Posted on 03/06/2015 7:37:38 PM PST by Hootowl
This is possibly a dumb suggestion, but why can't the Ukrainians use small drones flying at night to drop thermite grenades on Russian tanks? Would the thermite be able to burn through the armor and into the engine or fuel compartment?
EFPs.
A busted track is often a hard kill.
Tactical aspect aside (it is really too much a stupid idea to consider or discuss for real), I have naively thought there is a cease-fire agreement in place.
That was certainly a considerate response. Maybe you’re too stupid to frame a polite reply.
This assumes this is a tank war. I see mostly artillery being used.
What do you mean by small drones in the first place?
First of all, I apologize for snapping at you. My thought in the original posting was to generate some discussion of innovative ways to combat superior armament. I was disappointed. Mostly, people discussed things that had been done long years ago, in a less technological age. Then there were the ones who dismissed everything summarily without offering much by way of discussion. A thermite grenade weighs 32 ounces. Relatively small quad-prop drones can lift 34 ounces, but other factors include the weight of an imaging system so the operator can guide the drone to its target and range. It doesn’t matter how much the drone can lift if it can carry the weight only 10 feet. So, I guess the final answer is that any drone capable of lifting the grenade and conveying it a target perhaps a quarter mile away would probably be too large to be viable as a delivery platform.
RC toys you are referring to are small, noisy and above all their range is insufficient to give operator a chance in combat environment.
Not to mention anyone with little knowledge in electronics may build a device jamming command frequencies of these things in a few hours.
On top of this, it is not WWII anymore. Killing a modern tank with a grenade is tricky under ideal conditions, let alone then you are using it in such unorthodox fashion.
How would you target your grenade which is not designed in any aerodynamic shape? How would you time detonation?
Given your enemies are deaf and blind it would take hundreds sorties to probably hit a tank with grenade and then it would simply bounce off the armor.
Of course you won’t have a luxury to try it such often in a real battle.
I’m not up on Russian armor, but historically the weak points of tanks have been the rear ends which covered the engine compartment or fuel load. A thermite grenade is essentially a canister, like a soup can. Put some adhesive on the bottom of the grenade so it sticks to whatever it drops on, wire the grenade to the drone so when it drops the pin is pulled. Thermite burns at about 4,000 degrees, more than sufficient to melt through all but the thickest armor. Mostly agree with your points, but that’s the beauty of brainstorming. Ideas pop up. Some of the most effective tactics in previous wars were achieved by “out of the box” thinking. For instance, during WWI a Canadian unit was attacked with gas. A doctor saw the gas cloud coming and suggested that the Canadian soldiers urinate on some cloth and hold it over their faces. The urea in the urine reacted with the chlorine and mostly neutralized the deadly gas, allowing the Canadians to hold their positions and thwart the German attack.
As a side note I think last time thermite was considered an anti-armor solution was early in WWII and it proved inefficient enough to get outclassed by regular anti-tank shaped charge cumulative grenades. Thermite doesn’t burn through armor good enough in practice, let alone there are decent active anti-fire equipment stuffed in modern tanks to negotiate this threat.
In reality, there are no compact ordnance effective against MBTs left.
These are mostly absolete since 1970s. Not only hand grenages, but LAW, RPG. Modern anti-tank weapons are barely man portable.
Hmmm, hadn’t thought of hand grenages! LOL! Have a happy week, friend!
Thank you! Good luck to you too.
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