Sorry there wasn't any real back-and-forth, we had to rerecord the audio so Thinky had pretty much worked out everything he wanted to say. If you guys like this interview-style video, let me know. It was definitely a nice change of pace to make.
This interview format is super interesting!! Don't feel like it's not fun if it's not organic conversation. One of my favorites of your videos are the GHPC dev interviews
Keep making this kind of videos. Its really informative and not to long or drawn out for me to get distracted or klik of in the middle as with most other interviews
From what I've heard the 'cope cage' was designed to protect against PG-7s, thrown anti-tank mines and things like suicide drones, which are a genuine threat and have apparently been encountered in Syria.
Lot of people seem to think that the copium cages (trademark) don't do anything, this is wrong though. It has been demostrated that these cages effectively protect against very heavily thrown tomatoes and sheets of paper.
Paper cuts are no joke and clearly has a high penetration value plus it has a +10 sting and ouch value! Clearly its an anti crew/personnel weapon system and its highly effective.
Given that we know Ukrainian grandmothers can expertly wield jars of pickled tomatoes to take out combat drones, that's a valid concern. Anti-tank pickled vegetables are no joke.
@@cristianserban4632 you should ask for the sorces that says it was ever intended to stop javelins. They are ther for RKG-3 AT grenades if you want me to even strengthen this argument these are shape charge devices when ya put that much distance between it and the armor they are usless other than a minor headache for the crew
Talked with the crew about this "fences" as we called them during expo. They agreed that this things are pornography (as in ridiculous) and it was just "brilliant" idea from the top
@@MrMediator24, the term used really gives credibility to your statement. "Pornography" is a very recognizable way to call something badly conceptualized and crudely made in Russian.
As far as I know, those cages were meant to stop light suicide drones like Warmate used by Ukraine. The older versions of warmate have relatively small HE warheads capable of destroying MBTs if hitting them directly in the roof. But iI think that the explosive load on the newest versions is too big to be stopped by these cages anyway. I don't know if Ukraine bought any newer Warmates though.
Doesn't really matter, just buy a bunch of cheap drones strap as much explosives as possible, then rig a detonator and you've got your self a guided bomb.
@@kamilszadkowski8864 but that's just one more piece lol of equipment that needs to be taken into the battlefeild especially in an urban environment cause that's where those drones will do their best work, that will then be vunerable to guerilla warfare.
Just lookng at that profile pic alone is enough to tell that he is a gay furry that do some kinky stuff outside of UA-cam. Trust me, as a fellow fur, I know a gay one when I see em. Although he tries to keep the furry stuff out of UA-cam.
Spookums definitely seems to be a furry but not a Furry if you know what I mean, he just likes the anthro art and stuff which is fine (to clarify I don't care about the more "hardcore" furries either tbh)
It reminds me of wood armor that was used during the world wars.Almost completely useless but give the crew a sense of comfort since they got additional "protection"
@@davidty2006 for different purpose. The trucks however have been seen mounting logs in front of the radiator, probably to help shield it from rifle fire
@@PilotTed i think he meant for american tanks such as the shermans, where they'd put almost anything on it, or the italian tanks in the early sections of the war.
The purpose of the Cope Cages being for protection against TB-2 munitions makes the most sense as there was a lot of video of Armenian operated Soviet/Russian MTBs being devestated by them during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War.
It's probably there to help with crew morale given how notoriously bad urban warfare is for tankers. Think of them like the sandbags Sherman crews would put on the from of their tanks.
The sandbags on the Sherman’s existed purely for entertainment purposes. If morale was at an all time low, they would cut the bags lose and create a sandbox for the crew to play in. I hope this clears any confusion.
I think the argument of the cope cage being used as camo is rather a stretch. The soviet/russian tanks' low profile was supposed to make them less likely to being seen and being hit. By putting a big "conning tower" on top of your tank, you are essentially tell everyone "hey look here, look at this nice tall structure I have here". Even if you put more debris or branches on it, it still give off a unnatural look and add weight onto the tank.
Its meant as camo from the air, not the ground. Camo from the air is just as, if not more important due to aircraft and drones. The Ukrainians have been using a lot of drones too, so the camo on the top will help hide them from said drones, if even by a little.
@@PilotTed that would've been true before the age of thermal imaging, but as we've seen from the BA-2 footage the Ukrainians are more than capable of spotting and engaging targets with thermal imaging.
@@PilotTed that would've been true before the age of thermal imaging, but as we've seen from the TB-2 footage the Ukrainians are more than capable of spotting and engaging targets with thermal imaging.
@@ryanchatham9971 Well I haven't seen too much TB-2 footage of them destroying tanks in Ukraine (most footage I have seen has been light armoured vehicles i.e. BMDs), to his point, thermal imaging does see heat signatures, but like the guy said in the video, putting all this stuff on top of these cages may in fact make it more difficult to distinguish what it is you are looking at from above seeing as they wont have a heat signature like the tanks engine.
@@aflyingcowboy31 I don't think you have ever seen a thermo imaging of a tank from the sky. Often on the thermo camera, the simple engine deck heat signature is enough for confirmation. So I don't really think cope cage can help with that.
I see the top cage as a direct response to how prevalent drone top down attacks were in the Armenian/Azerbaijani conflict and just how devastating they were.
That wasn't some great unknown. Tank tops have and are weakspots on all tanks, be it T-72/T-90/Abrams or Panther D lol. They just don't really get exposed to such situations often enough in the past to justify doing anything about it.
But they also raise the tank's visual profile quite a bit, making positioning such a tank in defilade (with just its low turret visible to any observer in its forward arc and at about the same elevation) impossible. With cages fitted these things can be spotted a few EXTRA km away, except maybe if they're in a treeline. The US Army would never make a tradeoff like this -- of visual signature for some dubious overhead "protection".
