ArmouredTopHat

Just to clarify again, I am not suggesting that this level of concentration is at all appropriate for the conflict in Ukraine. The comparison is purely for the sake of pointing out these tanks are surviving in an environment that is normally -extremely- hostile to them. 

We have seen plenty of footage of said tanks being attacked from numerous angles by RPG teams, something that has been hard for Israel to deal with in the past (for anyone using tanks in this kind of environment) Same footage shows a lot of Trophy systems successfully destroying incoming projectiles. Surely even the most dire hard armour hater can concede that APS is saving vehicles that would otherwise be destroyed by tandem RPG rounds? Which then leads to the vehicles being able to perform their mission without the significant emotional event of being blown up. 

Apologies, but to clarify things: by massed use I am referring to the use of Israeli armoured brigades being fully utilised in sustained combat in an urban environment as opposed to a more adhoc system where smaller armoured units are being parcelled out to other units for support or are performing limited combat operations only. The point I was trying (and clearly sucking at conveying) is that we know this is usually difficult at for armoured units at best, and often disastrous in many cases. I apologise for this. 

To be sure, this seemingly successful use of the armour is not entirely because of Trophy, but I would argue its clearly having an impact that is tangible. Especially when the same brigades were having trouble beforehand in operating within urban areas and were taking notable losses in tanks. Tactics no doubt improved as well of course, but the APS was desired for an understandable reason. 

I feel like this is where larger UGVS might see some real mass use first. Using them for logistics frees up a lot of manpower and EWAR is less of an issue further behind the lines. Less need to protect them to the same degree as manned systems means a cheaper force overall that does not have to deal with many of the downsides of unmanned systems that currently exist. 
 
This seems a strange attitude to have when first generation APS systems have more than proven their value in combat. Next gen APS systems actually integrated with the vehicle from the start instead of being an add-on will only get better and cheaper, especially if armies are sensible enough to make them reloadable in the field. 

The cost is literally negligible when you consider an APS can save a vehicle that would otherwise be destroyed. The notion that the majority of missile threats can be somewhat reliably prevented from striking a vehicle is value enough, factor in potential dual role of FPV / loitering munition interception and you massively increase the value of a vehicle for a fraction of its cost. 

Whenever you believe in tanks or not, there -will- be manned systems of some sort on the field of battle for a long time yet, and they need every bit of protection possible. APS is literally a no brainer to not only saving vehicles and their cost but also the lives of the people crewing them. 
 
With the correspondingly wide array of varying results...not to mention some truly...questionable practises. 

Fully agree, one of the most important short to medium term questions in the war is if Ukraine can truly do this drone vs drone intercept thing at scale. Without Orlan/Zala class drones a LOT of the Russian C4SIR system breaks. And as The_Capt never tires of telling us C4SIR is the whole ballgame.

Hamas has both domestically produced tandem RPGs and stuff imported, they are by no means defenceless, especially in a city environment with extensive tunnel systems. They even received some Kornets somehow:

 https://www.thecipherbrief.com/a-look-inside-hamass-weapons-arsenal

Hezbollah also have plenty of AT weaponry and the Trophy equipped tanks have gone up against them as well just fine. I am not suggesting that the disparity is anything equal here (its not) as I said before this is very reminiscent of Grozy where poorly armed Chechens went up against entire tank units. They typically had little more than basic RPGs yet were able to devastate tank units. Here the Israelis are clearly enjoying more success. 

From the footage we have, we clearly see Hamas are trying to ambush Merkevas with multiple RPGs. Seeing everything from Rpg-7 to 29s. This is not the most poorly armed group of people I have seen. Some source even state they have some North Korean ATGMs. Its a truly crazy variety of kit but its still dangerous in a city environment. 

You joked about them having an RND department...but actually...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasin_(RPG)

I have seen a lot of misinformation around the artillery production stuff.

