Russia is fielding tanks outfitted with anti-aircraft guns first deployed during the Cold War. Pictures of an S-60 anti-aircraft gun fitted onto a BTS-4, which is based on the World War II era T-55, circulated on Twitter and Telegram this week. Over the past few months, ancient tanks fitted with naval guns, artillery cannons, and other parts that don’t normally go together have also been spotted on the battlefield. Moscow’s military is stretched thin ahead of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, short of armor and low on ammunition, it’s innovating by cobbling together what it has.
Open source intelligence outfit Oryx monitors Russia’s war in Ukraine and keeps a list of vehicles it spotted, but have not yet been destroyed. The list is getting weirder. There’s a Russian ATS-59G artillery tractor equipped with a 25mm naval gun, MT-LB armored personnel carriers from the 1970s outfitted with various kinds of naval guns, and BTS-4 tank chassis equipped with both artillery cannons and anti-aircraft guns. Some were spotted in the field, others were spotted on transport on their way to the frontline.
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Russia has lost around 2,000 tanks in Ukraine and it’s been hard pressed to make due with what remains, according to Oryx. In March, it took 75-year-old tanks out of storage and shipped them to the front. During the May 9 victory parade in Moscow this year, a single antique T-34 tank rumbled through Red Square. There were more than 100 tanks in last year’s parade.
The anti-aircraft and artillery cannon photos fitted to old tanks indicate that the World War II era weapons probably won’t be involved in direct fighting. There’s intelligence to suggest that some of these machines have been sent to Russian howitzer divisions, meaning they’d be used as armored positions where they’ll fire indirectly on Ukraine during its advance. This isn’t the only time tanks have been converted into artillery on the battlefield.
Ukraine has been converting captured Russian armor, including the BTS-4, into similar contraptions. In Iraq in 2016, a government-aligned militia group showed off its own T-55 tank topped by an S-60 anti-aircraft gun. Weapons are converted in the field all time and a desperate military will use the resources available to it to each its objectives. The converted tanks of Russia may look silly at first, but they also speak to a deadly desire to win. At the very least it shows that Russia is not going to stop fighting because it depleted its stock of the best and latest weapons.