The cope cages being used as storage sounds to me less like an intended feature and more like tankers going 'oh well, now we have these weird racks of questionable utility on the top of our tank, might as well lash some gear to it'
As I understand it, Soldiers generally are excellent scroungers. Tankers etc. Who rely on complicated pieces of kit, even more so. So it was downright inevitable that their Cope Cages would be turned into stowage.
I have had my suspicions that these cages were there to protect against weaker munitions and not as a protection against Javelins, guess I was right. I knew from reading history books and such that in Urban warfare, tanks turret tops are very much exposed to anyone with an RPG or thrown AT mine on top of a tall building. The Drone munitions part though surprised me, didn't know Ukraine had drones like that with those types of munitions. I knew they had suicide drones and UAVs, just didn't know they had those Turkish ones. As for mortars, I never really thought of using mortars as AT weapons, guess its possible, but that would be very hard to hit the top of a tank with one. If its effective against these smaller weapons, good for them for coming up with a way to defeat them cheap and effectively, but it still won't protect against anything substantial like Javelins or the larger RPG warheads like the ones with tandem charges.
I don't know how difficult it'd be but you could probably toss mortar rounds out the side of a tallish building onto the tank's roof if you had good enough aim. Idk about arming the mortars beforehand though. Saving Private Ryan can only teach one so much about modern mortar systems.
@@ifv2089 while that may be true, they’re shooting themselves in the foot by throwing sandbags and shit on top of them. Skinny bars trap the warhead without letting its pressure sensor get tripped, while thick bars/sandbags/ tree limbs will cause it to explode still. The damage will not be as bad, but I imagine the tank will not be functioning the same after an explosion 2-3 feet above the turret
@@bakermayfield6hunnitdan6er24 yeah you don't put things over the top of Bar armour it doesn't work like this. Plenty of evidence showing warheads stuck out the sides of our warriors and bulldog 432 in Iraq and mastiff and viking in Afghan I seen our waggons role into basra Palace with RPG sticking out the Bar, was a normal event after night patrols in the Udey triangle or Shia Flats, worked well we had warriors that took up to 7 hits and were fine
I mean, I looked at them and thought 'they are expecting urban, maybe they are a 'rain-shield' for debris off of buildings or other such things, to prevent the risk of them damaging hatches or otherwise complicating operation'. Could also, maybe, be some sort of 'this is allied' identifier as well. IIRC a lot of Ukrainian tanks are modifications of Russian tanks. Maybe that change to silhouette is an attempt at a sneaky vis ID shortcut? I expect that no matter what their intended purpose is, they probably don't fill it too well. Aluminum/steel frames tend not to be very good for much these days.
@@ALGNC Bruh. Most of Russia's current inventory is modifications of 'USSR' vehicles. Russia was also the controlling stake in the USSR. There is ZERO point in that distinction when talking about armored vehicles.
@@jtnachos16 yeah and the most advance Russian equipment is not even in the front line since they could not even produce a lot of them and people are saying that there probably to expensive to use so yeah most of the war is fought whit soviet era design
Great video. As I tought, your videos are still top tier, even when longer than 5 minutes. If you enjoy making longer content, you should really consider making more of it, as its very entertaining to watch, and you can explain a lot more.
Gonna call BS here , this "expert" has 12mins to explaine why top-mounted slat armor cant nullify modern top-attack ATGMs but fails to show one example of a Russian mbt destroyed by one ...
From what I’ve seen, I think some American armored officer explained that the reason the US uses slat armor is like a chance reduction of an rpg working effectively by deforming the cone in the warhead warhead and stopping it from either penetrating successfully or stopping it in the armor, he even shows the aftereffect of it working successfully, even explaining that if it hit the cage directly, that the jet of molten whatever is in there still goes through, I’ll try to find the video.
Despite being called Cope Cages (dumb name though), at least it's better than none when it comes to protecting the top turrets, camouflage or storage. Even though there're weapon systems that made them useless
@@misterputin8898 They do but they don't seem to use due to some reasons that conflict with their point of view, even though it's possible to obtain it
@@thomasstevenhebert supposedly most modern tanks have escape hatches nowadays but due to the catastrophic conditions that Russian tanks are infamous of they'll have a hard time trying to escape while praying or hoping not to get cooked alive
Great video, it would be nice if there was more in this format. P.S. 5:12 These are not missiles. MAM family of guidied munitions was developed for UCAVs and aircraft with small payload , such as the TB2 and they don't have any propulsion system to save weight.
I believe you are correct in the sense they do not use a propulsion system. I had higher confidence that the MAM-C had no propulsion system, but Roketsan's own publications on the MAM-L were not very clear about this, especially with the speculated ranges they gave for this system. It should be noted though, that in my industry the term "missile" often refers more broadly to any thrown weapon, be it constantly propelled or not. Still, I think in the future I'll try to use the term "missile" more sparingly as it does refer to a more narrow interpretation to most people, and rely on the term "guided munitions" or "guided weapons" instead. Either way, thanks for the feedback!
@@Hardbass2021 Kinda. At least from what I've heard on the internet (Poland bought Bayraktars half a year ago and there was a lot of "hype" in the industry media). Unfortunately everything that Baykar Defence publishes seems to be in Turkish.
If we start seeing more urban warfare, I wonder if tank crews will start tying ballistic blankets/other protection from small arms over these cages. Might provide additional protection from ambush-style attacks for crew exposed to man weapons systems or observe targets.
You´d cover up all your optics and soft protection won´t stand up to any sort of rifle round, not that Russia even remotely has the funds to purchase any form of appliqué, given that they seem to have skimped quite heavily on maintenance.
