Comment on Estonia is digging a 40 km trench to stop Russian tanks — and 600 bunkers are next

scintilla@crust.piefed.social ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

• Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  That’s a stock photo of an irrigation or utility trench, I suspect - it wouldn’t stop a 4x4, let alone a tank.

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  • scintilla@crust.piefed.social ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Thank you lmao. I saw the article a few times and had to ask because I was very sure that wouldn’t stop a tank but I didn’t want to be the dipshit assuming they know better than civil engineers.

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    • Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Whoops, I was curious - turns out the estonian military did dig them, but they’re anti-migrant ditches, not anti-tank ditches. From the source article:

      Border Guard Chief Veiko Kommusaar said that the PPA supports all activities that help ensure security in Estonia: "The PPA’s task at the border is to prevent cross-border crime and illegal border crossings. Our neighboring countries have been facing a migration offensive for years, and although people have not been targeted at the Estonian borders in this way so far, we cannot rule out that this will always be the case. Of course, the barrier ditches built by the Defence Forces would also slow down the movement of illegal border crossers, which is why they will also support the Border Guard in preventing illegal migration.

      Yeah, your first impulse was right on the money with this one.

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    • Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Here’s what they probably used to dig it, you see things like it all the time in agri-heavy areas.

      spoiler

      Image

      Rule of thumb, if it has two sloped sides it’s not going to stop an armored vehicle.

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• limer@lemmy.ml ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  A tank driving on it will have issues. But this is easily overcome by itself.

  This is just one small part of new emplacements. But even multiple layers are only expected to slow an advance

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• Madison420@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  It’s deterrence but yeah it would slow down tanks and choke point them which is useful but it’s not like totally impassable.

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  • Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    it’s just an irrigation canal. A BMP could cross that without having to slow down, it can’t be more than 3m and has such beautiful ramped sides. The biggest threat might be getting stuck in the loose dirt of the spoil berm, but really there’s not enough there to trouble a hilux let alone an AFV or true tank.

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    • possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I wouldn’t want to be the people in the tank. If you tried to hit that at full speed it wouldn’t be pleasant plus you would tear up your tank.

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      • Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Riding in any AFV isn’t comfortable, Russian tanks especially. This sure wouldn’t be pleasant, but it’d be a great deal more fun than being hit with an AT round because you stopped in the middle of an empty field.

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    • Madison420@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      There is no stopping a tank force that’s determined by obstacle alone, countries in WW2 spent millions and lots of resources into complex anti tank setups and the lesson learned is nothing stops them. You just invest the least to be the most annoying and by that I mean time consuming.

      At the very least you have to slow and turn your turret away from the place you want to go which is problematic if there’s people on the other side who don’t have to turn their guns away.

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      • Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        At the very least you have to slow and turn your turret away from the place you want to go

        You don’t, though, not in this case - because this isn’t an anti-tank ditch. You might have to elevate to prevent sticking your snoot in the berm, but (and not to go all war-thunder here) it’s two button presses and at most a second’s delay in motion to get back on sight, and thanks to the stabilization the turret is still tracking the entire time you’re doing that. And that’s just if you don’t blast the berm out of the way. And this doesn’t apply to most AFV’s, since they don’t have protruding barrels that might foul while crossing this.

        There’s lots more here about the way static defenses factor into defense in depth and how modern improvements to the strategy incorporate information warfare to improve the cost/effect ratio, but I’m lazy - if you want to learn more look up Ukraine and Russia’s current anti-tank policy or Russia’s counter-counter-strike preparations from last year. At the very least though it’ll give you some photos of what a legit anti-tank barrier looks like, which isn’t this goofy thing designed just to deter the so horrible “migration offensive”.

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