Vantage Point North

 The Russian two day invasion of Ukraine has now been going on for nearly a month and we can take some quick lessons about their equipment and performance. Much has been written about the failures of Russian operational planning, logistics, communications and leadership. These failures have led to staggering losses. Cope-cage on a well barbecued Russian tank The most distinctive piece of Russian equipment of this invasion has the been top-attack cage armor , aka. cope-cage aka. emotional support armor. The sometimes crudely made slat armor constructions started to appear on Russian tanks during the summer of 2021. While their purpose was initially a mystery, they were soon considered to be a desperate attempt to mitigate the effects of drone launched munitions like MAM-L and to even lesser extent top attack anti-tank missiles like Javelin and NLAW.  The vast amounts of knocked out Russian armor show that the cages are certainly not a surefire way to protect tanks from top attacks. We c