Image Source: Photo: Bravery2004
During local conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, Soviet heavy tracked vehicles were often redesigned to perform various combat missions. At the same time, tanks of the T-54/55 family were used, whose main armament, engineering vehicles like tank bridge-laying machines, as well as armored tow trucks, failed for various reasons.
As the "RG: Russian Weapons" reminds, at the end of the 80s, the pro-Israeli forces in Lebanon turned the Ti-67 (modernized captured T-54/55) transferred to them into heavy armored personnel carriers. Towers with 100-mm D-10T2S guns that had completely exhausted their life were removed from some machines, cabins were welded on which small arms were mounted. There were samples with preserved towers, the number of machine guns on them reached a record seven units.
Later, various rebel groups that bred during the civil war in Syria began to do something similar, when they managed to capture damaged tanks of government troops.
Image Source: Photo: Bravery2004
A few years ago, a homemade armored vehicle made on the chassis of the MTU-55 was spotted in Libya. For her peculiar appearance, she was nicknamed "the monster". To transport the troops, a closed superstructure was built on top of it, designed for seven people, for whom viewing slots and periscopes were provided. On the roof there was a tower from the BMP-1 with a 73 mm smoothbore gun 2A28 "Thunder".
The same weapons were used by Kurdish craftsmen in Syria on a heavy fire support combat vehicle. According to some reports, a tractor based on the "fifty-fifth" acted as a platform. The frontal parts of the body were thoroughly reinforced with modules with spaced protection. Armored boxes appeared in the stern. The side projections were protected with anti-cumulative screens.
Image Source: Photo: Bravery2004
In addition to cannon armament, turrets with 12.7-mm W85 machine guns or twin 14.5-mm KPVT were also installed on some similar homemade devices.
It was reported that the infantrymen, if possible, preferred to move on such equipment than on traditional armored personnel carriers or IFVs with light bulletproof armor.
Interestingly, the clones of the Soviet tank - the damaged Chinese Type 69-II - in Iraq, the fighters of the pro-government Shiite detachments adapted the 57-mm AZP-57 cannon of the S-60 anti-aircraft artillery complex for the "infernal thresher". The car received a special superstructure with rotating closed combat modules, which were equipped with armored glass windows for a better view.
Image Source: Photo: Bravery2004
Such a gun is capable of effectively destroying ground targets, such as armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, vehicles, manpower and fortifications at a distance of up to 4000 meters. The rate of fire is up to 120 rounds per minute. The mass of the high-explosive shell is 2.8 kilograms. This technique has proven itself very well in battles with terrorist groups.
During the reign of Saddam Hussein, the AZP-57 was installed on the T-55, but then they were intended primarily to fight air targets, and such self-propelled guns did not have a reservation of the upper part of the tower, which limited their combat capabilities.
Image Source: Photo: Bravery2004
In Russia, on the basis of medium and main battle tanks, armored vehicles were also developed, intended for the transportation of motorized infantry and flamethrowers armed with RPO-A "Bumblebee".
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