I think he's right about them expecting urban combat and attacks from above. Something he didn't mention was grenades and mines- tanks in WW1 had similar cages to allow grenades to roll off or blow up at a safe distance from the tanks skin. In addition, I guess it doubles as a sun shield and a "hope this helps" vs NLAW and other top attack stuff.
Honestly the concept of having cage to roll grenades off the top of the vehicle seems really arbitrary for me, especially for early WW2 vehicles. Vehicles are always on the move so good luck throwing grenades on higher position right into the hatch, if anything it will just roll off or misses the vehicle entirely (without the cage). Cage armor makes more sense for RPG though
@@quakethedoombringer Yeah, I guess the idea is more that the grenade detonates up there rather than on the skin, useful when they get bogged down in cities. Main use is probably RPGs tho
Cant wait for russian MBTs in warthunder to get cope cages that are incredibly effective because I guarantee they will get them and I guarantee they will overperform
Well, Papa Putin has to finance his wrecked economy somehow... Granted, I'm not convinced this invasion is a 5th dimensional chess move to lower the BR of modern Russian ground vehicles. XD
Russian tonk can stop anything, don't believe what you see on TV, on UA-cam or through your eyes. Believe what Putin says comrade, tonk cannot be destroyed.
@@MichaelDavis-mk4me of course Tonk cannot be destroyed. Have you seen how tiny that thing is? No Russian tank has the gun depression necessary to hit it. XD
I defiantly would like to see more stuff like this, as in people with a different knowledge base sharing it, and maybe having more of a back and forth could be interesting to see.
This can be summed up into a simple conclusion if you want to avoid rambling. B: “Why would you bother wearing ceramic body armor, it’s not at all effective against a 40mm bofors round” A: “But it will stop 45acp, 9mm, 5.56, 7.62, .308, 12 gauge slug, buckshot, shrapnel, lacerations, impalings, majority of thorned plants, blunt impacts” B: “Well it won’t stop 40mm bofors, So there’s no point in wearing it”
The fact they're just called cope cages is just funny to me, and out there, one day, online military analysts and military personnel would start using cope cage as a common name for them.
Also there is an often overlooked problem with HEAT rounds. They are designed for optimal focus of the jet at the impact point. If the impact point is the cage, that means the jet travels roughly 1 meter through air before hitting the roof. If the heat round is small enough(and most top attack munitions are indeed small, this 1 meter air gap might be enough to disperse the jet to the point where it can't penetrate the roof. In a way, air is armor :)
thats why some nera armors use air gaps as effective method of stopping some heat munitions. its well known. whether 0.6kg of explosive material, that is installed on javelin, is enough to penetrate top armor after traveling at least 50cm through air is up to debate.
Lovely video, and i would actually very much like this sort of video, perhaps people add into a poll with war questions that is voted on, and highest voted is chosen next perhaps?
I was thinking that'd be far more effective against top attack shaped charge munitions if they used the cage as a mounting point for ERA to both increase standoff distance and protect optics and modules on the roof of the tank.
cage triggers the rocket the same, then comes era into play(that can try to neutralize main charge). its unlikely that it stops javelin completly, but i could stop some other munitions. only conter to javelin that russian have on tanks, is shtora-1 system on t-90A and its not supposed to work that well against those rockets especially since its hard to detect a javelin lock-on (fire-and-forget).
They only started showing up after the NK war in 2020 and they're almost certainly in response to the proliferation of loitering munitions. All of these other things coming up are possible things that the cope cage could protect against but the main reasoning behind it stays loitering munitions.
i'd love your friend to return in a future presentation going over the new equipment and its use in this war, sort of review of how some was put to better use than expected, and which to worse.
its been a thing for a while now lol i think since either serbia or Chechnya
2 роки тому+1
Very nice Video. Very informnativ. I am currently working on the same topic for my german speaking channel and I think I have to make additions to my script :)
they have cages to cope with the fact they can't stop javelins and to stop the conscripts from jumping out of the tank the second a bullet bounces off the armor
I like how this video pretty clearly explains how the cage armour works and yet half the comments section seems to have commented before seeing the video…
I assumed the cope cages were to trap the crew in the burning tank as Russian logistics can't even deliver enough food or fuel so not having to transport bodies would be a plus.
Probably becuase it is an urban warfare package. Why send a more expensive tank into urban combat when the ranges are so close the extra armour/etc of the t90 won't make mutch of a difference.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 that's a good point actually, because I was thinking the APS systems would be much more effective, not the stura red eyes of doom, the other one which name I have forgotten.
There are old T72AVs too. Very little "new" equipment has been used so far but there have been T-90s and T72B3 used and even captured. Funnily enough yesterday the Russians captured a fair few T64B's. Both sides are using captured equipment from the other side.
So the cage won't work because of its location. What your friend doesn't understand is that the cage is designed to distort the shape charge. That's where penitrating power comes from. Your friend actually doesn't know what he's talking about but he tried tho. Properly fitted cage in the correct location can easily stop a certain percentage those munitions.
they have cages to keep the little gnome inside that runs the transmission of the tank so that he doesn't run out and cause havoc on the surrounding environment
Cope cages were actually fixed to t-whatever series tanks. It’s already been admitted to by them that it’s the same “hillbilly armor” we did in early OIF. Javelins detonate on impact and set off their secondary warhead in the form of a shaped charge. It is an attempt at stand off protection. It’s an attempt to reduce the velocity the molten metal hits and the temp it hits the top of the turret (y’all need to get a 2C identifier before you go rambling about ATGMs anymore). Yes it could help in an urban environment and RPG’s. But no, this is not from their Grozny experience nor even the Russo/Georgian War. This is already vetted and sourced from the theatre of operations. However, they serve a multi purpose. They also can act as sniper cages did to turrets in AFG and IQ in that they provide concealment to the turret crew members and MAY provide some protection against loitering munitions and suicide drone. Both of which have been procured from Turkey, Israel and the US. The idea on tanks gained its traction in the Azerbaijani/Armenian war no one watched or cared about. Again, all of this information is already out there, open source through various no partisan OSINT/SIGINT channels online.
