Russia is rushing production of its new Arena-M active protection system (APS) to better protect its ageing T-72B3 and T-90A main battle tanks (MBTs) against the American BGM-71 TOW anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) that's destroyed hundreds of T-72 MBTs and other armored fighting vehicles of the Syrian Arab Army.
The Russian-made T-72s operated by the Syrian Army have shown themselves to be practically defenseless against TOW, and there are numerous videos on YouTube posted by the Free Syrian Army and other anti-Assad groups that can attest to this.
The Arena-M can protect T-72s and T-90s of the Russian Ground Forces from TOW, said Valery Kashin, Chief Designer of the Machine-Building Design Bureau.
"According to the information we have on these missiles, the Arena-M will undoubtedly be able to protect a tank from a TOW," the chief designer said.
Arena-M, the newest version of the system designed to counter RPGs, is currently undergoing trials in Russia, said Kashin.
"Over the past time, Army Commander-in-Chief Colonel-General Oleg Salyukov has visited the Machine-Building Design Bureau twice. We agreed to sharply intensify the work. Now the active protection complexes for T-72 and T-90 tanks are at the stage of preliminary trials," said Kashin.
Arena consists of a multi-functional radar of increased jamming resistance designed to detect and track ATGMs. "Instant-effect protective ammunition" is used to destroy incoming ATGMs. These defensive rockets are arranged in launchers around the turret.
Russia has every reason to be concerned about the lethality of TOW since most of the Russian tanks lined-up against NATO are variants of the almost obsolete T-72 MBT developed by the defunct Soviet Union.
It won't be the heavily hyped "super tank," the T-14 Armata that will lead any Russian offensive against NATO over the next few years, but the latest version of the 40 year-old T-72, said the commander of the Ground Forces of the Russian Federation or the Russian Army.
The Russian Army doesn't have a single combat worthy T-14 Armata in its inventory since it was only in September 2016 the Ministry of Defense signed an order for a pilot batch of more than 100 Armatas that will all be used in field trials.
On the other hand, the army has 2,600 operational main battle tanks, of which 1,900 are various models of the T-72 that formed the armored backbone of the defunct Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. The T-72 entered service with the Soviet Army in 1973.
Colonel General Oleg Salyukov, Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces of the Russian Federation, admitted his army's best tank is the T-72B3, a heavily upgraded version of the outdated T-72.
"Modernized tanks, (the) T-72B3, are currently arriving for the troops," said Gen. Salyukov.