A lot of sources are comparing just NATO 155mm to all the various Russian artillery calibres, which is not really a fair comparison due to the disparity of capability between those systems. Russia also got a major influx of shells from Iran and North Korea that very much helped their problems.

Lastly, our defence industries were simply not designed for such emphasis on artillery shells. That is partly an error of foresight sure but its also the difference in what either countries were expecting to face. America was not really likely to be involved in a war featuring a lot of artillery slinging.

Take South Korea, who very much is expecting such a fight and is able to produce a lot of artillery shells because of it. 

I think the difference there is that Russia is fighting a war, America is not. Russia is running its tank factories on triple shifts. America is not. I imagine if you flipped the circumstances American tank production would skyrocket. (Also America has no real need to actually make many tanks right now, they have so many of the buggers in storage as it is. Production currently is really more just to keep the factory running than anything else) 

This is full scale Russian tank production, its not getting any better without new factories. Its only 'keeping up' because of a cold war inheritance its spending at a frightful pace. The sh*t show element is tied to new weapons development in particular but also the fact it took them a while to even properly get their factories on gear and even then we hear some bizarre reports about how they are still not staffing properly. Peruns video on the Russian defence industry probably does a better job of explaining this better than I can. 
 
 

My take on things is that #1 and #2 were initially far more of consequence in the first year of conflict, especially in the first few months. As things stand now? Its clearly more weighted towards #3, though I would argue there is still plenty of evidence for the Russians doing a lot of questionable things and that Ukraine is still largely outperforming prior expectations in its ability to resist. 

The fact of the matter is, everyone expected Russia to launch its own version of desert storm, at least when it came to ground based capability and to see otherwise was a profound surprise. This stage of the conflict featured limited amount of NATO weaponry for Ukraine (especially high end stuff) while the Russians were entirely fresh with their new BTGs and clearly had at least some well equipped and trained units (VDV for instance) Drones for recon were certainly a thing but it was still very much adhoc, and of course there was nothing close to grenade dropping drones, or FPVs at all. In essence this phase of the war was about as conventionally 'traditional' as any other conflict prior outside of scale.

The Ukrainians were taken by surprise (At least in some areas) which allowed the Russians to make a pretty large scale attack on numerous fronts within the first twenty four hours.

Yet the Russians almost immediately suffered tonnes of horrendous reverses and were making a lot of questionable choices, while the Ukrainians clearly showed a resolve that -no one- was expecting even if it was not all going their own way in some areas. Things like  not having your AD network turned on properly to allow TB-2s to strike your air defence assets as one example of many is clear incompetence and it cannot be framed in another other way. Expecting your opposition to not fight back properly is another good example of how arrogance is a horrible trait for the battlefield and it was punished accordingly. 

As the weeks went by it was clear that something was deeply wrong as initial gains withered, supply columns measured in the dozens of miles were spotted from orbit and dozens upon dozens of videos of destroyed Russian columns appeared. This was a war that Russia should have been perfectly capable of fighting and yet it was not. We got snippets of what was going on as time went on, from Russian unit coordination between BTGs being shockingly poor, to the claim that most soldiers were not even aware they are in Ukraine until they were being shot at. I still remember the pictures showing Russians were relying on cheap Chinese radios instead of the fancy Akveduk systems they were supposed to have. You cannot tell me that Russian incompetence / lack of preparation was not key when Russian officers were struggling to contact their soldiers and having to resort to unsecured mobile phones to do so.

A lot of it I suppose was the propaganda bubble bursting, that the image of the Russian army with its modernisation efforts like Ratnik would be a credible peer adversary to NATO. Certainly the Russians seemed to think so. In reality of course, its clear that severe corruption has been a cancer to a lot of these efforts, and the results were clear just from 2022 how bad it had debilitated the entire force. These corruption issues are not things that go away easily. As Perun said quite well. It is a feature, not a bug. 
 

Just to clarify again, I am not suggesting that this level of concentration is at all appropriate for the conflict in Ukraine. The comparison is purely for the sake of pointing out these tanks are surviving in an environment that is normally -extremely- hostile to them. 

