Battle Tank Modifications Of Syrian Army

[dexter]

Since the start of the Syrian war and until September 2015, when the Russians officially joined the conflict, the Syrian Army and its allies were suffering from a wide range of issues related to maintenance of their military equipment. The lack of spare parts, destruction of infrastructure and a wide-scale economic blockade established by the US-led block were among the key reasons behind this situation. Iran contributed significant efforts to ease the pressure faced by Syria, but it lacked the necessary resources to introduce and implement a system, which would allow the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) to restore its exhausted capabilities.
These factors as well as the overwhelming role played by urban warfare during the conflict forced the SAA to find a way to maintain the combat efficiency of its tank fleet at an acceptable level by whatever means were at hand. This led to various DIY-style modifications of battle tanks. Many of these modifications varied from unit to unit. Nonetheless, at least some of them resulted from centralized and consistent work by the Syrian military.
These battle tank modifications can be divided into three groups: passive measures, active protection measures and improvements related to electronics.
Armour modifications were mostly a result of experiments by the Republican Guard and the 4th Armored Division.
In August 2014, the 4th Armored Division began to upgrade T-72M1s, as well as military bulldozers, and even Shilka self-propelled guns in their workshop in Adra. The battle tanks upgraded there got the name T-72 Adra but are more widely known as the T-72 Mahmia (Shielded).