Vijayanta, India

T-55 variants Iraq

As a result of the Gulf War with Iran the Iraqi Army requested its Ministry of Defence to develop a local armoured vehicle manufacturing/modernisation industrial capability.

Three of the programmes which resulted from this approach involved what could be done with the many thousands of Soviet T-54/55 and Chinese Type 59/69 series MBTs that were in use with the Iraqi Army. These are: Multilayer armour T-55/Type 69 - this involves the fitting of add-on multi-layer special composite armour packages to the upper glacis area, hull front and turret front and sides, a hinged stand-off armoured screen at the turret front and sides, a hinged stand-off armoured screen at the turret rear to act as a counterbalance to the weight of the armour added at the turret front and modern night vision equipment. With these modifications the combatweight of the modified carrier tank is increased by approximately 4600 kg. Only a few tanks were seen with this modification and all seemed to be associated with the Iraqi 5th Mechanised Division used in the battles around Khafji. The tanks, mostly modified T-55s, were apparently assigned to tank company commanders. Modernised T-54 - it is believed that Iraq had modernised a small number of its old T-54 MBTs using elements of the Romanian T-55 upgrade kit (qv). Rebuilt T-55 - in what is probably the most capable of the armoured vehicle modernisation programmes undertaken by Iraq a small number of T-55/Type 59/Type 69 MBTs have been totally rebuilt with a raised turrel accommodating a locally built Soviel 125 mm 2A46 D81T smoothbore gun complete with its autoloader system, new armoured side skirts, re-arranged turret stowage facilities, four-round electrically-fired smoke discharge assemblies and new passive night vision equipment for the crew.

The fire control system has also been upgraded to a computerised system standard using component elements for the fire control system model used in the Soviet T-72 MET.

It is probable that several countries have helped Iraq with this particular modification programme including Egypt, Romania and Yugoslavia.

Iraq has also modified numbers of its

T-62 series medium tanks and has a T-series rebuild facility for its Chinese and Russian T-54/55/Type 59/Type 69 family of medium tanks. Licensed production from former eastern bloc countries of the T-72 MET is also undertaken on a small scale under the name Babylon Lion (Assad Bablye).

Specification:

First prototype: mid eighties First production: mid eighties Current user: Iraq Crew: Multilayer Armour T-55/Type 69- 4; Rebuilt T-55 - 3 Armament: (main) Multilayer Armour T-55/Type 69 1 x 100 mm gun, rebuilt T-55 1 x 125 mm gun; (coaxial) 1 x 7.62 mm MG; (bow) 1 x 7.62 mm MG; (anti-aircraft) 1 x 7.62 mm MG; (smoke dischargers) 2 x4 No other reliable information is available.

Captured Iraqi Army T-55 Multilayer Armour variant following Operation Desert Storm.