We have seen plenty of footage of said tanks being attacked from numerous angles by RPG teams, something that has been hard for Israel to deal with in the past (for anyone using tanks in this kind of environment) Same footage shows a lot of Trophy systems successfully destroying incoming projectiles. Surely even the most dire hard armour hater can concede that APS is saving vehicles that would otherwise be destroyed by tandem RPG rounds? Which then leads to the vehicles being able to perform their mission without the significant emotional event of being blown up. 

Apologies, but to clarify things: by massed use I am referring to the use of Israeli armoured brigades being fully utilised in sustained combat in an urban environment as opposed to a more adhoc system where smaller armoured units are being parcelled out to other units for support or are performing limited combat operations only. The point I was trying (and clearly sucking at conveying) is that we know this is usually difficult at for armoured units at best, and often disastrous in many cases. I apologise for this. 

To be sure, this seemingly successful use of the armour is not entirely because of Trophy, but I would argue its clearly having an impact that is tangible. Especially when the same brigades were having trouble beforehand in operating within urban areas and were taking notable losses in tanks. Tactics no doubt improved as well of course, but the APS was desired for an understandable reason. 

Entirely fair to say, I am not suggesting such blobbing would work in Ukraine. I am merely pointing out that tanks previously would get utterly mauled in such a situation yet the Israelis have so far pretty much minimal armoured losses so far. (Heck it was the Israli experience of tanks in urban combat that pretty much instigated trophy development to begin with) Again struggle to think of what is the issue though when you plant an APS equipped tank in Ukraine, especially before FPVs. Stugnas and RPGs are not exactly that far apart from what Hamas have been using. Trophy specifically has top attack protection capability as well (Though I do not believe we have visual evidence of that. Its a credible claim given its record so far I would argue) 

The collateral issue is very much a concern yes, though Trophy have seemingly made that a goal to minimise as much as possible. Tanks were already not especially safe to be next to as infantry (certainly dont want to be on the sides of a 120mm gun when it fires) but at least its better than something like Drozd, which had 107mm rockets being shot at the problem. 

I am sorry if I am missing on replies here. Been trying to answer everything as best I can...

Because they are not -making- hundreds of new tanks every year. 90% of 'new production' builds are them literally taking existing tanks and upgrading them. The only new tank the Russians make from scratch are T-90Ms, which have a monthly production rate in the low double digits at best despite the factory working 24/7. Everything else is reactivated or refurbished which is why we see such a disparity in tank types. Half the reason we are two years into this war is because we all genuinely underestimated how much corruption in the Russian system has compromised its ability to wage war and this was evident from the very start. You dont enjoy overwhelming advantages in more or less every category (in 2022 anyway) yet fail dismally at your surprise invasion without something being dreadfully wrong.

It is only because of the unique position that Russia has in that they had a large stock of cold war frames to work with that they have been somewhat able to keep up with loss rate. Its an increasingly finite supply and has its own problems that have to be taken into account. There is some excellent work from CovertCabal on this subject that makes for a great watch. Russian vehicle storage areas are being emptied at an alarming rate:
 
 

The fact that the Israelis are able to employ mass armour effectively in a tight, urban environment against opposition that has a fair bit of AT capability (Both home grown and imported) with minimal losses is clearly something significant, especially when we know that traditionally this is an environment that tanks have normally suffered horribly in. (Grozy comes to mind, same level of insurgency against mass armour) How are the systems Hamas use any different from the systems the Russians have when it comes to ATGMs and RPGs?

If we saw masses of burned out Merkava's I would be less certain, but its clear they have pretty dominant so far. 

My argument would be if APS was of dubious value then Israel would not be actively clamouring for as many as they can get their hands on. A decade of them going 'this works well and we want more' seems to be pretty compelling to me and is anything but short term. I seem to recall they were pretty cautious with the system at first. Now they want to equip -every- vehicle with it. All evidence shows that the system has been working and has undoubtedly saved far more in terms of monetary value of potential lost vehicles to the cost of the system as a whole. 

