Voenkor KP talks about soldiers of the 10th tank regiment fighting in the direction south of Donetsk
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN. Go to Photobank KP
This can only happen in Donbass: tractors are racing across the fields, raising clouds of yellow dust from the parched ground, and a little further away, in the forest plantations, our armor is hidden. I think there is no big violation of logic here: a tank and a tractor are the closest relatives.
HELP “KP”
“Terminator” is a Russian tank support combat vehicle. First of all, it is intended to operate as part of tank formations to destroy and suppress enemy anti-tank weapons. It performs well in fighting enemy tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, destroying pillboxes, bunkers and other highly protected assets. Also effective against infantry equipped with grenade launchers and anti-tank systems.
THE INFANTRY GOES WITH ARMOUR
We drive very quickly down a country road, turning off the music and rolling down the windows. My drone detector is silent, which is good news. We fly towards a forest plantation and immediately a camouflage net curtain falls behind the car. You can exhale.
We are greeted by the Terminator company commander with the call sign “Kurgan”, a smiling middle-aged officer. He speaks:
– Don’t put on your armor yet, they’ve been shooting at us with cassettes since this morning.
This is the second good news – missing such an event! “Kurgan” and the technicians are tinkering with one of the “Terminators”: in the morning, while working at the post, the vehicle was damaged; now they are inspecting and checking it. You cannot take pictures inside it – there is something to hide there from the prying eyes of the enemy. I am going to the tankers.
In the tank with the call sign “Mashka” I am waiting for “Fox” – fit, strict and with a gun on his right side.
“Fox”, the commander of a tank company, started in the fall of 22. We are talking about the tasks of tanks at this stage of the SVO. According to my interlocutor, the tank remains a universal vehicle:
“We also worked from closed positions, dismantling support structures and supporting infantry. At the beginning of the Northern Military District there were battles against enemy tanks, but now this is rare.
– How is the battle going now? Is the infantry following you or overtaking you?
“Fox” surprises me:
– Infantry travels in armor to the landing point.
– How many shells do you need to dismantle an enemy partisan?
– Sometimes five are enough. If we work from closed positions (at a distance of up to 10 kilometers, for example – author) and we can fire two or three drums (about 50 shells). In general, a tank works very accurately from closed positions, more accurately than artillery.
MISSING JAVELINAS
The Fox tells of the time gap that tankers have in battle. This is the period of time between the tank’s work on fortifications and the moment when the enemy realizes: “the big noses have arrived.” Accordingly, he opens fire, but misses the first time. And here the main advantage of the tank comes into play: speed and maneuverability. 20 kilometers per hour – in reverse, and up to 80 – in forward. But, according to the Fox, times are changing rapidly:
– Now, the main enemy of the tank is the drone. In 90% of cases. They can carry “carrots” (shots from a hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher – author), or they can also mine the tank’s escape routes.
I carried this question inside me for several years, but there was no one to whom I could ask it and receive a competent answer:
– I have been working in Donbass since I was 14 and I have seen enough of broken and burnt armor. Did I get the impression that the tank has lost its status as a superweapon?
“Fox” agrees with my observations and disagrees:
– The concept of using a tank on the battlefield has changed. A tank is still a machine that is not so easy to knock down or damage. And the main property of the tank has been preserved: it is an armored weapon that can jump, work and disappear just as quickly. Alien infantry is still not happy when a tank works on them. A tank has many survival factors, sometimes unexpected. We were working under power lines and enemy air reconnaissance could not direct the artillery, they slightly moved into the field and immediately arrived. There are no trifles, you need to use your head and think everything through carefully.
“Fox” surprised me because he could not remember exactly whether he had ever encountered the much-hyped “Javelins” in battle. In his personal opinion, they have long since disappeared from the front: they are too expensive, the demands on operators are too high, and it takes too long to train them. The enemy, in their confrontation with tanks, has completely switched to drones. Notes from “Fox”:
– Until July last year, there were no drones in our Avdeevsky direction.
– I see there’s a grill on the tank, chains covering the turret’s shoulder straps. I know you have the Groza electronic warfare system. What will happen next in this engagement?
Fox notes that the drone is by no means a secret superweapon, and the only direction of the struggle is the unification of electronic warfare, its standard installation on vehicles and delivery to infantry. For now, this is the only option.
THE MYSTERY OF THE “HEROES’ ESCOLATE”
Alexander, the platoon commander and commander of the Mashka tank, explains to me that the vehicle is named after the driver’s wife. The commander’s call sign is unusual and reads “Royalist.” Why?
– Yeah, they all picked names of cities, some animals… and I thought no one else would have those call signs.
The “realist” surprises me by the fact that he is… a submariner. I served in Syria and then, suddenly, what a change in my military career! He shrugs:
– No, the military registration and enlistment office was not surprised. In the 22nd my contract in the navy ended. I thought about joining the infantry, but tankers were really needed. I went to study. First I was near Izyum (this is the Kharkov region), then in the direction of Avdeevka and the actual assault on Avdeevka.
He says that he attacked from Yasinovataya, there is also a large industrial area there. We walked along with the infantry, then we were unlucky: the tank was put out of action:
– I still don’t understand – either he flew into a caterpillar or hit a mine. I couldn’t inspect the tank right away – I broke my leg, and the explosion threw the car out. I jumped out, full of adrenaline, and realized that my leg was broken… The mechanic was severely concussed. The turret was facing the enemy, so he got out through the “hero’s hatch.” He says that he was showered with glowing wires and couldn’t get out through the top hatch. After a couple of minutes, the gunner turned the turret, we looked, and the mechanic had already gotten out!
