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Units of the Syrian Army eliminated several units of terroirst groups, which attempted to attack army positions in northern Hama, the country’s state-run news agency SANA reported on January 8.
According to the SANA’s reporter in Hama, the army repelled an infiltration attempt from the direction of al-Dawrat valley, the area east of al-Latamina town.
“Scores of terrorists were killed and others were injured while the remnants fled away towards their dens and gatherings to the north,” the SANA wrote.
Separately, army units erportedly shelled terrorists, who tried to infiltrate from the direction of Mourek town, 30 km to the north of Hama city.
“A number of terrorists were killed in the bombardments and others were injured, in addition to destroying their weapons and ammunition,” the SANA wrote on this development.
On January 7, the SANA reported that the army had repelled attacks from the directions of Ma’arkiba and al-Latamina towards a number of military posts and safe areas in northern Hama. The angecy claimed that the army actions had inflicted “heavy losses upon them in the personnel and equipment”.
It should be noted that the Syrian state-run media reports on ceasefire violations by militant groups operating in the Idlib de-escalation zone on a cosntant basis. In turn, the “opposition” accuses the Damascus government of violating the ceasefire.
However, this situation can change in the nearest future in the event of further Hayat Tahrir al-Sham expansion in southern Idlib. If the terorist group consolidates its gains and expands areas under its control across the de-escalation zone, the situation in the demilitarized zone near the province of Idlib will likely deteriorate further. This development will undermine all the previous efforts of Damascus, Russia, Iran and Turkey to de-escalate the situation in this part of the country.
A question to the specialists, what will happen in a combat between T-90 and Leopard 2 tanks?
In the end it will be the same as in 1945 :) On the serious note – In Syria Turkish Leopards showed poor results while T-90 showed itself well. Both were not the latest models.
As far as I’m aware Tudor, the SAA do not have any T 90s only T 72s and below
They do have limited number of T90A. There is a well known video of rats striking a T90 with tow. Syrian crew was “a bit careless” and Shtora was not switched on. Direct hit and huge explosion after which stunned but alive crew gets out of the tank in a bit of a shock :) https://youtu.be/dPGzXm2Qb64 I can’t find the full video but in the one I’ve seen earlier – crew see that tank is actually OK and gets back into it. There were later photo’s of this tank with minor damage of auxilaries. Here’s a combat footage (onboard) of Syrian crew working in T90A https://youtu.be/8s1zEIs1Qno So old export version of T90 is present in Syria and showed good survivability.
Never knew tanks were so noisy!
What you hear in the 2nd video is mostly engine sound and autoloader after each shot.
I like Russian tanks but they have quite a history of being noisy. T-34’s in particular were deafening. I reckon their crews would develop hearing damage. If they had survived for that long that is.
God give them strength to end Fukustris Adventurism in Syria.
Thanks for above info Tudor, only remembered the video clip once you mentioned it. How could I have forgotten about it, once I reviewed it, there it was rembered completely. Will have to try reorganising files in the gray matter
Holidays effect? ;)
More like my flakey hard drive… Lol
At least Tigers Forces have some.
The ratio of the range of the cannons is 4,5 km to 3 km.
And yet the Turks had spent a lot of money having the Israelis upgrade to Leopards. The upgrades turned out to be useless.
no need for a specialist as the answer is simple. The one who spots the other first, shoots first. Also, outnumbering the enemy helps a lot.
I saw the range, T-90 can fire an ATGM at 5,000 meters.
Only when the one who spots first knows how to aim. And aim well. Effective range and targeting sights do matter. A good well trained and motivated crew will do better in that regard. Overall both the Turks and Syrians haven’t exactly shined in that regard.
The skilled Arab crew will abandon it because a bird took a dump on it. Araba can’t drive tanks!
As with any fight that depends more how well the crews are trained, how well they are motivated, how well they are supported in the field and how good the fighting doctrine is of each army. All those factors decide way way more the outcome of a war then the quality of a fighting vehicle.
And yet we continue to think vehicle quality matters that much in war.
It depends on what you consider “vehicle quality” Is it being able to drive after being hit, ability to withstand fire, ability to protects its crew, amounts of weapons, amount of protection, etc etc
True, but good well trained crews with a good fighting doctrine and combined arms support can make their inferior tanks made to work. On paper the USSR had a better tank in the T-34 then the Germans had with the Pz-III and IV. And yet T-34’s kept dying by the thousands as the Germans knew how to handle their tanks better.
Vehicle quality matters, but matters most when enemy crews are evenly matched in their handling qualities. But when has that ever been the case?
Agree, all weapons is only as good as the one operating it.
I believe that the T-55/62/72 have gotten a bad reputation because of the lack of crew training, bad tactics, bad 3rd party parts and pretty shitty copy´s.
I believe that there is to many instances that “inadequately” trained troops have hidden themselfes behind technology and when they loose that technology they cant get creative and actually do some problemsolving.
In some instances i really did admire the freedomfighters we encountered in Iraq, they had a ingenuity like no others. Sometimes when we found where they shot IDF (indirect fire) from, i stood there thinking; wow thats actually good and clever.
Methinks that implementing proper Soviet doctrine was as hard for any Arab country as has been implementing proper NATO doctrines. It’s just not compatible with their culture. Arabs seem to be really good at hit and run asymmetrical warfare, while when you try to make them fight a conventional war it just falls apart. Which is why when they went up against Israel, which has a culture that meshes with NATO fighting doctrines, they got hammered each and every time. Until the Israelis went up against Hezbollah, which fought them asymmetrically, using a style of warfare which suited its culture way better. And then the Israelis proved ineffective. Similarly we see that the Saudis, using their Western trained conventional army, fall apart against asymmetrically fighting Houthi fighters. Or that the US could easily smash the Iraqi army which fought using Soviet conventional doctrine, but had a hard time fighting asymmetrical Iraqi insurgents.
I think this is why the Russians have more or less decided to take control of the Syrian army, using advisors down to battalion levels, in order for it to finally stand up and defeat Jihadi insurgents. They seemed to understand that in order to make an Arab army fight well you need to understand and work with Arab culture. And that you can’t just train them and tell them ‘now go forth and fight!’
Agree.
Remember the canal crossing in ´73 by the Egyptians, it was done by the book, prepared in every way just perfect.
But then the Egyptians decided to move outside their AA/AT umbrella against the advice by the Soviets.
I highly recommend the book “Arabs at war” by Kenneth Pollack ISBN 0-8032-8783-6
Good job to the Syrian army.