Is Russia about to Roll-Out a Game Changing Weapon on the Battlefield

Active Protection Systems for Russian Tanks Will Soon Render Ukrainian Drones Useless

There is no mystery that much of the tanks and armored vehicles Russia has lost was due to attacks by Ukrainian drones.  In fact, these attacks have become so costly, if the drones were rendered ineffective, this would provide Russia with a decisive advantage.  Without fear of drone strikes, Russian armor would pose a much more terrifying threat on the battlefield.  Further, it would give obsolete tanks and armor a new life in modern warfare.  Such a game changing capability could not be ignored by Ukraine or NATO.  As such, the mystery to me is not how so much Russian armor has been getting destroyed by drone strikes, I was preaching that revolution in warfare decades ago.  What is a mystery to me is why this is still occurring.  Russia has the technological capability to neutralize these drones, but so far, does not seem to have leveraged it on armored vehicles.  However, I believe that may be about to change soon.

Russia has a long history of producing countermeasures known as active protection systems or APS for tanks going back to the 1970s.  Drozd was one of the first to be widely deployed and then gradually phased out and replaced by the Shtora system though both continued to be used.  Each system worked differently, but they all had the same purpose.  Mitigate the danger posed by incoming anti-tank missiles and rockets.  The Drozd system used a hard kill type technology, which in crude terms works like this…a radar detects an incoming threat, a computer cues the proper launcher, a projectile is fired toward the incoming round, the projectile detonates and shreds the incoming round.  The round may still impact the tank, but due to deformation of the warhead, the munition is no longer capable of penetrating the tank’s armor.  The problem with these hard kill systems has always been to any dismounted troops nearby that would also get blasted in the exchange.  This led to the Shtora, which employed a soft-kill technology that could passively defeat an anti-tank missile through the use of jamming.

Since then, Russia has continued to upgrade its APS and has fielded truly state-of-the-art systems with no comparable deployed equal in the west.  This includes the Arena system, which uses a hard kill approach with a Doppler radar and advanced processing to detect and intercept incoming munitions.  The Arena-M system works day or night and is supposed to be capable of defeating top-down attack munitions like the US supplied Javelin anti-tank missile.  Either way, the system engages threats when they are within ~50 yards of the vehicle moving up to 2300 feet per second.  The system computer can also disregard false targets and differentiate threats from birds and small caliber rounds.  Open-source reports claim this system will be outfitted on Russian T series tanks with the T90s and T80s given preference in 2023. 

Then there is the Afganit APS.  This highly sophisticated APS is being employed on Russia’s latest generation Armata family of vehicles.  This is supposed to be even more advanced than the Arena-M system and has no parallel in the west.  It utilizes a millimeter wavelength radar and electro-optical sensors in the ultraviolet and infrared bands to detect and track incoming anti-tank munitions.  The system can reportedly intercept even sabot penetrators, like the depleted uranium munitions used in Challenger and Abrams tanks.  This system allegedly is or will be able to intercept munitions moving up to 3,000 m/s (Mach 8.8), which is frankly insane and can give 360-degree coverage. 

Okay, so what does the history of Russian APS have to do with drones and some new game changing weapon?  My answer is everything.  If you have not noticed, to take out a tank, a suicide drone is basically flown into the vehicle like a guided missile, just a lot slower.  How long do you think it will be before Russian engineers point the APS up and tweak the processors to recognize relatively slow-moving threats such as drones?  As someone who worked extensively on APS, I can tell you that it is a lot easier to tune these APS to destroy an incoming drone than a fast missile, and it is actually safer for nearby troops assuming the drone’s attack angle is something higher than level.  These systems are mature technology and will be rolling out in industrial quantities most likely this year.  I say this because I have already begun to notice the first “new” Russian systems appearing on the battlefield.  This tells me Russian industry has now had enough time to take in battlefield lessons learned, engineer a solution, and begin producing and fielding the system.  No one else is discussing this fact and it is a big one.  What better time to start rolling out latest generation Russian weapons and countermeasures than just as the Ukrainian offensive has been blunted and is beginning to be rolled back? 

Folks, I am here to be the first to tell you that Russia has the capability to do this, and it will shock the world when Ukrainian drones start getting blasted out of the air whenever they attempt to attack a Russian tank.  My guess on why this has not been fielded yet is that it came down to competing priorities while Russia mobilized its industry.  I am seeing all the signs of an industry now on full war footing and expect these upgrades to appear soon and start making heads spin in the West.  Despite what we say, Russia knows it is in a fight for its life and is acting accordingly.  While we fiddled and talked, Russian engineers, some of the finest in the world, have been solving tough problems.  In every area, I have seen marked improvement in weapons capabilities and employment. I am telling you that this counter drone technology is coming very soon and will look like a modified APS for tanks.  When it does, everything Ukraine thought it had going will instantly collapse as Russian tanks again prowl the battlefield with much higher levels of survivability.  This spells doom for the last effective weapon system Ukraine had in its arsenal.  For fun, mark the date of this letter and see how long before the story is picked up by others…as it should be.

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