Russo-Ukrainian War: The Russian "Bylat Mobile"

Source: @drone_wars_ on Instagram

     Derided as “Bylat Mobiles” and in polite company as “Turtle Tanks”, the monstrosity shown in this photograph would be more at home on Fury Road in the Mad Max film franchise. It does, however, illustrate the current trend in Russian ad-hoc anti-drone defense. Turtle tanks first started to appear in 2024 and early ones consisted of a metal frame welded onto a tank chassis to which sheet metal was applied. This “shell” covered the entire top and sides of the tank with the only openings being the front and back. As the Ukrainians learned to utilize FPV drones against these turtle tanks, the Russians evolved the design and this usually encompassed enclosing the rear of the tank, adding metal chains along the front opening, fitting rubber panels along the front, rear, and sides of the tank, and adding drone jammers to the exterior of the enclosure. Even with these measures, turtle tanks could still be engaged by FPV drones. Jammers may or may not work against a frequency an attacking drone is operating on and since there are parts of a turtle tank that can still be hit by a FPV drone, it is possible to get a mobility kill (and other drones or artillery can finish the tank off) or a catastrophic kill if the turtle tank is carrying ammunition. The advent of fiber-optic, wire-guided FPV drones means jammers are no longer effective and chains, which are used to foul drone propellers, cannot be deployed effectively across the entirety of the tank. The solution Russian crews found is what you see here, twisted wire cables. The cabling is unwound and the individual wires spread apart to form stiff metal “branches”. When these “bushes” of wire are combined together across the exterior of the tank, it makes for a serious challenge for Ukrainian FPV drone operators to get through to the tank without propellers or the drone itself colliding with a wire. In fact, there have been a few social media images which show Ukrainian FPV drones “impaled” on these wires, preventing a successful hit. So, while the concept looks ridiculous, it has a measure of effectiveness.

     The Russians typically deploy turtle tanks in the assault where they lead follow-on troops towards Ukrainian positions. More often than not, the turtle tanks are equipped with KMT-7 mine rollers (sometimes combined with KMT-6 or KMT-8 mine ploughs) so that they can clear away any mines that could hold up troops coming up behind. Turtle tanks also don't usually carry ammunition for the main gun as it is either non-functional or the traverse is so limited as to be useless. This also has the effect of making survivability from a successful hit somewhat higher for the crew. Not surprisingly, turtle tanks attract a lot of attention from FPV drones and if the drones cannot at least score a mobility kill, it might be up to Ukrainian anti-tank teams to knock out the vehicle before it gets close. 

     It is neigh short of impossible to tell what model of tank is inside the enclosure built up around it. The crew has liberally covered the exterior with metal 4S22 explosive reactive armor boxes which are usually seen fitted to the side skirts of T-90M tanks (which has 40 boxes in all, 20 per side of the tank). This provides added protection against shaped charge munitions. The triangle with a solid triangle within it is a more recent Russian tactical symbol for units in a particular area of operations. It is not a unit specific symbol. Of interest, it appears that a venerable BDSh-5 smoke canister has been fitted to the tank. These were used on Soviet tanks prior to the introduction of the 902A “Tucha” smoke grenade launchers in 1981. The BDSh-5 is deployed by releasing it to drop to the ground where it would be electrically triggered to initiate the generation of a smoke screen. The process is done from within the tank.

Russo-Ukrainian War: The Lada VAZ-2114 Samara

Source: Reddit

     The sad state of affairs for some Russian Federation units in regards to troop transport is displayed in excellent form here. As of June 10, 2025, the Russians have lost an estimated 51,579 vehicles (trucks, fuel tankers, logistical vehicles, etc.) and 22,783 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles (tracked and wheeled). These are losses that Russian production cannot keep up with and so Russian units that lack vehicles commandeer whatever they can in order to ride rather than walk. The vehicle in question here is a civilian Lada VAZ-2114 Samara 5-door hatchback. Built by the Russian company AvtoVAZ and sold under the Lada brand, the VAZ-2114 is a variant of the original Lada VAZ-2108 compact car which first appeared in 1984. The Samara name was not used until 1991. Before that, the car was called the Lada Sputnik. Production ended in 2013.