I feel like one point he is missing is that the cope cage causes the precursor to go off, and thus increasing the effectiveness of ERA bricks on the roof. I’m not an expert and I can’t say wether or not the shrapnel of the precursor could or couldn’t set off the ERA before they can deflect the main charge.
Peak of Russian simplistic armor design. Makes them practically immune to Hellfire and Maveric. Surely this would not have been fielded if it wasn't extremely effective?)))
I’m happy that your expert is well read on open source information. Everyone knows that the Stalinium in the Cope Cage 2.0 will only be reserved for the T-14.
Sorry there wasn't any real back-and-forth, we had to rerecord the audio so Thinky had pretty much worked out everything he wanted to say. If you guys like this interview-style video, let me know. It was definitely a nice change of pace to make.
This interview format is super interesting!! Don't feel like it's not fun if it's not organic conversation. One of my favorites of your videos are the GHPC dev interviews
Plz more like this, amazing amount of info. I guess ask questions like in a proper interview but you already touched on it so you know
Keep making this kind of videos. Its really informative and not to long or drawn out for me to get distracted or klik of in the middle as with most other interviews
Ivan's cope cages don't work.
It is a nice change of pace
From what I've heard the 'cope cage' was designed to protect against PG-7s, thrown anti-tank mines and things like suicide drones, which are a genuine threat and have apparently been encountered in Syria.
And more importantly,on Armenia.
The Russians are also encountering last gen NATO LAWs, that even modern day NATO is producing and distributing LAWs in Ukraine.
Are you sure you don't mean NLAWs, which are an exceptionally different beast
@@rustyshackleford3053 Denmark and Norway gave Ukraine M72 LAWs.
They aint coping in Ukraine , thats for damn sure
6:17 damn, nice lead shot!
its drewski
When A-10 gameplay? :peepoWeird:
@@Rahayu.76 holy crap its oc boi
Do you play war thunder Drewski?
LICK MY BOOTS AND TUCK ME IN AT NIGHT! ITS OPERATOR DREWSKI! WHAT IN TARNATION!?
The "cope cage" doesn't work because stalinium is hard to come by on the field
Lmao. This made me laugh
The damage that r/NonCredibleDefense has caused is too muc, we need to be stopped sooner or later...
Facts !
Da
Stalinium is dissolved it self together with the soviet union.
Lot of people seem to think that the copium cages (trademark) don't do anything, this is wrong though.
It has been demostrated that these cages effectively protect against very heavily thrown tomatoes and sheets of paper.
I was about to comment for you to give me a source but then i expanded the comment and read the rest
Paper cuts are no joke and clearly has a high penetration value plus it has a +10 sting and ouch value! Clearly its an anti crew/personnel weapon system and its highly effective.
they are also 93% effective at blocking rain particles that may interfere with the hair of the commander when the hatch is open
Given that we know Ukrainian grandmothers can expertly wield jars of pickled tomatoes to take out combat drones, that's a valid concern. Anti-tank pickled vegetables are no joke.
@@cristianserban4632 you should ask for the sorces that says it was ever intended to stop javelins. They are ther for RKG-3 AT grenades if you want me to even strengthen this argument these are shape charge devices when ya put that much distance between it and the armor they are usless other than a minor headache for the crew
Talked with the crew about this "fences" as we called them during expo. They agreed that this things are pornography (as in ridiculous) and it was just "brilliant" idea from the top
And obviously this thoughts are confirmed with each FUBAR vehicle
@@MrMediator24, the term used really gives credibility to your statement. "Pornography" is a very recognizable way to call something badly conceptualized and crudely made in Russian.
@@АлександрСоловьев-п5р yeah thats true lol, that's what i thougt too
The Good Idea Fairy strikes again.
@@varhYT waiting for _seethe cages_ to be deployed
As far as I know, those cages were meant to stop light suicide drones like Warmate used by Ukraine. The older versions of warmate have relatively small HE warheads capable of destroying MBTs if hitting them directly in the roof. But iI think that the explosive load on the newest versions is too big to be stopped by these cages anyway. I don't know if Ukraine bought any newer Warmates though.
Doesn't really matter, just buy a bunch of cheap drones strap as much explosives as possible, then rig a detonator and you've got your self a guided bomb.
@@binaryshark5965 Chep drones can be easily nullified with radio-electronic warfare.
@@kamilszadkowski8864 but that's just one more piece lol of equipment that needs to be taken into the battlefeild especially in an urban environment cause that's where those drones will do their best work, that will then be vunerable to guerilla warfare.
@@kamilszadkowski8864 I’m sure the army using unencrypted radio coms definitely has state of the art electronic warfare units
@@land_and_air1250 Well, they were supposed to be formidable in that aspect. But as usual with Russians, it turned out to be propaganda.
Spookston saying he's not a furry because of his profile pic: okay.
Spookston's discord image
There's 9/10 chance that in full image his avatar is looking at a knotty treat ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Just lookng at that profile pic alone is enough to tell that he is a gay furry that do some kinky stuff outside of UA-cam. Trust me, as a fellow fur, I know a gay one when I see em. Although he tries to keep the furry stuff out of UA-cam.
