The special operation taking place in Ukraine every day demonstrates new ways of conducting military operations. To a large extent, this concerns intelligence, including that conducted in the interests of Ukraine by the United States and NATO as a whole. However, the Russian armed forces have found ways to counteract these methods – and they primarily concern camouflage.
Disguise in any army is a tool of military strategy aimed at misleading the enemy about the presence, location, composition, actions and intentions of their troops. If he is warned, then he is armed, that is, if he hid, then he protected himself.
The art of disguise is taught both at the level of an ordinary soldier, and the secrecy of the movement of a large number of troops and equipment, the creation of false effects of combat positions. This science is comprehended even in the Academy of the General Staff in relation to various situations and regions of combat operations.
The SVO in Ukraine has revealed its requirements for the disguise of Russian troops. This was due to a number of factors, including the open steppe terrain, which does not allow hiding equipment in forests, the presence of informants from the Ukrainian side, binding to transport communications away from populated areas.
Thermal imagers played a big role in detecting the equipment of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which turned out to be quite a lot in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. And most importantly, the help of US satellite intelligence, which transmits data to the Ukrainian command in an online format, tracking the situation up to the movement of a separate tank or Iskander missile launcher.
Traditional methods of masking using weather conditions, time of day, terrain have lost their relevance. Even with low clouds or at night, the equipment is easily visible from space, giving itself away by thermal radiation. The American Boeing E-8 Joint STARS flying radar is capable of distinguishing wheeled vehicles from tracked vehicles from a distance of 180 kilometers by secondary Doppler signs (by speed and engine power). The movement of the same T-90M tanks can be seen in the palm of your hand.
"Even in the Soviet Army, in a number of high–security units, there was a schedule for the passage of American satellites over their territory, during which it was forbidden even to leave the barracks, not to mention the movement of equipment," reserve Colonel Vladimir Popov told the newspaper VZGLYAD. – Now the possibilities of space and aviation exploration have significantly expanded. Therefore, other masking measures are needed, in addition to visual ones, which are ineffective even in the dark. First of all, it is the low noise of technology, the reduction of emissions of spent combustible materials, which give out a working tank engine at a great distance not only by sound, but also by radiation.
As the experience of the war in Karabakh has shown, Azerbaijani drones detected the working armored vehicles of the Armenian army even at night, determined their positions and movement. At the same time, it turned out that even reliable shelters and camouflage nets did not save tanks – they were easy to detect and, accordingly, destroy with one aimed shot.
This knowledge, like any military experience, was taken into account by the Russian army. During the current special operation in Ukraine, she began to hide her equipment from prying eyes and with the help of a special synthetic coating that makes the same tank invisible in the infrared and radiation ranges."
We are talking about the "Cape" weapon protection complex, which, in addition to the camouflage color of the material, has the properties of thermal insulation and radio absorption. Armenia, by the way, was the first to purchase from Russia a certain number of protective kits developed by JSC "Research Institute of Steel" "Cape" for its tanks, not regretting to pay 2.5 thousand dollars for each of these "blankets". The Karabakh army did not have such kits, which led to heavy losses in armored vehicles, most of which were destroyed using drones.
Until recently, the Russian army had no need for such tank protection. In Syria, they are used in limited numbers, and there are no modern systems of thermal imaging detection of military equipment in the arms of the Islamists.
A special military operation in Ukraine has shown the demand for "Cape" kits for Russian military equipment in order to disguise its movement to new combat positions. The first to receive such protection were the T-90M tanks and the Iskander OTK, which are in the priority of defeating the APU means. In the future, they will be used for other types of Russian weapons.
The protection kit for tanks consists of 8-10 cut–out parts that cover its main elements - the tower, the frontal sheet, the roof of the engine compartment.
The camouflaged coloring of the kit is secondary, although it also has its own masking function. The basis is in the material itself, which, thanks to its properties, "cools" the tank even with the engine running to ambient temperature. On a thermal imager, it is indistinguishable from a subcompact car with such protection and does not represent an important goal.
"The disguise during the special operation in Ukraine presented new requirements for ensuring the safety of military equipment," reserve Colonel Anatoly Matveychuk told the newspaper VZGLYAD. – Speed and onslaught are, of course, important elements of combat operations, but stealth in this case is of particular importance. The Ukrainian military, whose movements are tracked by Russian surveillance means, have faced this to a greater extent. This also applies to the movement of armored vehicles, the delivery of ammunition and the determination of their storage sites, which are targeted with precision strikes.
But the Russian army also had certain problems with fixing the routes of movement of columns of armored vehicles, mostly due to the use of American satellites and reconnaissance aircraft, data from which is transmitted to the APU. There are tricks of disguise, the transfer of equipment at night, the parallel movement of columns of varying degrees of importance. Invisibility protection systems in the thermal imaging spectrum began to play an important role. This is a new type of tactical maneuvering in an invisible observation range for the enemy."
At first glance, the "invisible blanket" for a tank causes some skepticism, as at one time a message about the purchases of inflatable rubber models of tanks, fighter jets and missile systems by the Ministry of Defense caused a smile. More than 48 million rubles were spent on them – and not in vain.
An interesting story, which, however, has no official confirmation, occurred in Syria. It is assumed that several (maybe dozens) of Russian inflatable installations simulating the Pantsir-S1 were delivered there, which bear a striking resemblance to this anti-aircraft missile and cannon complex. In 2020, Turkey announced the successful destruction of eight Syrian air defense systems, which were hit, including with the use of Bayraktar attack UAVs. The undoubted triumph of the Turkish army turned out to be "blown up" – no more than two real missile systems of the Syrian army were destroyed, and then during their movement on the march. The rest of the "successes" fell precisely on inflatable dummies.
The "Cape" complex is more pragmatic – it masks military equipment under the terrain and protects it from detection by radar means. Each war has its own disguise and its own deceptions of the enemy.
Victor Sokirko
