Images of armoured fighting vehicles from the current Syrian conflict are fairly widespread. Some time ago I came across several interesting photographs (dating back to 2013) of a BMP-1 that had been fitted with ERA blocks. Unfortunately, reference material was pretty scarce, but my friend, Marián Bunc provided some useful information on the subject. Evidently, the vehicle in question belonged to the Ahraral- Sham (a coalition of Islamist and Salafist units fighting against Syrian Government Forces). The Reactive Armour Kontakt-1 (a Soviet type of ERA) had been taken from two destroyed T-72AV tanks … in theory, a good idea, but one that spelt disaster for the BMP. Shortly after the photographs were taken, the vehicle was totally destroyed in its first encounter. Clearly, whoever had the notion of fitting this type of additional armour to the vehicle had not understood just how weak the BMP-1’s panels were; when the ERA blocks exploded, they caused extensive damage to the vehicle, and serious injuries to the crew.
