The notorious "E4 Mafia" in the US armed forces are renowned for their ability (?) to figure out new ways to do stupid things, and generally disrupt the even flow of military affairs. (Stop laughing, you at the back!) However, it appears that other armies may have their own equivalents. Take a bow, Russia . . .
Photos that recently circulated online depict Russian Gaz-66 trucks wearing blocks of explosive reactive armor.
The armor won’t protect the trucks. Indeed, it almost certainly will contribute to the trucks’ destruction, if and when Ukrainian forces score hits on them.
That’s because explosive reactive armor—ERA—works by, well, exploding. When an incoming round strikes an ERA block, it triggers the layers of explosives inside the block. They explode outward, partially deflecting the incoming blast.
. . .
“A fair degree of base armor is needed to survive the explosions inherent in explosive reactive armor,” the U.S. Congressional Budget Office explained in a 2012 report. “Thus, reactive armor cannot be added to all vehicles—a limitation that includes, for example, trucks.”
Stick ERA on a truck, and that armor might actually destroy the truck when it goes off, as surely as an incoming enemy round would do.
There's more at the link.
ERA was a very new concept during my military service, being first deployed (AFAIK) by Israel during its Lebanon incursion in 1982. Since then it's been adopted by every major military power, and a lot of minor ones. However, almost all of them mount it on tanks and other armored vehicles, precisely because of the "backblast" effect when it goes off. An armored hull can withstand that. A thin sheet-metal truck or car can't. (Otherwise I'm sure the street racers in the 'hood would have adopted it by now, to not just defeat their rivals, but utterly destroy them by ramming them!)
One has to have some sympathy for the Russian drivers trying any and every expedient they can to protect their vehicles and themselves from Ukrainian fire. They've witnessed many of their comrades die, often horribly. It's no wonder they're trying to avoid the same fate. Nevertheless, in this case, they've merely added to the risks facing them. I wonder how many have, in so many words, killed themselves like that? And how do you say "E4 Mafia" in Russian?
Not a good idea . . .
Peter
21 comments:
A Marine officer I knew during OIF came back with photos of what happens to a truck load of Marines who attach heavy metal plates to the back of a troop truck. It was 100% fatal and wasn't pretty.
Peter, you just cost me $40 and change. If it works, I'll owe you 10x that. My wife has had THREE cervical fusions and sits at a computer all day at work and comes home in misery most nights. I have my own train wreck for a spine... We both get bi-weekly massages, which help tremendously, but something that helps in the interim would be wonderful.
Thanks for the recommendation!
Well, if one uses armor plate cut off destroyed vehicles to armor up the trucks, as the US has done before with Gun Trucks and uparmored HMMMVs, then mounting reactive armor on the outside of the armor plate isn't a bad idea, maybe, kind of, sort of.
Just mounting reactive armor is definitely bad idea though.
And, well, Russia's reactive armor hasn't faired well in the Ukraine. Either not going off, going off too hot, or not installed or the explosives were stolen or a whole host of other issues/excuses.
I gotta admit, putting heavy plate between me and people who are shooting at me sounds like something I'd want to do. I don't understand why it's not a good idea. I also don't know what hit them. Or how the steel made their chance of survival go down.
I understand messy,so, obviously it didn't work as planned.
The reactive armor? I totally understand why that is a bad idea.
I'd bet that being in a tank and a block of armor go off would be very unpleasant.
That's NOT going to end well...
I say, let them earn their Darwin Awards the old-fashioned way.
Speaking as former E4 Mafia (decades ago) you do what you can to save yourself from dumb leaders so uptight they exit a shower to urinate.
The steel plate was hit near the bottom, about ankle high on the guys in the truck bed with an RPG round which caused the plate to blow free from the fasteners at the base and the sides and swivel up through the arc of the explosion. Massive razor sharp force up on one side and crushing massive force down on the other side of the truck.
Plate wasn't fastened securely enough to the truck.
Could also be someone having a laugh too, would be just the sort of thing lower enlisted would do when I was in. Gear up something ridiculous.
