TOW Scores first T 90 A kill in Syria

TOW Scores first T 90 A kill in Syria

TOW a second generation anti tank guided missile successfully taken out a Russian T 90 A modern battle tank in Syrian theater. The TOW crew's are American and western trained free Syrian army members,  The rebellion group who fighting against Assad since years. and the T 90 A is the modern Russian MBT, which was recently shipped into Syria manned by either Russian or Syrian soldiers.

Video's found in yesterday in twitter that, Free Syrian rebels who operates the second generation wire guided anti tanks missile, successfully intercepted a T 90 A tanks, The video's is incomplete. as it shows the TWO missile strikes close to the 12.7 mm cannon, and creates a big fire, within a moments tank operators seems abandoning the tanks and running away. after math of the attack big smokes arises from the tank. guessing Tank ready to explode.

Modern battle tanks are better equipped with new generation countermeasure suites to effectively counter, guided and unguided missiles and shells. known as soft kill technology by disabling their guidance and communication. Tanks like T 90 A, Abrams, Leclerc and Merkava has such systems. which gives additional protection to the tank.

Mostly the T 90 A comes with three layer of defense, first is the composite armour body, which gives strength and provide safe cover to the Tank from any kind of attacks. second is the ERA tiles, explosive reactor armour is a pack of explosives fitted in the Tanks body, which can counter react against guided missiles.

Third is the soft kill mechanism, The Russians and many other T 90 operators using Shtora countermeasure systems. The systems comes with two infrared jammers, which can jam infrared or command guided missiles like TOW, Milan and other second generation missiles. the IR Jammers jams any kind of command guided missiles who uses infrared to guide the missile.

This is where the Russian Tank failed to prove against the TOW missile. It's a bitter shock to analysts after the Su 24 easily shoot downed by the Turks. T 90 A is believed to be one of the better main battle tank in service of more than five countries include India.The Shtora failed to respond against the threat, thus makes destruction of the Tank.

The system also comprising laser warning receivers, who alert the crew, If anyone pointed the Tanks with laser guided missiles. Laser guided missiles like Hell fire and Javelin tracks the tank using laser beams. laser beams can be countered by smoke. So if Tank detects possibility of laser beams, they launch smoke Grenade to escape from the zone using the cover of smoke.

Additionally the Israeli's using active protection system, who act like a CIWS in Tank. The APS provide fourth cover to the Israeli Tanks.

When comes to Indian Scenario, India operates more than thousands of T 90 A, double than the Russian figures, The T 90 tank procurement is one of the kickback deal, where Russia agreed to provide complete ToT, who later provide less technologies, The Russians refused to provide the basic composite armour technology in T 90. Later India developed Kanchan armour which was used in Arjun Tanks.

India is the only country who always omit Russian EW system in every procurement, from Su 30 MKI to T 90 S, India omitted Russian countermeasure system. The Indian T 90 tanks they using the Swedish Saab designed LEDS 150 countermeasure soft kill mechanism. which will be replace the unreliable Shtora systems in T 90 A.

It's better that Indian Tanks are have more powerful and reliable EW systems than the Russian and other countries T 90 tanks. The Pakistani's and Chinese have tons of wire guided anti tank guided missiles who is waiting to blow up the Indian armor's. Anyway it's better that Indian T 90 MS has better protection than the Russian system.

Info on BGM 71 - TOW

TOW stands for Tube Launched Optically tracked Wire guided missile system, Which can engage targets upto some four kilometers with line of sight command. Which means the operator keep an eye on the Target till the missile hits.

TOW uses HEAT warhead, used to destroy tanks complete and igniting fire in ammo storage. HEAT stands for High Explosive anti tank warhead. The missile penetrate the tank using shaped charges then injects the ammunition inside the tank, will explode the tank completely.

FSA is known operator of the TOW missile, since the Syrian Civil war more than hundreds of armored vehicles were destroyed by Syrian rebels using the TOW missile.