Drozd Active Defense System

[Lanzfeld]

I wonder if they are going to model the friendly casulties of using this system in the game? I was reading up on the Drozd and it says that it often killed friendly troops when it went off to defeat a RPG round.

[MikeyD]

Judging by CMSF, if an explosion is involved then you're probably going to get friendly casualties. Explosions are kind of indiscriminate that way in the game. All the people who have wanted to see TROPHY in CMSF will get to see an active ant-missile system at work, and will probably learn to keep their infantry a considerable distance from their tanks

[gibsonm]

Judging by CMSF, if an explosion is involved then you're probably going to get friendly casualties.

Except of course that the explosion involved in the main gun actually firing isn't modelled.

As I've said before you can have a squad happily have a picninc on the glacis plate of your tank (and the area immediately in front, i.e. directly beneath the muzzle) when it fires and none of the Infantry will notice.

[Rayak47]

They probably should if they want to properly simulate the system considering this out of wikpedia:

One of Drozd's shortcomings was that it was only able to protect a 60 degree arc around the forward part of the turret. Each unit cost around $30,000, was 80-percent successful against incoming RPGs in Afghanistan, but proved to provide too high of a collateral damage issue to surrounding troops that were dismounted from their armored vehicles.

[John Kettler]

Rayak47,

Welcome aboard!

Was unaware Drozd was used in Afghanistan, but then, we had very little info on Drozd at all during my time as a Threat Analyst in military aerospace. Fofanov says coverage was plus/minus 40 degrees, better than what the Wiki lists, and of course, moves with the turret's facing.

http://fofanov.armor.kiev.ua/Tanks/EQP/drozd.html

Defense Update confirms this.

http://defense-update.com/products/d/drozd-2.htm

Regards,

John Kettler

[bodkin]

On a side note what is the latest thinking on how to defeat the newer russian active protection systems such as Shtora? If you can't use any laser assisted weapon systems what do you use?

[John Kettler]

This apparently is the article from which much of the Wiki was based. From Armor magazine, it seems internally contradictory. On the one hand, it talks about the carnage were Drozd to be used, while on the other, it flatly states 80% effectiveness vs. RPG-7s in Afghanistan. Clearly, there's a disconnect.

Active Protective Systems

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:fGH0DkVm8LQJ:www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/1998/05/3aps98.pdf+drozd+use+in+afghanistan&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjWxj7ewHlXsxTEHoBStjBNncZ8cprtXoT4Wj4j-r56kRM5XhOV4sFHR2q4gwWxHpDBU4CP1qWt3WVFeajrZu-0LKAht0J4S3F_aw9gZCLasLvoyu5js46Py4vYAGIbDnxXChgG&sig=AHIEtbRJChx8ZLBJvLK0R-KqEmz3txwpwA

bodkin,

How about "tickling" the target with a laser, then shooting it--after it emerges from its broadband obscurant cloud--0.4-14 microns, which blocks visual-IR, as shown here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electromagnetic-Spectrum.png

I can play that game longer than the tank can keep firing protective aerosol charges, especially if I proliferate the lasers to a bunch of defenders who lack the heavy armament to actually kill the tank, but can "strip" it for those who do.

I close with this great thread on tank countermeasures, including some pics and vids which'll make you drool.

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?145270-Tank-Countermeasures

Regards,

John Kettler

[Vark]

Could the TOS-1 rockets be fitted with the mixture so that a vast cloud of obscurants could be projected just before specific areas of the FLET, leaving the individual AFV's to defend after they exit the smoke barrage?

[Fat Dave]

great stuff John, cheers

[John Kettler]

Vark,

What a deliciously perverse idea! Offhand, I see no fundamental reason why not. Of course, the key is to attack behind it, not in it, since it blocks friendly tanks' vision, too. On the plus side, tanks fitted with Arena would still be able to defend themselves, since the sensors are millimeter wave and therefore not blocked by the broadband obscurant. BTW, the Russians had stuff like this in the early 1980s, whereas the U.S. was rocking red phosphorus in its smoke dischargers until very recently.

Fat Dave,

Glad to help!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Vark]

John, just the kind of guy I am. I used to read about modern weapons and devise counters to them using off the wall solutions. Tanks, easy, forget sophisticated warheads in your ATGM's and fill them with a mixture of industrial fouling paint and adhesive (binary munitions set up) then either explode the warhead with a proximity fuse or direct impact. I don't care how tough your armour is, if you cannot see you cannot fight. Soviet paras were taught how to make a viscous mud mixture which they were instructed to smear on AFV optics... brave men those Soviets!

The chilling thing is that if your opponent was equiped with a battle winner it might turn out to be a war-winner, such was the accelerated temp of the expected conflict. The Soviet timeline, much discussed, was the channel in two weeks, hardly enough time to find a counter to your enemies curve-ball. Senior commanders, on both sides, must have realised that a failure, by themselves or a subordinate, could rapidly escalate to near or total defeat for a front. Perhaps this thought, lurking at the backs of the higher echelons minds, was a powerful deterrent to starting hostilities and not the tactical nuclear weapons, which the Soviets proposed to use liberally.

[John Kettler]

Vark,

You really need to look into acetylene. Near instant M-Kill! The Muj didn't have mud to obscure optics when they lept down on the Russian tanks, so supplied their own biologicals, delicately characterized in one report I saw as "dung." Ivan's battle plan was indeed two weeks, but there was a post Cold War International Security conference in 2006 focused on a Cold War period NATO Central Region conflict as seen by military leaders on both sides. Consensus from both sides was that the two week plan wasn't doable. Pretty sure the link was in the long initial CM Afghanistan thread. Found it! http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/documents/ZB79_000.pdf

Surprise is indeed a major factor in modern war, and the Russians strove mightily to quantify its value in their voluminous analyses.

Regards,

John Kettler