@@Ayattar55 Stop talking. Be quiet for several days
Spookums definitely seems to be a furry but not a Furry if you know what I mean, he just likes the anthro art and stuff which is fine (to clarify I don't care about the more "hardcore" furries either tbh)
tbh i don't care if he is a furry or not anyway
The infamous cope cage
Oh God NCD is leaking
Or the slat hat
Russians fears Javelins for a reason lol
@@yourfriendlyneighborhoodf1802
It was /k/ but they called it the cuck cage.
@@yourfriendlyneighborhoodf1802 ah a fellow non credible defence user? Maybe a laser pig fan as well?
It reminds me of wood armor that was used during the world wars.Almost completely useless but give the crew a sense of comfort since they got additional "protection"
Russian tanks still carry logs with them.
@@davidty2006 for different purpose. The trucks however have been seen mounting logs in front of the radiator, probably to help shield it from rifle fire
though this gives the tanks shitloads of protection, if it didnt then there wouldnt be 3 other forefront countries using chicken slats
Usually logs weren't used as armor, but as a detachable tool to help crossing mud or getting un stuck out of mud.
@@PilotTed i think he meant for american tanks such as the shermans, where they'd put almost anything on it, or the italian tanks in the early sections of the war.
The purpose of the Cope Cages being for protection against TB-2 munitions makes the most sense as there was a lot of video of Armenian operated Soviet/Russian MTBs being devestated by them during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War.
But actually in Ukraine they don't work that effectively in fact of presence of large AA forces
@@raketny_hvost some actually manage to harsh some Russian convoy. Even inactive AA. So that thing still pretty much a threat
Loitering munitions too
It aint coping in Ukraine
Today T72 with cope cage was destroyed by TB2
It's probably there to help with crew morale given how notoriously bad urban warfare is for tankers. Think of them like the sandbags Sherman crews would put on the from of their tanks.
Seems legit. Cages were also used on later IS and T-34s before taking Berlin. They were purely working against Faust
The sandbags on the Sherman’s existed purely for entertainment purposes. If morale was at an all time low, they would cut the bags lose and create a sandbox for the crew to play in. I hope this clears any confusion.
@@SomewhatSummarized Once again the superiority of the Sherman is proven beyond a doubt.
So, a cope cage
There was a cope cage with sandbags stacked on it, so yeah.
I think the argument of the cope cage being used as camo is rather a stretch. The soviet/russian tanks' low profile was supposed to make them less likely to being seen and being hit. By putting a big "conning tower" on top of your tank, you are essentially tell everyone "hey look here, look at this nice tall structure I have here". Even if you put more debris or branches on it, it still give off a unnatural look and add weight onto the tank.
Its meant as camo from the air, not the ground. Camo from the air is just as, if not more important due to aircraft and drones. The Ukrainians have been using a lot of drones too, so the camo on the top will help hide them from said drones, if even by a little.
@@PilotTed that would've been true before the age of thermal imaging, but as we've seen from the BA-2 footage the Ukrainians are more than capable of spotting and engaging targets with thermal imaging.
@@PilotTed that would've been true before the age of thermal imaging, but as we've seen from the TB-2 footage the Ukrainians are more than capable of spotting and engaging targets with thermal imaging.
@@ryanchatham9971 Well I haven't seen too much TB-2 footage of them destroying tanks in Ukraine (most footage I have seen has been light armoured vehicles i.e. BMDs), to his point, thermal imaging does see heat signatures, but like the guy said in the video, putting all this stuff on top of these cages may in fact make it more difficult to distinguish what it is you are looking at from above seeing as they wont have a heat signature like the tanks engine.
@@aflyingcowboy31 I don't think you have ever seen a thermo imaging of a tank from the sky. Often on the thermo camera, the simple engine deck heat signature is enough for confirmation. So I don't really think cope cage can help with that.
clearly, the cages are meant for grilling meat when the ammunition cooks off
Yeah like the crew men 😆
I see the top cage as a direct response to how prevalent drone top down attacks were in the Armenian/Azerbaijani conflict and just how devastating they were.
That wasn't some great unknown. Tank tops have and are weakspots on all tanks, be it T-72/T-90/Abrams or Panther D lol. They just don't really get exposed to such situations often enough in the past to justify doing anything about it.
But they also raise the tank's visual profile quite a bit, making positioning such a tank in defilade (with just its low turret visible to any observer in its forward arc and at about the same elevation) impossible. With cages fitted these things can be spotted a few EXTRA km away, except maybe if they're in a treeline. The US Army would never make a tradeoff like this -- of visual signature for some dubious overhead "protection".
Cope Cages: being used to stop top attacks from RPGs in urban centres
NLAWs: *Allow us to introduce ourselves*
Nlaws have a top attack mode bit its more the tandem warheads
@@justarandomtechpriest1578 I thought they were direct inertia guided ATGMs
Just checked, they can do both.
Imagine if Israel have send spike missiles to Ukraine ...
I saw this and thought they were going to talk about Soviet T-34’s with bed cages on them during the later war period of WW2
these where semi useful since Russian Tank where crap and there the early ancestor of the modern cope cage
To be those were actually useful, especially against panzerfausts with non-tandem HEAT charges
The cope cages being used as storage sounds to me less like an intended feature and more like tankers going 'oh well, now we have these weird racks of questionable utility on the top of our tank, might as well lash some gear to it'
As I understand it, Soldiers generally are excellent scroungers. Tankers etc. Who rely on complicated pieces of kit, even more so.
So it was downright inevitable that their Cope Cages would be turned into stowage.
Thats how soldiers think.
