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Since 2014, the Syrian Armed Forces have begun developing an easily manufactured and attachable armour in order to adapt T-72 batle tanks to urban warfare. The first prototype of this armor was T-72 Adra which had two layers of armour: spaced and slat.
The approach achieved a success in providing 360 degree protection from RPG-7 and SPG-9 rockets for tanks serving in the Damascus countryside. Nonetheless, this armour was not usefule against more advanced anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) and anti-tank projectile like the RPG-29.
Using this experience, the Syrian military began developing more simple variants of tank armours which have less weight and more protection capability.
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One of the prototypes was a T-72 tank with a sloped armuor. This tank was immediately thrown into battle to test the prototype out. It particiapted in clashes in the Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus on February 27, 2017. It was struck by a Meits-M ATGM. As a result the tank was put out of service and its driver suffered medium injures. The tank turret was damaged.
During the last battles in eastern Damascus, the same T-72 tank was spotted fending off militant assaults in the area of Qabun.
It looks that the developed armour allowed to drastically lower the material and casualty damage suffered by the tank and the crew in the previous incident. This is an important achievement of the Syrian military.
Considering the positive results, it is expected that the Syrian Army will continue developing simple armour systems which proved itself effective during the successfull operations in Western Ghouta and Wadi Barada.
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An example of the aforementioned spaced armour:
Spaced armour vs HEAT has been used since WW2, how is this “new”? We’ve known this for more than 70 years now. I’m surprised they didn’t use slat/spaced armour as soon as this conflict started. If anything, they learned way too slow. Nevertheless, good thing they are doing it now.
Yes, you know that, but they don’t, until they experienced itself at real conflict. The conflict limited them to do everything needed in this war, money, material, technical support they don’t have it. Their countries crippled, but they still fight till today, that priceless.
It’s one thing to tack-weld on brackets to hold bed springs that will stand-off RPG rounds compared to engineering a heavier system to counter ATGM’s. That arrangement seen in the last photograph is quite complicated and might of been designed then produced in Russia then shipped to Syria to be installed.
I remember seeing tank with octagonal cage earlier. It is locally produced, and there was same type of armor on some other vehicle type too (Shilka, if I recall correctly).
All that new armor doesn’t really mean much if your tank is still knocked out of battle. I mean yeah your crew is saved but that’s still one less tank you have to throw at your enemy.
Tanks are replaceable , men are not .
How many tanks did the terrorists wipe out so far? 200?
200*3 = 600 men
They could be equipped with pickups forming a battalion more effective in this war.
omg
They could build mock tanks over the bodies of crapped out pick-ups then park those at night out in the open to be seen and shot at with expensive ATGM’s.
Actually, during NATO’s 1999 air assault on the last Yugoslav iteration – Serbia and Montenegro – the Serbs placed decommissioned tanks in positions across northern Kosovo and put heat sources with them, it is estimated the some tank carcasses were hit up to seven times by NATO missiles. They used range of heat sources – but one that required no power source or any further attendance was a drum of oil in direct sunlight next to a target, that absorbed heated throughout day and released it at night, when raids heaviest. It was all very low tech, but they lost very little actual active military hardware in Kosovo to NATO raids and in frustration NATO shifted their attacks onto rump Yugoslav urban centres and infrastructure.
We have actually used everything, tanks out of plastic foil and wood, with small ovens inside, created fake streets, bridges, air planes, guns, trucks…basically faked everything what was possible to fake…if just not too big. Factory is difficult to fake :) NATO could not fly lower then 10 000 m, so it was very successful. After 26000 airstrikes they could destroy 12 tanks, out of some 800 active involved.