I am not saying its a silver bullet system, but its just another step down the road of a very complex and continuous war between protection and firepower and seems pretty obviously of value. 

Except we know from evidence that Russian weapons procurement is truly a **** show due to an inherently corrupt system that means lots of money disappears instead of actually being used to develop a working weapon. 

I think its pretty evident that something of the sort likely took place with Arena, with cost coming in to put a nail in the coffin. Yet from the literal thousands of destroyed tanks in Ukraine well before FPVs were even in use, its clear they made the wrong decision in going for mediocre upgrades like T-72B3 instead of something more long term. (they even screwed that up with Armata)

How many of those destroyed tanks might have been saved with a working APS system in widespread use, even if it meant cutting overall tank numbers down by 30% to do so (Trophy reportedly costs 30% of a Merkeva Mk4) Even something that might be less effective than Trophy would have substantially reduced the attrition rate taken from Stugnas, NLAWs, Javelins and the plethora of other threats that were doing the majority of the tank killing for 2022-2023. 
 

Mass is pretty much accurate.
They are using tanks pretty heavily alongside other armoured vehicles. Its pretty massed when it comes to modern armour usage in urban environments yes. 




As for trophy usage, the sources I read state 'dozens' of uses in 2014 without failure. With the current conflict I assume there is far more usage of the system and I have found no sources stating it not working, outside of a few tanks that were caught initially not using the system and getting knocked out (I have no idea why they were not switched on)

You could be right in that it might be a unique case, though the interest in the system outside of Israel would perhaps suggest its at least viewed to be of value elsewhere. I dont really see why Trophy would not work just as well on the battlefields of Ukraine against comparable missile systems. The fact its defeated Kornet and that is one of the more capable systems out there is pretty compelling evidence. 

Israel has been making excellent use of Trophy on a wide scale and seem pretty damn satisfied with its performance. Plenty of footage around showing them intercepting all manner of projectiles pretty consistently. Its been reported to have intercepted relatively good ATGM systems such as Kornet as well, all the way back in 2014. The fact that numerous countries are planning to introduce the system seems to tell me that its capable enough for widespread service.
 


As for the Russians....well they claimed to have Arena working but the complete lack of any showing of the system tells me they were probably very much fibbing about that. Only hardkill APS we have seen in Ukraine is the freak T-80UM-2 that was destroyed a while back using the old Drozd system and I dont think it was even working. 

To me, it seems obvious that APS can be readily adjusted to deal with loitering munitions as well. If its capable of intercepting fast projectiles its more than capable of assessing and deleting a drone flying in as well. Could even see systems that include a lightweight 'shotgun' type weapon reserved for drone threats while the main system deals with rockets / missiles. 

Hamas has both domestically produced tandem RPGs and stuff imported, they are by no means defenceless, especially in a city environment with extensive tunnel systems. They even received some Kornets somehow:

 https://www.thecipherbrief.com/a-look-inside-hamass-weapons-arsenal

Hezbollah also have plenty of AT weaponry and the Trophy equipped tanks have gone up against them as well just fine. I am not suggesting that the disparity is anything equal here (its not) as I said before this is very reminiscent of Grozy where poorly armed Chechens went up against entire tank units. They typically had little more than basic RPGs yet were able to devastate tank units. Here the Israelis are clearly enjoying more success. 

From the footage we have, we clearly see Hamas are trying to ambush Merkevas with multiple RPGs. Seeing everything from Rpg-7 to 29s. This is not the most poorly armed group of people I have seen. Some source even state they have some North Korean ATGMs. Its a truly crazy variety of kit but its still dangerous in a city environment. 

You joked about them having an RND department...but actually...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasin_(RPG)

As a note to FPV usage in general, this is the first conflict that has truly demonstrated the value and potency of such system in widescale use. Against inventories of vehicles designed largely in the cold war its no surprise in many respects that FPV's have been so deadly. No one has really had to sit down and look at the reality as it stands on the battlefield to this degree before. 