"Well, this wasnt made for this, but if it works, it works"
@@A-G-F- if it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid
I have had my suspicions that these cages were there to protect against weaker munitions and not as a protection against Javelins, guess I was right. I knew from reading history books and such that in Urban warfare, tanks turret tops are very much exposed to anyone with an RPG or thrown AT mine on top of a tall building. The Drone munitions part though surprised me, didn't know Ukraine had drones like that with those types of munitions. I knew they had suicide drones and UAVs, just didn't know they had those Turkish ones. As for mortars, I never really thought of using mortars as AT weapons, guess its possible, but that would be very hard to hit the top of a tank with one. If its effective against these smaller weapons, good for them for coming up with a way to defeat them cheap and effectively, but it still won't protect against anything substantial like Javelins or the larger RPG warheads like the ones with tandem charges.
I don't know how difficult it'd be but you could probably toss mortar rounds out the side of a tallish building onto the tank's roof if you had good enough aim. Idk about arming the mortars beforehand though. Saving Private Ryan can only teach one so much about modern mortar systems.
They stoped RPG often in Iraq
@@ifv2089 while that may be true, they’re shooting themselves in the foot by throwing sandbags and shit on top of them. Skinny bars trap the warhead without letting its pressure sensor get tripped, while thick bars/sandbags/ tree limbs will cause it to explode still. The damage will not be as bad, but I imagine the tank will not be functioning the same after an explosion 2-3 feet above the turret
@@bakermayfield6hunnitdan6er24 yeah you don't put things over the top of Bar armour it doesn't work like this.
Plenty of evidence showing warheads stuck out the sides of our warriors and bulldog 432 in Iraq and mastiff and viking in Afghan
I seen our waggons role into basra Palace with RPG sticking out the Bar, was a normal event after night patrols in the Udey triangle or Shia Flats, worked well we had warriors that took up to 7 hits and were fine
It may be hard, but through saturation it is very much possible. 82 mm mortars can be fired REALLY fast
I mean, I looked at them and thought 'they are expecting urban, maybe they are a 'rain-shield' for debris off of buildings or other such things, to prevent the risk of them damaging hatches or otherwise complicating operation'. Could also, maybe, be some sort of 'this is allied' identifier as well. IIRC a lot of Ukrainian tanks are modifications of Russian tanks. Maybe that change to silhouette is an attempt at a sneaky vis ID shortcut?
I expect that no matter what their intended purpose is, they probably don't fill it too well. Aluminum/steel frames tend not to be very good for much these days.
That’s not a bad theory, I suspect you don’t want cinder blocks dropping onto your thermal sight.
There weren't any modifications of russian tanks only USSR one's
@@ALGNC Bruh.
Most of Russia's current inventory is modifications of 'USSR' vehicles. Russia was also the controlling stake in the USSR. There is ZERO point in that distinction when talking about armored vehicles.
@@jtnachos16 yeah and the most advance Russian equipment is not even in the front line since they could not even produce a lot of them and people are saying that there probably to expensive to use so yeah most of the war is fought whit soviet era design
@@jtnachos16 So what , this is still not russian tanks
Great video. As I tought, your videos are still top tier, even when longer than 5 minutes. If you enjoy making longer content, you should really consider making more of it, as its very entertaining to watch, and you can explain a lot more.
Gonna call BS here , this "expert" has 12mins to explaine why top-mounted slat armor cant nullify modern top-attack ATGMs but fails to show one example of a Russian mbt destroyed by one ...
@@rohampasha9667
🤡
From what I’ve seen, I think some American armored officer explained that the reason the US uses slat armor is like a chance reduction of an rpg working effectively by deforming the cone in the warhead warhead and stopping it from either penetrating successfully or stopping it in the armor, he even shows the aftereffect of it working successfully, even explaining that if it hit the cage directly, that the jet of molten whatever is in there still goes through, I’ll try to find the video.
I love how they are officially called cope cages now
Despite being called Cope Cages (dumb name though), at least it's better than none when it comes to protecting the top turrets, camouflage or storage. Even though there're weapon systems that made them useless
@@deathtrooper199 APS: am i a joke to you?
@@deathtrooper199 not really, the result is debris trapping the crew in the track until they are cooked alive
@@misterputin8898 They do but they don't seem to use due to some reasons that conflict with their point of view, even though it's possible to obtain it
@@thomasstevenhebert supposedly most modern tanks have escape hatches nowadays but due to the catastrophic conditions that Russian tanks are infamous of they'll have a hard time trying to escape while praying or hoping not to get cooked alive
Great video, it would be nice if there was more in this format.
P.S. 5:12 These are not missiles. MAM family of guidied munitions was developed for UCAVs and aircraft with small payload , such as the TB2 and they don't have any propulsion system to save weight.
I believe you are correct in the sense they do not use a propulsion system. I had higher confidence that the MAM-C had no propulsion system, but Roketsan's own publications on the MAM-L were not very clear about this, especially with the speculated ranges they gave for this system. It should be noted though, that in my industry the term "missile" often refers more broadly to any thrown weapon, be it constantly propelled or not. Still, I think in the future I'll try to use the term "missile" more sparingly as it does refer to a more narrow interpretation to most people, and rely on the term "guided munitions" or "guided weapons" instead. Either way, thanks for the feedback!
So the MAM-C and MAM-L are some sort of glide bomb?
@@Hardbass2021 Kinda. At least from what I've heard on the internet (Poland bought Bayraktars half a year ago and there was a lot of "hype" in the industry media). Unfortunately everything that Baykar Defence publishes seems to be in Turkish.
Turkish here, if you guys would like I can give it a shot at translating the stuff on Bayraktar Defence's website
@@porsvasse you guys did a good job on the TB-2 they are kicking azz
If we start seeing more urban warfare, I wonder if tank crews will start tying ballistic blankets/other protection from small arms over these cages. Might provide additional protection from ambush-style attacks for crew exposed to man weapons systems or observe targets.