     Appearing in 1987, the 1-ton VAZ-2114 was initially offered with three engine types (1.1, 1.3, and 1.5 liter) but in 2001, the 1.5-liter engine was the only motor used until 2007 when an optional 1.6-liter 8V (8 valve per cylinder) engine was offered. The basic 1.5-liter inline engine is a fuel-injected, 4-cylinder petrol motor that develops 79 horsepower. It has two valves per cylinder and has a OHC (Overhead Camshaft) valve train. This means the camshaft sits in the cylinder head, above the combustion chamber. The VAZ-2114 is a front-wheel drive car with a 5-speed manual transmission. Total fuel capacity is a tad over 11 gallons and in the city, the VAZ-2114 averages around 26 miles per gallon. Maximum road speed is 102 miles per hour. It takes the car 13 seconds to get up to 62 miles per hour.

     Other aspects of the VAZ-2114 include spring strut front suspension, trailing arm rear suspension, disc front brakes, drum rear brakes, rack and pinion steering, 15 cubic feet of truck space, multi-port manifold fuel injection, and seating for five.

     Returning to the photograph, the crew of the VAZ-2114 have added a PVC pipe frame around the upper portion of the car and draped in what appears to be nylon netting. There are black cables running through the netting and along some of the piping which may run to EW (Electronic Warfare) equipment. The back portion of the roof has been cut away along with the rear hatch to make an open compartment. A hand rail can be seen behind the front seats. In the front of the VAZ-2114 is a piece of rubberized canvas to protect the lower front of the car. What is on the end of the two prongs isn't known. The VAZ-2114 uses 165/70 R13 tires and the front tires have been replaced with off-road tires to improve traction (since it is a front-wheel drive car).

The Libyan Civil War: Rebel BMP-1 Turret Technicals

     Two Libyan rebel NSTVs (Non-Standard Tactical Vehicles) or “technicals” as such vehicles are known in professional military circles. During the Libyan Civil War, rebels made heavy use of technicals as did pro-Gaddafi forces. The rebels utilized technicals as a means to create high mobility vehicles to rapidly deploy troops as well as conduct hit-and-run engagements. Such vehicles were a necessity given the rebels had very little in the way of vehicles capable of mounting heavy weapons and genuine armored vehicles and tanks were a rarity in rebel forces. 

     These two technicals are fitted with turrets removed from BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles (likely taken from captured but non-functional BMP-1s). The turret houses a 73mm 2A28 "Grom" low-pressure, smoothbore semi-automatic gun along with a coaxial 7.62 mm PKT machine gun. From other images of similar “tank trucks”, a square metal support frame is locally fabricated upon which the turret is placed, the entire support frame secured to the bed of the pick-up truck. It is unlikely the electric turret traverse is kept (no doubt to save weight) and so the turret has to be turned manually. One such truck, involved in the Battle of Galaa in June 2011, showed that when firing, the weapon operator manually loaded the gun (as the automatic loader was either not present or discarded) and dismounted the truck although a simple computer chair was situated beneath the turret for the gunner. The operator reached his arm up into the turret and used his hand to trigger the gun. Upon firing, recoil was experienced on the truck though not to a significant degree though how many shots the support frame could take before failing is not known. 

     It is doubtful that these “tank trucks” fire the gun while on the move and are more likely used as mobile, direct fire artillery as the gun can fire a high-explosive round in addition to a HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) round. In most cases, the 1PN22M1 6x/6.7x magnification image intensifying monocular periscope sight used by the BMP-1’s gunner is kept (seen to the left of the gun on the turret top). The flat rail on top of the gun mantlet is for the fitting of a 9M14 Malyutka (NATO codename AT-3 Sagger) ATGM (Anti-Tank Guided Missile) though no rebel “tank trucks” have been seen with a Sagger mounted.