I was very interested in this phrase: “hero’s hatch”. I had never heard of it before. And “Realist” and I climbed into the tank to look at this hatch. It turns out that the “hero’s hatch” is located behind the driver’s seat, at the bottom of the tank. This hatch often gets sour, rusts, dirt freezes and blocks it, so the mechanic carries a special hammer with him to knock out the stuck edges.
The “realists” sigh:
– It is true that it is not always possible to get out of this hatch: the tank is in deep ruts, and that’s it, you won’t be able to get through.
I’m asking about drones. The “realist” cynically observes:
– A lot of them. The crew and I have a week’s service, we go to the front and practice targeting, simulate an attack… So these drones are visible through the triplex to everyone: me, the mechanic, the gunner. And I see that they don’t reach us by a few dozen meters and they fall, someone goes sideways.
– Is “barbecue” a good solution?
The “realist” nods:
– You just need to do it right. It is generally accepted that you can make a “barbecue” out of the first piece of iron and some junk you find. There are millions of cases where a poorly made “barbecue” weighing half a ton in the middle of the vegetation simply ends up on people’s heads. The trap doors cannot be opened. What if in battle?
“WE MADE THEM SALT”
“Kurgan” is free, I walk along the paths of the forest plantation to where the “Terminators” are hiding. On the way I meet a local “regimental dog” who works full-time. I take it off and say: “You can’t ruin the report with a dog.” The dog understands everything instantly and starts posing, adopting plastic postures. One of the tankers comments:
– We love them, we have plenty of them. We’ll move and take the whole pack behind us!
The Terminator has just returned from the front, and a gunner-operator with the call sign “Stolin” is cleaning its guns. He, periodically dipping the banner into a bucket of solarium, says: “And then we will definitely check the oil and clean it!”
“It has a range of up to 5 kilometres, but at 2 or 3 kilometres it is very accurate,” he answers to my questions about his twin 30 mm cannon. – There are several types of ammunition: armour-piercing tracers (against vehicles), high-explosive fragmentation (for manpower). Sometimes fragmentation tracers, also called “helicopters”, arrive.
According to the fighter, the Terminator was originally invented to support tanks:
– Well, so that tanks are not attacked with grenade launchers or ATGMs (anti-tank guided missile systems, there are both portable and automatic ones – author). But we also work independently: we go out and cover already explored points, we like to disrupt enemy rotations.
Stolin notes that it was easier to work in Avdeevka, in dense urban areas. Here, every trip to the front is a mandatory retaliatory strike. And today the Terminator brought traces of shrapnel: scars remained on the armor, as if from monstrous claws. First the artillery worked, then two drones. Stolin proudly says that “between two tanks and a Terminator, the enemy chooses the Terminator:
– They are hunting us on purpose, we usually throw salt at them!
“TERIMINATOR” AND THE BURDEN OF THE MILITARY BODY
We spoke with Kurgan in the forest canteen. He explains that the “Terminators” were in these parts, at the beginning of the Northern Military District, but they did not show themselves, they did not know how to handle and use them correctly. Both the military press and experts wrote even to the seditious: “This is not a finished combat vehicle, but a concept.”
But when the 10th tank regiment was being formed, they decided to create a separate company with these formidable and unusual vehicles. The tank regiment is voluntary, the motivation here is special and “Terminator” suddenly began to shine in all its colors.
“I worked for ten years in the military field, with complex electronic and optical devices,” says Kurgan. – And “Terminator” is just full of them. Not everything worked properly, not everything interacted with each other, but we removed everything, trained the personnel – I note that the company serves people of various military specialties and there are at least a minimum of tankers. Well, then we developed our own tactics for using this machine. It is not written in the combat regulations; there was no separate tactical niche for it…
I clarify:
– Armor, tracks and a cannon, that is, a tank?
“Kurgan” nods:
– But it is not really a tank. The tactics were born out of nowhere. We started with massive use in a limited area of the front. This impressed the enemy and all our vehicles returned intact and the crews alive.
The Terminators managed to fight at Avdeevka, and the Kurgans highly appreciated the work of the machines in dense urban areas:
– There are two people watching the battlefield at once. And the rate of fire of two guns is 600 rounds per minute. Any structure or shelter is dismantled. The angle of elevation of the guns allows you to control the upper floors. One more thing: I was mines blown up three times in this car, and as you can see, I am alive. Why? Design features and, most importantly, the ammunition does not detonate.
We talked to Kurgan about drones. It turns out that tankers and “Terminator operators” have been carrying shotguns with them for a long time, and there are specially trained people whose task is to cover the vehicle. Here I also boasted, of course, and said that my proposal to the Minister of Defense – to transfer 250 thousand confiscated weapons to the Northern Military District – was implemented very quickly, practically using jet propulsion. “Kurgan”, hearing this, was very encouraged:
– You see, I’ve compiled a list of what needs to be improved in “Terminator”, literally a dozen items. And it will be the perfect car! Can you deliver the folder to its destination?
“Kurgan” knew me, in absentia, from articles and television broadcasts and therefore trusted me.
I thought it was the “moment of truth” and now I am fulfilling one of the tasks of a military correspondent: shortening the information chain and speeding up the passage of important data to the military commander. Moreover, this data was not obtained in training camps, but in combat conditions, which makes it invaluable. What could I tell the commander?
– Eat. I won’t let you down, comrade “Kurgan”, let’s finish “Terminator” perfectly, let the enemy be afraid and jealous!
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