You´d cover up all your optics and soft protection won´t stand up to any sort of rifle round, not that Russia even remotely has the funds to purchase any form of appliqué, given that they seem to have skimped quite heavily on maintenance.
I think he's right about them expecting urban combat and attacks from above. Something he didn't mention was grenades and mines- tanks in WW1 had similar cages to allow grenades to roll off or blow up at a safe distance from the tanks skin.
In addition, I guess it doubles as a sun shield and a "hope this helps" vs NLAW and other top attack stuff.
Honestly the concept of having cage to roll grenades off the top of the vehicle seems really arbitrary for me, especially for early WW2 vehicles.
Vehicles are always on the move so good luck throwing grenades on higher position right into the hatch, if anything it will just roll off or misses the vehicle entirely (without the cage). Cage armor makes more sense for RPG though
@@quakethedoombringer Yeah, I guess the idea is more that the grenade detonates up there rather than on the skin, useful when they get bogged down in cities. Main use is probably RPGs tho
For the cope, and keeping the conscript from running away 🤣
it's for coping
Cope cages
btw love that you are also repping the T-64b with the UAF skin, definitely one of my most favorite ways to play
What I gathered from the video, the most effective use of these cope cages are as luggage racks.
Cant wait for russian MBTs in warthunder to get cope cages that are incredibly effective because I guarantee they will get them and I guarantee they will overperform
Well, Papa Putin has to finance his wrecked economy somehow...
Granted, I'm not convinced this invasion is a 5th dimensional chess move to lower the BR of modern Russian ground vehicles. XD
And a slew of new decals to put on your vehicle: Z, X, O, chevrons etc.
Russian tonk can stop anything, don't believe what you see on TV, on UA-cam or through your eyes. Believe what Putin says comrade, tonk cannot be destroyed.
@@MichaelDavis-mk4me of course Tonk cannot be destroyed. Have you seen how tiny that thing is? No Russian tank has the gun depression necessary to hit it. XD
This has to be one of the longest videos Spookston has ever made
I defiantly would like to see more stuff like this, as in people with a different knowledge base sharing it, and maybe having more of a back and forth could be interesting to see.
The MAM-L has actually 3 variants:
Tandem - effective against reactive armor
High-explosive blast fragmentation
Thermobaric
For storing Kayaks and large baggage. Sunshade umbrella for those long days stuck in a muddy field or in line at the fuel depot.
Love this video, thank you for covering some of the stuff going on today, really nice to get a expert's opinion on it!
This can be summed up into a simple conclusion if you want to avoid rambling.
B: “Why would you bother wearing ceramic body armor, it’s not at all effective against a 40mm bofors round”
A: “But it will stop 45acp, 9mm, 5.56, 7.62, .308, 12 gauge slug, buckshot, shrapnel, lacerations, impalings, majority of thorned plants, blunt impacts”
B: “Well it won’t stop 40mm bofors, So there’s no point in wearing it”
The issue is that you showed up to a rocket launcher fight with rifle armor. That's funny in itself.
Lets all be honest, its for their laundry. Clearly they need it seeing as their stuff runs out of gas and breaks down.
He forgot to mention the morale aspect of just making the crew think that they are far more protected than they actually are.
Any blast in front of armor becomes less threatening. And these cages also have a reconnaissance function when both sides have the same tanks.
I can't believe how widespread the term Cope Cage has become...NCD what have you done
cage armor seems like an idea r/NonCredibleDefense would have come up with
They are roasting the hell out of those cages there lol
They literally invented the term cope cage
Cope cages
12 minute spookston video: A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one
The fact they're just called cope cages is just funny to me, and out there, one day, online military analysts and military personnel would start using cope cage as a common name for them.
A quick response is to prevent the crew from escaping the tank if it catches fire.
Also there is an often overlooked problem with HEAT rounds. They are designed for optimal focus of the jet at the impact point. If the impact point is the cage, that means the jet travels roughly 1 meter through air before hitting the roof. If the heat round is small enough(and most top attack munitions are indeed small, this 1 meter air gap might be enough to disperse the jet to the point where it can't penetrate the roof. In a way, air is armor :)
thats why some nera armors use air gaps as effective method of stopping some heat munitions. its well known. whether 0.6kg of explosive material, that is installed on javelin, is enough to penetrate top armor after traveling at least 50cm through air is up to debate.
Lovely video, and i would actually very much like this sort of video, perhaps people add into a poll with war questions that is voted on, and highest voted is chosen next perhaps?
I was thinking that'd be far more effective against top attack shaped charge munitions if they used the cage as a mounting point for ERA to both increase standoff distance and protect optics and modules on the roof of the tank.
cage triggers the rocket the same, then comes era into play(that can try to neutralize main charge). its unlikely that it stops javelin completly, but i could stop some other munitions. only conter to javelin that russian have on tanks, is shtora-1 system on t-90A and its not supposed to work that well against those rockets especially since its hard to detect a javelin lock-on (fire-and-forget).
@@seushimarejikaze1337 it will work pretty well against them. It’s gonna give a warning and pop smoke to break javelin’s lock.
The cages are placed there after the crew enters to prevent them from escaping
Idc what they’re for, I just want the term “cope cage” to become the proper term for the cage armor
Some very interesting insight here, would love to see more of this kind of videos!
rkG-3 Anti-Tank Grenade even has a parachute
"Meant to stop Javelin missiles..." Meanwhile, Javelins smash right through those cages.
Soviet tank design:
very low tanks that are harder to spot
Russian tank crews:
Let's put a metal cage on top of our turrets to make it 2m taller 🥴
They only started showing up after the NK war in 2020 and they're almost certainly in response to the proliferation of loitering munitions. All of these other things coming up are possible things that the cope cage could protect against but the main reasoning behind it stays loitering munitions.
