Breakthrough on the Battlefield: Ukraine Captures Russian Tank Armed with Anti-Drone Defenses
Story by Modern Engineering Marvels
• 16h
In early April, a Russian T-72 tank clashed near Terny in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. After driving over some barbed wire, the tank became immobile and crashed into a BMP fighting vehicle.
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A Ukrainian FPV drone recorded this strike. Its one-pound warhead inflicted minimal damage but still came as a shock to the three-person crew of the tank. The Russian soldiers abandoned the tank and were then taken out by other drones.
The elite 12th Azov Brigade of the Ukrainian army thereafter undertook an elaborate operation to retrieve the abandoned T-72 in no-man’s-land outside Terny.
This was just one of the more than 2,600 that Russia has lost in its 26-month war with Ukraine, but this one was special: On its turret were mounted several antennae and radio transmitters that constituted an electronic-warfare system. The idea behind this system was to jam the radio signals between the Ukrainians’ FPV drones and their operators, who might be miles away back in a trench, bunker, or building.
The audacious seizure comes as Ukrainian forces strive to counter the tactical edge conferred by Russia’s advanced jamming systems, posing a significant threat to Ukraine’s extensive use of surveillance and attack drones. “If the new jammers worked, the Ukrainian operators would need to develop countermeasures,” said one Ukrainian operator, underlining the importance of the capture.
Despite the jammers, a Ukrainian drone managed to strike the tank, not severely damaging it but causing the crew to abandon their armored vehicle, only to be killed by subsequent drone attacks. This incident underscored the urgency for Ukrainian forces to understand why the tank’s jammers appeared ineffective.
Combat engineers were the first to begin the retrieval mission, carefully sizing up the tank, and quickly realized that though the tank might run, the turret was in a fixed position, blocking the driver’s hatch. This meant trained tank crewman skills would be required to rotate the turret and gain access to the driver’s compartment.
On the second night, the wire was freed by a tanker, who managed to crank the turret by hand; unfortunately, this only revealed that the batteries were dead – the tank was truly lifeless. The last try, on the third night, meant dragging heavy batteries and tools in the dark, while Russian artillery shelled the vicinity.
The tank roared to life once the batteries had been installed, but the journey back toward Ukrainian lines was perilous. Its driver, Ilya, recalled coming close to losing the tank in a deep crater made by a Russian glide bomb. In a remarkable display of tenacity, he freed the T-72 after repeated blackouts and injuries. “I make a backward lunge, stay in that position,” he said. “Again, on the brakes, I rev the engine again, but now I engage not the first gear, but the second, to make the fastest possible forward lunge and get out even more.”
The captured tank, now safely in Ukrainian hands, revealed the makeshift nature of the jammers-a conglomeration of individual jammers strapped atop a wood pallet. The Ukrainian brigade’s efforts to understand and possibly exploit this technology have delivered a significant intelligence coup in the ongoing drone war. The capture of the tank was shown in a video provided by the 12th Azov Assault Brigade as the soldiers stood proudly next to their prize and then made their getaway. The Ukrainian military has declared that the tank “now works for the defense of Ukraine and helps the military destroy the invaders,” a morale boost and practical gain for the Ukrainians. |
