Because of the squeaky-clean US Army, we tend to think everybody goes to war with freshly pressed uniforms and washed tanks. Not so in Syria, where factions are locked in a dirty war of attrition, where just about nothing is discarded and everything is reused.
This short clip shows how an old Toyota or Mitsubishi pickup truck has been transformed to carry a small tank turret into combat. Shoot and scoot tactics are used to fire and return to cover, minimizing the time in which the completely unprotected driver is exposed.
To be fair, this isn't actually a tank turret. It likely belongs to an old Syrian army armored personnel carrier, like the Soviet-made BMP-1. The turret should weigh around 3 or 4 tons and have a maximum armor plating of 30 millimeters, resistant to small arms and RPGs.
The Syrian army had about 2,000 BMP-1s, tens of which were destroyed or captured by the Anti-government insurgents since March 2011. We can only presume that the original crew of this vehicle was killed in combat and their non-running vehicle stripped of its useful parts, such as that 73mm low pressure smoothbore short-recoil semi-automatic gun we see being put to "good" use on the back of a pickup.
As weird as they are, such guerrilla tactics have been in use since the first wars existed. During World War II, the cash-strapped German army used Russian guns on damaged Panzer chassis or turned anti-aircraft artillery into tank killers on half-tracked trucks.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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