Parade of rarities: Haftar's troops prepare a large-scale demonstration of force

Rare for Libya, samples of military equipment can now be seen during the preparation of the military parade of the formations of the Libyan National Army (LNA) Field Marshal Haftar.

Rehearsals for the ceremony are being held at the Benin air base near Benghazi. It seems that the LNA command has concentrated most of its available forces on this military facility. These are dozens of T-55, T-62, T-72 tanks, 122-mm 2S1 self-propelled artillery installations, BM-21 Grad and Morava multiple rocket launchers, Kvadrat and Strela-1 air defense systems, and ZSU-23-4 Shilka installations.

Towed guns are represented by numerous 130-mm Soviet M-46 guns and the much rarer South African 155-mm G-5 guns.

Data on the presence of four units of the operational-tactical missile system "Elbrus" (Scud B) in the LNA are confirmed. Also, in addition to them, there is also a 9P113 launcher and a transport vehicle of the 9K52 Luna-M complex.

Interestingly, the tracked vehicles do not move by themselves, they are transported on trawls. For this purpose, dozens of tractors were mobilized.

Of course, the traditional military pickups for this region are demonstrated, armed with 12.7-mm DShK machine guns and their Chinese clones, 14.5-mm KPV, small-caliber ZSU-23-2. Among them, for the first time, the American Jeep Gladiator all-terrain vehicles were lit up.

In the column of the 166th battalion, you can also see UAZ-3151 vehicles, which were not previously seen in this hot spot, although it is known that they were used in the armed forces during the rule of Gaddafi. Thanks to several antennas, the car looks quite unusual. Apparently, it is used as a command and staff room.

Alexey Moiseev