A Ukrainian armored automobile fitted with metallic wire armor on a street close to Pokrovsk on November 23
Photo: Anatolii Stepanov (Reuters)
The beneath picture, of a tank fitted with bristling metallic wires, is without doubt one of the clearest photos but seen of a brand new sort of anti-drone armor first noticed on invading tanks in Ukraine within the autumn of 2025.
The armor is reportedly constructed from metal cables lower into uniform lengths, then unraveled into particular person wire strands. The spiky wires are then affixed to a metallic cage fitted to the tank or automobile.
Both sides within the Ukraine battle are actually utilizing the brand new anti-drone coverings, dubbed “hedgehog armor.”
Iryna Rybakova, a press officer with Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade, informed RFE/RL the “fluffy” armor is designed “to get drones tangled and never detonate, or detonate at a distance” from the automobile hull.
Most kamikaze first-person view (FPV )drones are fitted with a fuse that protrudes from its warhead and detonates on influence. The spiky new armor may doubtlessly entangle such a drone earlier than its fuse reaches a stable floor.
Rybakova says one Russian hedgehog tank working close to Toretsk within the Donetsk area absorbed dozens of hits from Ukrainian FPV drones earlier than it was lastly destroyed. She provides that in opposition to bigger and quicker kamikaze drones, such because the Russian Lancet, hedgehog armor provides little safety.
Carlo Masala, a professor and army professional on the Bundeswehr University in Munich, informed RFE/RL the newest anti-drone measure “appears to be a brand new tactic to convey maneuver again into warfare.”
With the effectiveness of low-cost FPV drones able to destroying tanks value as much as tens of millions of {dollars}, each side within the battle have struggled to hold out the sort of armored assaults that have been as soon as a cornerstone of army ways.
In latest months, Masala says, “we’ve solely seen incursions by a number of troopers behind enemy strains.” Large troop and automobile actions have been largely restricted to foggy days when poor visibility reduces the specter of reconnaissance and FPV drones.
The uncommon new armor reportedly comes with drastic tradeoffs for tank crews.
A Russian tank driver lately gave a media interview through which he described a tank being fitted with hedgehog armor. As a results of the added weight, the tank “didn’t even make it 10 kilometers earlier than one of many [drivetrain components] failed.” The tank driver added that the majority of the hedgehog armor means the “stress on the elements [of the tank] is immense.”
Masala says such drawbacks “appear to be accepted so as to convey extra maneuver warfare again.”
Press officer Rybakova was witness to an early iteration of hedgehog armor when a Ukrainian workforce connected plastic cables designed to snag drone propellors via a metallic tank cage (seen in picture above) in May.
The cumbersome automobile was used as a decoy to attract consideration away from Ukrainian troops withdrawing from their positions. “Enemy FPVs flew into the tank. There have been about 5 or 6 hits, which the crew nearly didn’t really feel,” Rybakova says, “however then the enemy dropped an anti-tank mine,” which set the automobile’s engine ablaze.
“It’s a pity concerning the tank, however the individuals remained alive and the duty was completed,” she says.
