The enthusiasm of russians when it comes to tank and other combat vehicles "tuning" is well known at this point, manifesting in various ways throughout almost a year and a half of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Sometimes it looks as if they were competing in decorating their vehicles in the Mad Max movie style.
But occasionally some puzzling vehicles appear that have been modified to the point almost beyond recognition. In the video below we can see an example of such.
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Most likely, it is a standard T-72B or even T-72A, considering the inclined layout of the Kontakt-1 reactive armor elements on the top front of the hull. But the most confusing is the significantly morphed turret. It received a sort of bustle rack behind the turret, a traditional slat armor "grill" on top, and a strange structure in the front.
Even if the structure built in the back of the turret is indeed a bustle rack, it's larger than the one of the T-90M Proryv, it covers the entire engine and transmission unit. Provided that it's most likely an old T-72 with a cast steel turret, the chance of an actual bustle rack installed there is quite low. Instead, most likely it's a hollow framework welded to the turret and covered with a camouflage net as a canopy on top.
The modification in the front is even less comprehensible, and the low quality of the video is one of the factors. Overall it seems to be not a monolithic structure but a frame, too. Perhaps covered with a tarp.
If our suggestions are correct, the general idea behind this creation was to protect the tank from suicide drones and droppable explosives. This comes from the fact that in the standard neutral turret position both the rear and front are covered, while the turret itself is protected by the slat armor cage above.
The functionality of this whole structure is doubtful because this way the driver can only get out of the vehicle when the turret is pointed at least 45° to the side. Worth noting, it only adds to the T-72 innate ergonomic problem because the driver's hatch is usually blocked by the gun when the latter's directed forward. Additionally, there's the issue of air conditioning for the engine unit because obstacles might lead to overheating.
Although generally, if what we see in this video is really an anti-drone protection structure, all these modifications do make sense for covering the tank against this kind of threat.
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