- The Russians work around the clock to develop new ways to protect their vehicles from drones
- Constant improvisation has produced effective turtle, porcupine, hedgehog and dandelion tanks
- But one new improvisation is pointless: tubes full of hydroponic clay
Some Russian crews seem to believe that hydroponic clay, the kind you might put in a pot for decorative plants, can protect their up-armored turtle tanks from Ukrainian drones.
It can't. The clay "is certainly useless," Canadian drone expert Grandpa Roy explained.
The add-on clay armor is a healthy reminder that, in the Russians' ceaseless efforts to protect their combat vehicles from ever-improving Ukrainian drones, sometimes they succeed—and sometimes they fail.
Russian improvisation rewarded them with a bevy of effective up-armored vehicles: turtle tanks with add-on metal shells, porcupine and hedgehog tanks with drone-blocking metal quills, and dandelion tanks with branching metal defenses. These designs have produced assault vehicles that can, under the right conditions, absorb dozens of explosive first-person-view drones as they shepherd infantry across the wide gray zone separating Russian and Ukrainian positions.
But not all the improvisation actually works. Some do-it-yourself designs are dead ends—including the clay.
The clay armor is heavily featured in a new video in which a Russian soldier narrates a tour of his turtle tank. The tank boasts all the usual features of a turtle tank: a metal frame supporting a rubber-lined metal shell, under which as many as eight infantry can shelter. The infantry squat next to a clutch of batteries powering a bank of radio jammers atop the shell—jammers that can ground FPV drones before they even reach the tank.
Ineffective defense
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Those are tried-and-true enhancements. Less tried, and less true, are the empty shell casings—"the shells of the same tank," according to the Russian narrator—the Russians have filled with hydroponic clay. "It provides a good degree of protection," the Russian claims in the video.
That's not true, Grandpa Roy insisted. "For some reason the Russians think that when mounted as standoff armor, this system will provide excellent protection, whereas it is certainly useless." Ukrainian FPVs optimized for vehicle strikes tend to carry shaped-charge warheads that focus their blasts into a narrow jet that can punch through metal.
There are multiple effective defenses against a shaped charge. Triggering a warhead a safe distance from the vehicle's hull is one way to beat it—that's the whole point of the porcupine, hedgehog and dandelion armor. Sandwich-style armor with narrow gaps between some of the layers can disrupt a shaped charge. Reactive armor that explodes outward can overwhelm a shaped charge.
Russia wants 428 tanks a year by 2028. Its “second factory” is taking them apart instead.
Old shells full of clay, however, probably won't do anything to enhance the protective qualities of the metal plating the shells are attached to. At best, the clay is pointless. At worst, it may tempt Russian troops to believe they're better-protected than they actually are.
That doesn't mean the turtle tank in the guided tour won't work. But if it does work, and safely carries its infantry across the gray zone while absorbing multiple FPV strikes, its success won't be a function of those tubes full of clay.
