Fighting in the Death Zone by Gustav C. Gressel
The front line in Ukraine is a death zone several kilometers deep. Armored vehicles can only enter this death zone for a short time. They need to complete their mission within 15-20 minutes and withdraw quickly. If not, these vehicles become targets for massive drone swarms or artillery fire. This is why Ukraine holds back the heaviest western fighting equipment like the M1 Abrahams main battle tank. It is too heavy, and if it gets stuck in the mud, recovering this vehicle takes too long, and necessitates the assistance of at least two other main battle tanks. Such an assembly would be immediately targeted by the Russians. On the other hand, Russian “turtle tanks” are used in increasing frequency. These are normal armored vehicles or tanks, covered with additional improvised shielding, often in a form of large metal plates, enveloping them and making the tank look like a turtle. Effectively, these are well armored mobile electronic warfare platforms. Their main aim is to protect accompanying fighting vehicles, either main battle tanks or infantry fighting vehicles, from drone attacks. Mobile electronic warfare systems mounted on each Russian fighting vehicle have proven insufficient for that job, because Ukrainians have developed automated targeting software for drones, even after they had lost radio connection to operators. “Turtle-tanks” have more powerful EW systems and are difficult to immobilize by AI piloted drones. … The battlefield in Ukraine is a constant battle between innovation and counter-innovation. The technical lifespan of a drone or an electronic warfare system is measured in weeks or months, never in years. Even larger combat items have limited lifespan: main battle tanks played an underappreciated role in the battle for Kyiv in March 2022, but could be effectively countered by other means already by mid-2023. FPV-drones helped Ukraine to foil countless Russian assaults in the winter of 2023-24, but now Russia’s armed forces seem to have found technical solutions to this problem.
Source: European Resilience