Modernization of armored vehicles of the Syrian Republican Guard: products of the four-year war
After several experiments with spaced armor and lattice screens on tanks The T-72AV and BMP-2 Republican Guard began a small program to modernize their armored vehicles in the summer of 2014. After upgrading several of their T-72M1s and bulldozers with additional protection, the Republican Guard now also has at least one ZSU-23-4 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun in service, modernized in a similar way.
The aim of the modernization program was to increase the probability of survival of armored combat vehicles by adding a set of additional protection, which consists of lattice screens installed at some distance from the main armor and reinforced with metal chains. All over the place, this provides impressive 360 degrees of protection from conventional RPGs. More powerful RPGs, such as RPG-29, M79 Wasp or later RPG-7, of course, are more likely to break through such protection.
The first vehicles upgraded as part of this program were several T-72M1 tanks, which were then deployed in the city of Jobar for the purpose of combat verification of this new protection kit. This first battle check ended in a rather pitiable manner, as one of the upgraded T-72M1 tanks got stuck and then the crew left it, while another tank was completely destroyed after joining Jobar, a tragic start for an ambitious program.
However, it could not force the Republican Guard to stop this modernization program and several modified T-72M1 tanks in the following months entered combat units in Jobar, Eastern Ghut and even Aleppo. The workshops that are responsible for the execution of this program are located in Adra, north of Damascus.
A similar protection kit, designed and manufactured in these workshops, was also installed on the bulldozers in service with the guard.
Bulldozers have proven themselves in most of the offensive operations in the vicinity of Damascus and Eastern Guitsa, where they were used to transport soldiers to the front line, clearing obstacles, creating sand barriers to cover the infantry and tanks, and finally clearing suspicious minefields. When they worked without these sets of protection, they were easy prey for anti-tank groups, anti-tank guns, and even machine-gun fire, although they had self-made defense on them.
In addition to small factory differences or minimal modifications in the units, in fact, there are only two options for the protection kit. These options provide a clear picture of how the designs and production of these protection kits evolved over time.
The bulldozer at the bottom of the photo worked in Jobar, where it was mainly used for transporting troops and clearing minefields. It was destroyed at the end of December 2014, when it was captured in open areas by militants Failaq al-Rahman, also known as the Rahman Corps, allegedly while trying to clear a minefield.
The bulldozer was only immobilized after receiving several hits from the RPG-7 and was set on fire with an anti-tank rifle. The militants of Failaq al-Rahman dug a tunnel to the abandoned bulldozer and installed a satchel of blasting under it in order to prevent the recovery of the vehicle. A subsequent explosion destroyed his body, the bulldozer caught fire, which completely excluded his recovery.
The next machine on which the protection kit was installed was the ZSU-23-4. The combat experience gained in Darayya revealed the need for a vehicle capable of destroying militant positions in apartments and apartments located at a height that are almost always beyond the reach of a T-72 tank gun.
Based on the past experience of other countries, Syria began to use its large ZSU-23-4 fleet to support tanks and infantry. The biggest drawback of the ZSU-23-4 when performing these tasks is its poor booking. Originally intended to deal with aircraft when operating behind tanks and infantry fighting vehicles on the plains of Europe, this machine’s protection is not at all suitable for destroying enemy’s shelters at close range. The recent capture of the 82 brigade near Sheikh Miskin serves as a cruel reminder of this flaw.
Installation of the kit protection will be mainly aimed at eliminating the ZSU-23-4 vulnerability. arms and RPG and allow the machine to provide fire support at a much closer range than before. With its extremely high rate of fire, large caliber and vertical guidance angles, which allow you to fire at any potential target, it is an ideal vehicle for urban combat; military machine, fully adapted to the hostile space of the Syrian battlefield, which has not subsided for the past four years.
After the metal chains installed in the front of the T-72M1 tanks were unable to stop the RPGs on most of the upgraded T-72M1, the metal chains were replaced with additional spaced armor or just metal parts. These improvements were carried out in operational areas of operations of T-72 tanks, since the workshops responsible for the protection kit, in a strange enough way, continue to install metal chains on T-72 tanks.
Due to the fact that active hostilities provide a huge amount of information about the disadvantages and advantages of different types of military equipment, it is likely that the subsequent versions of the additional protection kits will be aimed at eliminating these shortcomings and, thus, will become more and more effective.
After the two modernized T-72M1 tanks were destroyed in Jobar, the combat value of the defense kit plummeted in the eyes of the Syrian fighters. However, this does not quite correspond to the actual combat characteristics of the new defense. It is possible that the new protection kit gave crews a feeling of invulnerability, so the crews made more risky decisions than usual, which resulted in the destruction of their vehicles. However, one photo from the Eastern Ghuty confirms the effectiveness of the new defense in battle, it depicts an upgraded T-72M1 tank, which remained unharmed after several hits from the RPG.
It is clear that by individual examples of the work of the new set of protection against unknown types of anti-tank weapons it is difficult to fully judge its shortcomings and advantages, but it is clear that the Republican Guard considers it to be quite effective and allocates significant resources for its installation.
The upgrades carried out on these machines show that the Syrian army and the Republican Guard have not yet exhausted their capabilities and are determined. Although the installation of this protection kit is not possible on the T-72 "Ural" because of the installed rangefinder, it is expected that more and more armored combat vehicles will be upgraded in the same way. Most likely, the following will be the BMP-2 Republican Guard.
Materials used:
www.spioenkop.blogspot.ru
www.wikipedia.org
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