The specificity of the armed forces of the Syrian Arab Republic lies in the dominance of tracked armored vehicles: all light armor on wheels by 2011 was withdrawn to storage bases. Perhaps the reason is in the preferences of the country's leader Bashar al-Assad (formerly a tanker). Therefore, along with tanks, the first strikes of the civil war were received by numerous BMP-1s, of which there are more than 2,000 units in the country. They came from the USSR and Czechoslovakia, and received the baptism of fire in 1973 on the Golan Heights against the Israeli army. They say that the Syrian crews of the BMP-1 even managed to knock out several Israeli tanks with the help of the "Babies". In addition to the infantry fighting vehicle, it is armed with its modifications BREM-2, reconnaissance BRM-1K and "armored" AMB-S.
BMP-1 in Syria. Source: arsenal-otechestva.ru
Armored medical vehicle AMB-S. Source: ria.ru
The latter is a development of Czechoslovakia and is equipped with the necessary medical equipment, which allowed it to become an effective "angel of salvation" for the fighters in the Syrian conflict. The war made its own adjustments to the equipment of the BMP-1, which was the last to go for wars with semi-partisan formations. First of all, lattice screens and armor plates were hung to protect against cumulative ammunition. The first copies of the cars modified in this way date back to mid-2013. Common sense and an acute shortage of protection kits in warehouses in the initial period of the war kept them from installing a contact-1 type DZ on thin armor. Nevertheless, the militants (in particular, the grouping "Akhrar Ash-sham" banned in Russia) nevertheless conducted experiments with strengthening the anti-cumulative protection of BMPs using DZ with all the consequences - gaping breaks in the side armor from the simultaneous explosion of an attacking RPG grenade and a block of dynamic protection.
BMP-1 militants mounted on the tower DZ. Source: vk.com
An additional bonus in the modernization of the BMP-1 was the Sabar optical-electronic warfare complex of local development, designed to jam the TOW ATGM. The BMP-1, like other modifications of light armor, fell to the militants in the form of trophies, often without damage at all. So, on November 25, 2012, they got about 10 serviceable BMP-1 + several T-62 during the seizure of the Mard al-Sultan airbase. And there are a lot of such episodes. To the weak armor of the BMP-1, one more minus with a caliber of 73 mm joins - this is the 2A28 "Thunder" gun, intended primarily for fighting tanks. In a modern situation, this cannon cannot fight tanks properly, and it does not cope very well with enemy infantry. That is why in Syria, on both sides of the front, the BMP-1 was actively equipped with ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft guns and large-caliber machine guns. The BREM-2 did not escape a similar fate: the Syrian military installed a 37-mm cannon on an armored vehicle in an artisanally welded resemblance of a tower.
Modified BREM-2 of government forces. Source: vk.com
At the beginning of 2017, the BMP-1 series "P" BMP-1, which are distinguished by the Tucha smoke grenade launchers and the absence of the Malyutka ATGM, began to arrive from Russia to Syria. This modification was created taking into account the use of the Konkurs and Fagot anti-tank missiles. On the BMP of the first series of the Soviet model, a new type of mounted armor was tested - "corner armor".
BMP-1 with "corner armor". Source: twitter.com
The experience of military operations prompted the Syrians that thin armor plates located at an angle would soften the effect of the cumulative jet on the main armor. Fighters of the 105th brigade of the Republican Guard near Damascus and Deir ez-Zor were among the first to test the novelty in combat conditions. It takes a long time to theorize about the effectiveness of such measures, but there are more and more military vehicles, including tanks equipped with such "know-how", in Syria. At the end of the 80s, a small batch of BMP-2 was delivered to Syria, of which there are now a little more than 100 copies in the republic (according to other sources, up to 350). The great combat effectiveness of the vehicle and its shortage forced the military leadership to leave the BMP-2 only to the elite guards units of the army. The high training of the crews along with close cooperation with the T-72 made it possible to reduce the losses of armored vehicles to a minimum. Actually, the "two" has only one fat minus - it is insufficient booking. During the operation of the "Syrian Express", up to 40 BMP-2s (from the fall of 2015) arrived in the republic in small batches, which can be distinguished by their protective camouflage, which is different from the local sand one.