To answer what these cages are for:
For ukrainians cook some food once the Javelin hits and ammo cooks off
i'd love your friend to return in a future presentation going over the new equipment and its use in this war, sort of review of how some was put to better use than expected, and which to worse.
Really interesting topic, especially given the world as it stands rn
Definitely interested in more like this, and at this length
I love that spooks discord pfp is just staring at thinky's profile picture like "please tell me more"
called the cope cages because they need a coping mechanism against anti tank missiles
its been a thing for a while now lol i think since either serbia or Chechnya
Very nice Video. Very informnativ.
I am currently working on the same topic for my german speaking channel and I think I have to make additions to my script :)
they have cages to cope with the fact they can't stop javelins and to stop the conscripts from jumping out of the tank the second a bullet bounces off the armor
In a nutshell: cage stop smaller projectiles and carries Ivan Vodka pack.
I like how this video pretty clearly explains how the cage armour works and yet half the comments section seems to have commented before seeing the video…
This guy is cool, you should keep him around 😎
Liked the format of this video.
More Q and As in the future please!!!
I was very distracted by spookston's PFP giving Hal9000 the bedroom eyes. Great video though, wasn't even aware they were doing this to their tanks.
I assumed the cope cages were to trap the crew in the burning tank as Russian logistics can't even deliver enough food or fuel so not having to transport bodies would be a plus.
The Ukies call them 'grills' for that reason. The cage traps the tank crew in the burning tank and they cook to death.
It's meant to stop grenades dropped from drones. We've all seen the videos of grenades dropped right down the commander's hatch.
Long spookston video highly appreciated
It's to keep the drafted 18 yo from escaping the tank they didn't want to even fight in
Its for the carrier pigeons, since the radio can be monitored so easily
The tank is so big that they can attached missile jammer with launcher at the top to counter Javelin missile.
I still find it weird that the only tanks we've seen are old T72bm's
Probably becuase it is an urban warfare package. Why send a more expensive tank into urban combat when the ranges are so close the extra armour/etc of the t90 won't make mutch of a difference.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 that's a good point actually, because I was thinking the APS systems would be much more effective, not the stura red eyes of doom, the other one which name I have forgotten.
There are old T72AVs too. Very little "new" equipment has been used so far but there have been T-90s and T72B3 used and even captured. Funnily enough yesterday the Russians captured a fair few T64B's. Both sides are using captured equipment from the other side.
They need to cope with the march of technology
9:50 that shot was crazy
So they can get used to the feeling of looking at the world through bars.
They work as effective improvised grills after the tank catches on fire, so theres that
I have seen pictures of cope cage's with sandbags on top but don't know how effective that would be
Those weren't sandbags those were era bags. That might actually work. *might*
@@matthiuskoenig3378 if I was part of a tank crew might sounds a whole lot better then nothing at all. With era yes without hell no lol
3:46 Driver casually tanks shrapnel like it's nothing...
The camouflage part reminded me of that baby elephant hiding behind a light pole for some reason.
I thought it was made to make sure the tank crew didn’t run away while in the field. The more you know!
At some point they are going to grill on them.
Furry
So the cage won't work because of its location. What your friend doesn't understand is that the cage is designed to distort the shape charge. That's where penitrating power comes from. Your friend actually doesn't know what he's talking about but he tried tho. Properly fitted cage in the correct location can easily stop a certain percentage those munitions.
they have cages to keep the little gnome inside that runs the transmission of the tank so that he doesn't run out and cause havoc on the surrounding environment
They're not cages. They're "Special Military Awnings."
Nice cage, it sure would be a shame if javelins had 2 concurrent warheads
Cope cages were actually fixed to t-whatever series tanks. It’s already been admitted to by them that it’s the same “hillbilly armor” we did in early OIF. Javelins detonate on impact and set off their secondary warhead in the form of a shaped charge. It is an attempt at stand off protection. It’s an attempt to reduce the velocity the molten metal hits and the temp it hits the top of the turret (y’all need to get a 2C identifier before you go rambling about ATGMs anymore). Yes it could help in an urban environment and RPG’s. But no, this is not from their Grozny experience nor even the Russo/Georgian War. This is already vetted and sourced from the theatre of operations. However, they serve a multi purpose. They also can act as sniper cages did to turrets in AFG and IQ in that they provide concealment to the turret crew members and MAY provide some protection against loitering munitions and suicide drone. Both of which have been procured from Turkey, Israel and the US. The idea on tanks gained its traction in the Azerbaijani/Armenian war no one watched or cared about. Again, all of this information is already out there, open source through various no partisan OSINT/SIGINT channels online.
Tanks ate facing the same thing that knights experienced when guns came to the battlefield.
Evolve or die.
Nice touch putting the Piksel camo on your T-64
It seems more like a way to give false protection to the crew so they are more willing to fight
So javelin missiles can hysterically laugh at them?
I feel like one point he is missing is that the cope cage causes the precursor to go off, and thus increasing the effectiveness of ERA bricks on the roof. I’m not an expert and I can’t say wether or not the shrapnel of the precursor could or couldn’t set off the ERA before they can deflect the main charge.
Im sorry but wow this guy would be great for my old school essays, could stretch a scentance to a full paragraph.
"A very simple but effective way against HEAT shells" -War thunder official
Peak of Russian simplistic armor design. Makes them practically immune to Hellfire and Maveric. Surely this would not have been fielded if it wasn't extremely effective?)))
the cope cages are for entering cities. to protect from rpg shots from the roof of the buildings like what happened in Grozny and other wars
I’d like to say I’m that xm1 Chrysler in the beginning of the match :)
I’m happy that your expert is well read on open source information.
Everyone knows that the Stalinium in the Cope Cage 2.0 will only be reserved for the T-14.