Romania demonstrated its modernized TR-85M1R main battle tank with anti-drone protection vehicle with new drone protection was shown at BSDA 2026 (Black Sea Defense, Aerospace and Security) defense exhibition in Bucharest.
This involves modernization from Uzina Mecanica Bucuresti (UMB), created within Revitalizat Sisteme Modernizate project, according to which in 2024 decision was made to upgrade 108 TR-85/M1 tanks to TR-85M1R level. MILMAG reports this.
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Armored vehicle researcher Andriy Tarasenko drew attention to Romanian tank's new anti-drone protection on his social media. Romanians borrowed Ukrainian collapsible anti-drone hood idea for their TR-85M1R, which today is genuinely quite successful solution. It mounts on tank turret to preserve its mobility and covers significant vehicle area.
This is quite telling that Romania nevertheless now considers russian-Ukrainian war experience in this direction too. For example, earlier this year at exercises, Romanian TR-85M1 Bizonul tanks were completely without any anti-drone protection.
At the same time, Romania is far from first country that in one form or another copied Ukrainian anti-drone tank protection, which due to its collapsible design received informal hood name last year russia acknowledged such variant can be one and half times better compared to analogs and stole this idea for own armored vehicles.
Moreover, they patented such design twice (second time adapted BMP-2 solution), with quite significant disadvantage, attaching hood not to turret but to tank side, causing turret to lose its mobility.
After russia, such anti-drone protection interested Chinese, who patented somewhat more complex design with guides that slide when folding or unfolding hood.
Subsequently, hood solution was completely copied in Syria on T-72M1 tanks which specific idea reached this country unknown, but not excluded Syrians simply saw such solution on social media or elsewhere.
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