I challenge the drone supremacy thinkers among us to think on this. What happens when the shoe is on the other foot? Historically new weapons or systems tend to be countered in some form of another, and we are only just at the starting point for weaponised drones. Is it not possible to consider that systems  could or will be designed in the future that heavily curtail drones? We already see plenty of systems in areas like EWAR that inflict pretty heavy losses on drone platforms, to me it feels a little strange to think that said systems will not evolve and be complimented by others, even as drones evolve themselves. I feel like the only certainty here is that there will be a race of sorts to be acted out, or just an extension of the rivalry between offensive and defensive systems that we have seen on vehicles since the first world war. 

Consider the following scenario. One nation goes all out on drones and unmanned systems while largely discarding manned vehicles, while another goes heavy on APS / drone killing technology on their own vehicles. Of course this is all entirely theoretical (I dont think anyone really can predict the future of warfare with any certainty) but just hear me out.

What happens if it turns out that a mass of new gen vehicles operating APS / drone countering systems are able to effectively deal with drones. Suddenly the other nation might be regretting getting rid of its tanks or manned mobile elements when its getting overrun by its enemy without a proper means to deal with them. 

I suppose the point I am trying (and likely failing) to make is that I am very wary of singular systems turning the whole system on its head, or assuming that other systems are going to remain exactly the same. Its obvious drones are going to be a very real and massive element on the battlefield, but I cant help but feel like systems currently in use will simply adapt like they do when any new fangled technology reaches the battlefield. 

I do apologise for the rambling. 
 

The source points out that only around a 100ish of these new tanks are actually new frames, which are the T-90 hulls specifically. There was a rumour that the Russians were seeking to restart T-80 production but sources some to differ on that one so I dont know for sure. They are certainly not making brand new T-72 hulls. Sorry for the confusion. 

My take on things is that #1 and #2 were initially far more of consequence in the first year of conflict, especially in the first few months. As things stand now? Its clearly more weighted towards #3, though I would argue there is still plenty of evidence for the Russians doing a lot of questionable things and that Ukraine is still largely outperforming prior expectations in its ability to resist. 

The fact of the matter is, everyone expected Russia to launch its own version of desert storm, at least when it came to ground based capability and to see otherwise was a profound surprise. This stage of the conflict featured limited amount of NATO weaponry for Ukraine (especially high end stuff) while the Russians were entirely fresh with their new BTGs and clearly had at least some well equipped and trained units (VDV for instance) Drones for recon were certainly a thing but it was still very much adhoc, and of course there was nothing close to grenade dropping drones, or FPVs at all. In essence this phase of the war was about as conventionally 'traditional' as any other conflict prior outside of scale.

The Ukrainians were taken by surprise (At least in some areas) which allowed the Russians to make a pretty large scale attack on numerous fronts within the first twenty four hours.

Yet the Russians almost immediately suffered tonnes of horrendous reverses and were making a lot of questionable choices, while the Ukrainians clearly showed a resolve that -no one- was expecting even if it was not all going their own way in some areas. Things like  not having your AD network turned on properly to allow TB-2s to strike your air defence assets as one example of many is clear incompetence and it cannot be framed in another other way. Expecting your opposition to not fight back properly is another good example of how arrogance is a horrible trait for the battlefield and it was punished accordingly. 

As the weeks went by it was clear that something was deeply wrong as initial gains withered, supply columns measured in the dozens of miles were spotted from orbit and dozens upon dozens of videos of destroyed Russian columns appeared. This was a war that Russia should have been perfectly capable of fighting and yet it was not. We got snippets of what was going on as time went on, from Russian unit coordination between BTGs being shockingly poor, to the claim that most soldiers were not even aware they are in Ukraine until they were being shot at. I still remember the pictures showing Russians were relying on cheap Chinese radios instead of the fancy Akveduk systems they were supposed to have. You cannot tell me that Russian incompetence / lack of preparation was not key when Russian officers were struggling to contact their soldiers and having to resort to unsecured mobile phones to do so.