Understanding what happened..? That is good.
Now I have a mental image,, gakk,
How do people ever come to function seeing stuff like that?
Our veterans deserve so much better treatment than they get. It must really gnaw on their guts,see how illegals are treated.
Thanks for explaining what happened.
Curious where this story came from. Sounds a lot like the Ukranian Pravda stuff.
A comment from the Forbes site:
This image is only found on secondary websites like reddit or X (Twitter) from a Ukrainian source. The truck has no insignia or license plate, so there is no proof it is actually Russian. This may be an old image uploaded or the truck may be Ukrainian or even Moldavian, for all I know.
But we all know (heh) that Russians are morons and Ukraine is winning.
Given that the Ukrainians have, overall, been pushing Russia back since the summer of last year...at the very least, they're not losing right now.
Nothing to see here.
When the UKR-RUS war first broke out, one of the leading causes of Russian tank loss was the discovery by both sides that, owing to decades of scrupulous Russian quality control (/sarc) most blocks of Russian AFV "reactive armor" were just thin-walled metal boxes filled with sawdust, foam rubber sofa cushions, or bundles of rags and dirty socks.
Shouldn't cause any additional damage to the trucks when hit, and provides about as much protection as gluing Magic Beans to the outside, or wearing amulets of holy water.
But it'll be fun to watch.
I've seen reports where Ukrainian troops looking over knocked out Russian armor found the squares of ERA loaded - with cardboard. Showed no signs of being tampered with to steal the explosive guts, THATS HOW THEY WERE PRODUCED. Russia's troop protection is a joke...ditto their body armor...
I saw stories as a kid how the VC loved to attack our truck convoys in 'Nam.(nothing really changes, does it?) Because of the bush it was ultra close range ambush stuff. Some genius got the idea to line the outside of the truck beds with Claymore mines, to deal with the ambushes. Supposedly they mini Claymores they used for this...no idea if it worked, or how much damage the truck took from detonation...
Anon at 2:11...does lying about it make you feel better? Even the pro globalist media has been sharply reducing the positivity and rhetoric in their articles about Ukraine. They haven't been pushing back a dang thing. NATO is running out of artillery shells to send, and Russia is showing no signs of slowing down. Meanwhile Ukraine is locking up Christian priests and generally doing a good Nero impression. While losing.
Even if all of that were true, it doesn't change the fact that Russia is winning, big time. And selling petroleum to the UK,big time.
Of Course, for Ukraine to be losing is no accident. And for the Western Military Industrial Complex to Run out of the stuff you use so you don't have to put boots on the ground is not surprising either. How goddammed Convenient.
Gosh,we done run plumb outta the big stuff and the Russians are Still a Comin! What else can we do but send in the poor people?
Shokkt!
@HMS Defiant & @Justin_O_Guy - I was wondering the same thing as Justin. Why did the plate make it worse? I think that the actual issue was the RPG warhead - not the poorly fastened armour plate. The fate of those men was sealed - no matter what they'd used for protection in the truck.
You are right, it would be impossible to just weld on a thick layer of steel to the bottom of one.
This reminds me of a story from the Greater Southeast Asian War Games aka Vietnam.
I worked for a defense contractor that had designed the Swift Boats. One of our engineers had insisted on the use of ceramic armor. As the fortunes of war would have it, the son of one our employees had been drafted and spent his tour aboard a Swift boat. When he returned, my employer bought his a sumptuous steak dinner and of course had to ask about how the product was doing. When asked about the ceramic armor, he replied that most of it was lining the bottom of the Mekong River. It seems that whenever a bullet struck the armor, spall resembling ceramic razor blades went flying every direction. Most crews thought they were safer without the armor although some stacked it against the engine compartment.
That poorly fastened armor plate will trigger the shaped charge warhead and the charge will blow into the passenger compartment.
Two great theorist scientists.
Mr Darwin, may I present Sir Isaac Newton who has this Third Law.
I would be careful talking about the E4 Mafia, if it did in fact exist.
Maybe, you should forget that you ever heard such a term.....again if it even existed.
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