an indirect impact can start a chain reaction that explodes the entire ammunition stockpile of up to 40 rounds.

The resulting shock wave could be enough to blow up the tank’s turret as tall as a two-story building, as seen in a recent video posted to social media.

“What we’re witnessing with Russian tanks is a design flaw,” said Sam Bendett, adviser to the Russian Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analysis and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

“Any successful hit…quickly ignites the ammunition causing a massive explosion, and the turret is literally blown up.”

The flaw means the tank’s crew – usually two men in the turret and a third driving – are easy targets, said Nicholas Drummond, a defense industry analyst specializing in ground warfare and a former British Army officer.

“If you don’t get out in the first second, you’ll get burned.”

It is made “jack-in-the-box“

Drummond said explosive ordnance is causing problems for nearly every armored vehicle Russia is using in Ukraine. He gave the example of the BMD-4 infantry fighting vehicle, normally manned by up to three officers and capable of carrying another five soldiers. He said the BMD-4 was a “moving coffin” that was “simply obliterated” when hit by a rocket.

But the flaw in the design of its tanks must have been particularly unpleasant for Moscow, as the problems had already been widely reported.

They came to the attention of the Western military during the Gulf wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003, when large numbers of Russian-made Iraqi Army T-72 tanks suffered the same fate – turrets being blown up in anti-aircraft missile attacks. -tank.

Drummond said Russia had not learned the lessons from Iraq and that consequently many of its tanks in Ukraine had design flaws similar to self-loading missile systems.

When the T-90 series — the T-72’s successor — entered service in 1992, its armor was upgraded, but its missile loading system remained similar to that of its predecessor, leaving it just as vulnerable, Drummond said. The T-80, another Russian tank seen in action in the Ukraine invasion, has a similar missile loading system.

There are some benefits to such a system. Bendett of the Center for a New American Security said Russia chose this system to save space and give the tanks a lower profile, making them harder to hit in battle.

The Western military, however, was spurred on by the T-72’s misfortune in Iraq.

“[Os militares ocidentais] everybody learned from the Gulf War, and seeing tanks destroyed at that time, that you have to compartmentalize the munitions,” Drummond said.

He pointed to the American military’s Stryker infantry fighting vehicles developed after the first war in Iraq.

“[Veículos da Stryker] they have a turret that is on top, and that turret does not enter the crew compartment.” It just leans on top and all the ammunition is inside that turret,” he said. “So if the tower is hit and blown up, the crew will still be safe down there. This is a very smart project.”

Other Western tanks, such as the M1 Abrams used by the US and some Allied armies, are larger and do not have a merry-go-round. On the Abrams, a fourth member of the tank’s crew retrieves cartridges from a sealed compartment and transfers them to the gun for firing.

The compartment has a door that the crew member opens and closes between each shot fired by the tank, which means that if the tank is hit, it is likely that only one projectile will be exposed in the turret.

“A precise shot can damage the tank, but not necessarily kill the crew,” Bendett said.

Drummond said projectiles used by the Western military sometimes burn under the high heat generated by an incoming missile, but do not explode.

hard to replace

There is no easy way to know how many Russian tanks were destroyed in Ukraine. Open source intelligence monitoring website Oryx said on April 28 that at least 300 Russian tanks had been destroyed, and another 279 damaged, abandoned or captured.

However, the site only counts cases where it has visual evidence, so Russian losses could be much higher.

And these losses don’t just refer to the equipment. When Wallace, the British defense secretary, gave the House of Commons his estimate of 580 lost tanks, he also said that more than 15,000 Russian servicemen had been killed during their invasion.

It is difficult to know how many of them are tank crews, but what is not in doubt is that crews are not easy to replace.

Training a tank’s crew can take several months at a minimum, and up to 12 months can be considered fast, said Aleksi Roinila, a former tank crew member in the Finnish Defense Forces.

And for Russia to replace hundreds of crew at this point in the war would be a tall order – especially when the tanks they are expected to use are so defective.