The Most Heavily Protected Russian Tank In Ukraine Just Met Its Match. A River.

Hedgehog, porcupine and turtle tanks tend to get mired in water and mud.

A Russian hedgehog tank. Social media capture

The most absurdly up-armored tank type so far in Russia’s 45-month wider war on Ukraine is, with its layers of improvised anti-drone armor, ugly as sin.

But that doesn’t mean the type isn’t effective for its designed purpose: eating dozens of Ukrainian first-person-view drones while clearing mines and leading an assault group toward its objective.

If the modified tank has a weakness, however, it’s mobility. Fitted with a front-mounted mine-roller and wrapped in layers of explosive reactive armor and anti-drone chains, cage armor and wire spines, a hedgehog tank—like its cousins the turtle tank and porcupine tank—weighs tons more than its engine and transmission can reliably handle.

It’s sluggish. That might not be an issue on firm, dry ground. It’s a huge issue while fording one of the many rivers that thread across the 700-mile no-man’s-land.