A lot of it I suppose was the propaganda bubble bursting, that the image of the Russian army with its modernisation efforts like Ratnik would be a credible peer adversary to NATO. Certainly the Russians seemed to think so. In reality of course, its clear that severe corruption has been a cancer to a lot of these efforts, and the results were clear just from 2022 how bad it had debilitated the entire force. These corruption issues are not things that go away easily. As Perun said quite well. It is a feature, not a bug. 
 

One of the big blockers for Ukrainian initial attempts to break into the Russian lines last summer was ATGMs from KA-50s/52s and *not* drones.  To some extent drones are reshaping the battlefield but we are also getting a ton of drone footage because their means of implementation means that you get a lot of video evidence. That video evidence is also fairly clear as compared to an ATGM hit which is usually just the launch into a field.
 

To some extant there is going to be the impact of industrial erosion. Russian Susna sights were rate limited for a while because they utilized French parts. The U.S. had shortages of fairly simple items during Covid because they were imported. With Susna I believe the Russians found an alternative but without knowing the production pathway of Arena its hard to say why these systems aren't in use.

- key parts are hard to acquire?
- production can be shunted to something else that is needed now that tank production has increased dramatically?
- Arena isn't effective against Javelins?

Just to clarify again, I am not suggesting that this level of concentration is at all appropriate for the conflict in Ukraine. The comparison is purely for the sake of pointing out these tanks are surviving in an environment that is normally -extremely- hostile to them. 

We have seen plenty of footage of said tanks being attacked from numerous angles by RPG teams, something that has been hard for Israel to deal with in the past (for anyone using tanks in this kind of environment) Same footage shows a lot of Trophy systems successfully destroying incoming projectiles. Surely even the most dire hard armour hater can concede that APS is saving vehicles that would otherwise be destroyed by tandem RPG rounds? Which then leads to the vehicles being able to perform their mission without the significant emotional event of being blown up. 

Apologies, but to clarify things: by massed use I am referring to the use of Israeli armoured brigades being fully utilised in sustained combat in an urban environment as opposed to a more adhoc system where smaller armoured units are being parcelled out to other units for support or are performing limited combat operations only. The point I was trying (and clearly sucking at conveying) is that we know this is usually difficult at for armoured units at best, and often disastrous in many cases. I apologise for this. 

To be sure, this seemingly successful use of the armour is not entirely because of Trophy, but I would argue its clearly having an impact that is tangible. Especially when the same brigades were having trouble beforehand in operating within urban areas and were taking notable losses in tanks. Tactics no doubt improved as well of course, but the APS was desired for an understandable reason. 

Thank you, it honestly means a lot. I for one am enjoying the different perspectives here, even if I have my reservations or disagreements and concerns with some of them. No one is making bad or poorly structured points and I honestly find it refreshing. 

Entirely fair to say, I am not suggesting such blobbing would work in Ukraine. I am merely pointing out that tanks previously would get utterly mauled in such a situation yet the Israelis have so far pretty much minimal armoured losses so far. (Heck it was the Israli experience of tanks in urban combat that pretty much instigated trophy development to begin with) Again struggle to think of what is the issue though when you plant an APS equipped tank in Ukraine, especially before FPVs. Stugnas and RPGs are not exactly that far apart from what Hamas have been using. Trophy specifically has top attack protection capability as well (Though I do not believe we have visual evidence of that. Its a credible claim given its record so far I would argue) 

The collateral issue is very much a concern yes, though Trophy have seemingly made that a goal to minimise as much as possible. Tanks were already not especially safe to be next to as infantry (certainly dont want to be on the sides of a 120mm gun when it fires) but at least its better than something like Drozd, which had 107mm rockets being shot at the problem. 

I am sorry if I am missing on replies here. Been trying to answer everything as best I can...