Comments by "Solo Renegade" (@SoloRenegade) on "Russian “Cope Cages” and how Bar/Slat/Mesh Protections Broadly Work" video.

Bar armor was designed to combat RPG-7 style weapons, and I have witnessed it work first hand in Iraq and Afghanistan. It reduces the RPG to a frag grenade instead of a shaped charge, and saved multiple men in my unit. It did Not work against other types of munitions, and even Vietnam era recoilless rifle rounds will defeat it handily. I called it Bar Armor, Slat Armor, or Birdcage Armor.
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@johnd2058 We used extra bar armor for stowage in combat. we mounted it on Do-Kings to carry fuel, ammo, stretchers, water, and even to mount machine guns to. We made a trailer out of nothing but a broken John Deere Gator and Bar Armor parts. We mounted lights and cameras to it. I devised sun shades to improve the air conditioning units which we mounted to the bar armor. The armor we used was like LEGOs, and we did all sorts of stuff with it.
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@johnd2058 the sun shades really worked. without large windows, in the desert heat, we'd see temps of up to 160F inside the vehicles in the hottest days of summer. The shades dropped the internal temps 10-20F, helping the AC units not work as hard, and made a huge difference. Lots of guys started installing them after I did that. Just thin plywood shaped to fit and zip-tied between the roof and the outer cage armor over the windows to prevent direct sunlight from touching the window glass.
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@johnd2058 the Russian military is making so many other far more critical failures since day one. they have far bigger issues to be worrying about. They can't even conduct basic convoy ops properly. how they react to contact (ambush) is very amateur. It's hard to watch, compared to how my unit did similar in their shoes. but you can't compeltely blame the soldiers given how many seemed unready for a fight, many not knowing it Would be a fight, etc.
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@dalejmobiledalej6361 Yes, I know of a few times an RPG failed to detonate and hung in the bar armor, but I never witnessed that personally, only saw pictures. and unsure if it was a HE or AT warhead. Every RPG fired at my unit detonated one way or another.
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@Shaun_Jones yes, but you can't count on that happening, and probably fortunate it doesn't happen often as now you have to deal with a damaged explosive that can still go off.
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@neglectfulsausage7689 Not all. The Taliban had Antitank recoilless rifles and used them effectively.
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What is also interesting is how many disabled/destroyed Russian tanks were also hit in the side with their turrets still intact. Seems that ERA isn't working as advertised.
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If western nations send enough anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, they wont need them themselves as their will be no enemy tanks left to shoot at.
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@epicbloxtuber5659 there are multiple forms of HEAT munitions. the RPG has a crush cone. If the tip/detonator hits the bar armor directly, it can form the projectile. But if the tip passes between slats and the cone is crushed, it prevents the formed projectile from forming. But the recoilless rifle rounds have a hard tip more like an artillery round, and so when they pass between the slats, they simply bend them out of the way. This happened to my truck when a recoilless penetrated the bar armor and went through the cockpit. I have pictures of it. Came in the side window and lodge the tailfin of the round in teh inside of the windshield.
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@alexanderbarkman7832 Wrong, that is what a "whipple" shield does. Bar armor only works against teh RPG family that has a fragile cone. Other AT weapons like recoilless can punch right through the bar armor and penetrate regardless. I know because it happened to my vehicle and others. A standoff solid plate would have detonated the recoilless rifle round at a distance like you mention, but it pushed right through the bar armor and bends the bars out of the way as it has solid metal warhead casing that isn't crushed and deformed like the RPG. The odds of the RPG detonator hitting the actual bars is rather low. But if they detonate like normal on the bars, the penetrator is still formed and can still go through. We've even had the bar armor Catch RPGs without them detonating.
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@alexanderbarkman7832 Yes, RPG AT is a HEAT round like all the others. RPG is recoilless weapon, like all the others too. Rocket propelled, charge propelled, etc. really doesn't matter. Has no part in how the warhead works. But it has one MAJOR difference, the nose of the RPG is thin and can be crushed/deformed. If the tip detonator passes between the metal of the bar armor, the nose cone will hit first instead fo the detonator and crush the warhead, or catch it, and prevent it from detonating or forming the jet. But a round like the US M40 recoilless rifle fires a round with a solid nose, and when it hits bar armor it bends the bar armor instead of being deformed. "If the round detonates to far from the target it has reduced penetration" this is true. but an RPG-7 that detonates on the side of light armor (APC, MRAP, IFV..) assuming no bar armor, reactive armor, or standoff armor, can easily penetrate one side and clean out the other. Despite passing through all the internal air volume inside those wide vehicles.... The air gap between one side of the vehicle and the other is FAR greater than standoff/bar armor distances. If it can penetrate through many layers of hull armor spaced many feet apart, it can easily still penetrate the outer hull from 1-2ft away. The bar armor defeats the RPG specifically, by crushing the HEAT warhead before it is able to detonate properly and form the jet. If the warhead is miss-shapen, it cannot for a jet when the explosive charge goes off.
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@alexanderbarkman7832 you're actually comparing a 40mm grenade round to a Recoilless Rifle round, AT-4, RPG, and other shoulder fired AT weapons? Bar armor doesn't stop 40mm, wasn't designed too. the gaps are far too large to stop a 40mm unless it impacts the bars directly. Nor does it carry an equivalent punch. Try again
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@alexanderbarkman7832 "The M40 recoilless rifle shots a 106mm round. " and......what is your point? you seem to be confused by M40 recoilless rifle and 40mm grenades. Keep trying. eventually if you try and fail enough times you're bound to get a win, just by shear dumb luck alone.
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@alexanderbarkman7832 "M433A1 Description: 40MM HEDP LOW VELOCITY CARTRIDGE" try again the actual recoilless rifle ammo does have a "thin" nose compared to artillery shells. But it's still thicker than the super thin stamped sheet metal PRG nose cone. The recoilless rifle ammo is tough enough to push right through bar armor. I know from personal combat experience where my truck and other trucks with bar armor were penetrated. And we never once had an RPG AT round penetrate any of our vehicles with bar armor. the RPGs exploded on at the bar armor without forming a penetrator. But I've seen RPGs penetrate trucks with no bar armor. Another unit had one of their Maxpros get ambushed and take 5 RPGs, 4/5 penetrated and went clean through the truck (in one side, out the other), one glanced off the V-hull into the dirt. Gunner was killed, TC severely wounded, I don't know what happened to the drive, and the rest were ok. That truck had no bar armor. My platoon was the first to respond to them. Cite your combat experience.
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@alexanderbarkman7832 wow, you think wikipedia trumps the real thing? I knew you didn't know anything. "that's M433, not M344." make up your mind. So which round exactly are you wanting to use as you example, EXACTLY? "Nlaw and Javelin doesn't even have front cones. They are plastic and the Nlaw in top attack doesn't even strike the target it't ota.." wow you are stupid. AT4, RPG, Recoilless detonate on impact, side attack. NLAW can too, but NLAW and Javelin are for top attack, firing from a standoff height above, just like an RPG would if it detonated against standoff armor instead of getting crushed by the bar armor. You're only further proving my point here. Have you ever fired any of these weapons before? Javelin and the like work more like a Hornet mine or the US cluster munition. But keep trying, it's fun watching idiots dig themselves holes.
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