‘Turtle tanks’: Russians unveil effective innovation on Ukraine battlefield
- Russia and Ukraine have turned to improvised armour solutions to give their tanks extra protection
- But Moscow, in recent weeks, appears to have taken this a step further with an effective innovation
Facing a myriad of deadly threats on the battlefield, exploding drones being a particularly serious threat, Russia and Ukraine have both taken extra steps to safeguard their tanks and vehicles by outfitting them with extra layers of protective armour.
This improvised armour, sometimes little more than a chain-link cage welded around the outside of a vehicle, is essentially an effort to provide a last-ditch defence against inbound munitions like artillery, anti-tank missiles, or small drones packed with explosives, especially the latter.
While both militaries have used such tactics, Russia, in recent weeks, has unveiled a strange-looking – albeit apparently effective – innovation that has been referred to by some Ukraine war observers as the “turtle tank”.
Videos of the Russian turtle tank design, shared by open-source intelligence accounts and experts often pulling from the accounts of Ukrainian service members, have become increasingly common on social media since first appearing earlier this month.
The tank is aptly named, as it’s covered by what appears to be metal armour on all sides except the front, where the gun not-so-inconspicuously sticks out – kind of resembling the head of a turtle.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, identified the turtle tank participating in a mid-April assault carried out by Russia’s 5th Motor Rifle Brigade on the eastern Ukrainian town of Krasnohorivka, a hotspot in fighting as Moscow pushes west of the Donetsk city.