BMP-2 in Syria. Source: lenta.ru
Non-standard small arms and body armor adapted to the BMP-1. Source: oruzhie.info
Light armored vehicles began to fight in Syria at the same time as heavy ones at the end of April 2011, when government forces attacked militants in the city of Daraa - units of the 5th mechanized division entered the battle. Further, in all the cities where the rebels nestled, military equipment was noticed - then Assad could no longer solve the issue with purely police measures. However, at the end of 2011, the Arab League peace plan entered into force, according to which government troops were withdrawing all heavy equipment from the cities. Bashar al-Assad found it difficult to make clear decisions from the very beginning of the protests. In the event of a sharp and harsh suppression of the demonstration, there was a high probability of repeating the Libyan scenario, when foreign states closed the country's airspace, the opposition armed itself and methodically knocked out all troops loyal to the regime. At best, according to this scenario, Assad had six months or a year to survive. Reacting too mildly to the hotbeds of rebellion will whet the appetites of the rebels, who will demand more and more concessions. As a result, the fate of the Egyptian leader Mubarak or the Tunisian President Ben Ali, who fled from his state, will repeat itself. Therefore, against the backdrop of the fight against protests, the government had to make concessions - to sign the Arab League peace plan. And that turned out to be a mistake. When the tanks left the cities, the hands of the militants, weakly armed with anti-tank equipment at that time, were untied.
BMP-2, destroyed, as it is assumed, ATGM. Source: vk.com
In urban conditions, light armored vehicles lose their main advantage - high mobility. On an infantry fighting vehicle, rushing at 40-50 km / h through the desert or along the highway, it is quite difficult to hit even with a guided missile, not so much with a grenade launcher. And in cities, armored vehicles were trapped in the streets and, without the protection of tanks, were destroyed by dozens. There were also miscalculations of the command, which often sent BMP alone without infantry against the militants, or organized checkpoints of just one or two armored vehicles. In both cases, for grenade launchers, these were tasty and simple targets. The first attempts to somehow strengthen the booking were sandbags, but the effect of them was rather psychological. In general, the number of tanks with light armored vehicles in the SAR was clearly excessive for such a state, and therefore, in the initial period, no one particularly valued them. At the beginning of the war, six armored divisions and four mechanized divisions were fully staffed. Only over time, when the losses began to amount to tens, and sometimes even hundreds, BMPs loaded with assault groups began to be attached to the tanks as support.
BMP, burned by militants when leaving Aleppo. Source: vk.com
As a result, when at the beginning of 2012 the peace plan ordered to live long, virtually the whole country was already dragged into a bloody war. The second crisis of light armored vehicles was the supply of American TOW-2s to the militants, which without any problems not only hit any BMP, but almost 100% kill part of the crew with the landing party. Of course, infantry fighting vehicles are not a key target for the calculation of ATGMs, but they also took over more than 100 missiles with various consequences - from complete combustion to lengthy repairs. And this is only with anti-tank missiles of various origins. For reference: almost 600 confirmed hits of guided missiles in tanks were recorded. As a result, if the BMP-2, due to the rapid-fire cannon, still takes part in battles as support for tanks and infantry, then the BMP-1 in the regular army has become rather an armored vehicle for delivering soldiers to the battlefield and the evacuation of the wounded. Directly involved in the attacks are BMP-1s, which have undergone the procedure of attaching additional armor and installing the KOEP Sabar, the rest actually turned into armored personnel carriers.
The abundance of BMP-1 in the Syrian conflict allows the use of an armored vehicle as a platform or donor for various technical improvisations. For example, government troops are installing rails for the Grad missile launcher and the Vulcan self-developed system on the tracked chassis. A turret with a gun is also used, which is not mounted anywhere - on a tank chassis, on an armored car "Tiger", and simply on a pickup truck from "Toyota".
Kurdish hybrid of a tank and an infantry fighting vehicle. Source: vk.com
The burned-out Tiger armored car with the BMP-1 turret installed. Source: vk.com
Moreover, equipment and militants were noticed in such a "dismemberment". They have found another important use for the penny, giving them a tactical advantage over government forces. BMP-1 became their unsurpassed "jihadmobile", in which a spacious amphibious compartment allows you to load more than one hundred kilograms of explosives, and high mobility and armor sharply complicates attempts to destroy a bomb on tracks in advance.
Self-made RZSO government forces based on BMP-1. Source: vk.com
MLRS "Vulcan" Syrian production. Source: vk.com
"Shahidmobil" BMP-1 with a dismantled turret. Source: vk.com
BMP-1 turret mounted on a pickup truck. Source: vk.com
"Medical Shahidmobile" based on AMB-S, fully equipped. Source: vk.com
High reliability and unpretentiousness, on the one hand, made a series of domestic infantry fighting vehicles real soldiers of the war in Syria, but played a cruel joke, finding themselves in the hands of enemies. The unique maintainability and endurance of the vehicles allowed the militants to restore most of the damaged equipment and again go into battle on it. And BMP is no exception - a similar situation is developing with light armored vehicles of other classes. But we will talk about this in the next part.
