Iraqi

T-55�Enigma�

Iraqi

T-55�Enigma�

Photography, writing,design, layout, etc.

Jakko Westerbeke <jakko@xs4all.nl>www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/afv

Thanks toRobert Lockie for all his help with getting the turret

armour mountings right.Simon Barnes, Philipe Bonnet, Stephen Brezinski,

Robin Buckland and Matthew W. Malogorski�forpointers to models I didn�t know about, for their com-ments about the ACE kit on the Missing Links forums,and/or for their pointers to photos of the real Enigma.

Alexey Blaschuk from ACE Models for clarifying thearmour thickness on that manufacturer�s kit.

Technical stuffThe photographs in this net.book were taken using an

Asahi Pentax SV 35-mm SLR camera and a Fujifilm6900Zoom digital camera, those of the former beingdigitised with an HP ScanJet 3400C scanner, while thecomputer graphics were created with POV-Ray 3.5 andthe KPovModeler 0.20 and 1.0 front-ends for it. Thedocument was laid out in Palatino Linotype, FuturaXBlk BT and CombiNumerals, using QuarkXPress 4.1for Windows. The PDF was created with AdobeAcrobat Distiller 3.01 and worked on with AdobeAcrobat Exchange 3.0.

Copyright & distributionThis document is copyright © 2003 by Jakko

Westerbeke, all rights reserved. Unless otherwiseindicated, all photographs and other illustrations inthis document are copyright © 2000-2003 by JakkoWesterbeke.

This document may be freely distributed, on the fol-lowing conditions: that no changes or modifications aremade to the document in any way; and that no profit ismade off the distribution.

Other imagesPhotograph of Cromwell Models conversion set on

page 5 taken from Cromwell Models� web site(www.xs4all.nl/~cromwell), used without permission.

ACE kit box art on page 5 taken from ACE Models website (www.acemodel.com.ua), used without permission.

�Page-with-slide� icon taken from the GNOME 2.0default icon set, and �WWW-globe� icon on page 5taken from Nautilus� default icon set; seewww.gnome.org for either.

In the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq fielded a large fleet ofRussian T-55 main battle tanks, as well as their Chinesecousins, the Type 59 and 69 MBTs. A number of the for-mer had been fitted with increased armour on the hulland turret front, apparently for use as command vehi-cles; these latter were soon dubbed �Enigma� T-55s.Several were captured by Coalition forces, and somewere subsequently shipped to the USA, Britain andFrance for display.

DescriptionIn essence, the Enigma is a standard T-55 MBT with

some modifications, so detailed information aboutthings such as layout, drive system, armament and soon will not be given here�there is plenty of informationavailable on the T-54/55-series of tanks that will providethe basics.

The Enigma modification basically consists ofthe installation of extra armour blocks on theparts of the vehicle most likely to be subject toenemy fire. Although the blocks are large and

very thick, they are not solid; rather, they are hollowboxes made from steel plates welded together, with fouradditional plates inside, spaced several centimetres apart.

The hull has two large, slab-like panels on theglacis plate, with holes cut into them so that thevehicle�s towing hooks remain accessible. Theseblocks are held on the front of the hull by means

of four bolts passing through them, near the corners, andby one or two bolts into vertical brackets welded to theglacis plate. A smaller block, held on by two bolts goingthrough it, is fitted on the top of each mudguard, fillingthe gap between the glacis blocks and the side armour.

This latter consists of a row of eight blocks,the front edge of which is approximately levelwith the hinge that holds on the front curvedsection of mudguard. The first block has its top

sloping forward, but all the others are rectangular�though they are not of equal size, getting larger towardthe back.

The side armour is fixed to the vehicle bybrackets on the rear (inside) face of each block,through which two bolts pass into a horizontalsteel bar of 5 × 10 cm cross-section running

along the side of the mudguard. More steel bars behindit anchor this to the hull side; these bars, of 5 × 5 cmcross-section, appear to have been welded on topof the normal mudguard. Additionalbraces made from steel sheet havealso been fitted.

On the turret, thearmour consists offour, wedge-shapedblocks on each side of the

turret. The rear three blocks oneach side are the same size, but

the front block is larger; it is also wider on the left thanon the right, but this is probably explained by the factthat the T-55�s turret is asymmetrical in order to acco-modate the gunner.

The turret blocks are spaced away from themain armour by a framework made from hol-low metal beams, like those used for the sidearmour mountings but of 5 × 7 cm cross-section.

Along the rear edge of each block is a vertical beam withspacers made from the same material to hold themounting assembly some distance away from the turret.The lower spacer is horizontal, while the top one is fit-ted at 90° to the vertical bar. These spacers are simplywelded to the turret, but their length varies dependingon the block. The first block on the right and the secondone on the left side also have such a mounting at the

front edge of the block. Steel plates, cut to fit theturret curve, close the gaps between armour andturret at the front and back of each section offour blocks.

Running between the mountings are two horizontalcrossbars, one near the top and one near the bottomedge of the block. The armour blocks are bolted to theseby brackets similar to those used for the hullside blocks,but shallower in height. There is one bracket above andone below each of the crossbeams.

The exception to all of the above is the leftfront block, which does not appear to have ashaped plate, and which is hinged at its top sothat it can be lifted up for access to the driver�s

hatch�which would otherwise be blocked. The hingeconsists of two sections welded to the turret, holdingbetween them a third section that is welded to theblock. Additionally, the left front block does not havethe normal mounting brackets, but instead has two

lengths of steel beam, some 15 cm long,welded to its back to space it away from

the turret. Two steel coil springsattached to the top of the

block, and to the turret, pro-vide the counter-balance

needed to lift the heavy piece ofarmour, and a locking lever is located

on the inside to secure the block in the downposition. A further locking pin is located on the second

block, presumably for use by another crew member tolock the block down after the driver has enteredhis compartment.

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Left turret armour

Right hullside armour

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The right rear block is also hinged, but has nosprings; the hinge itself is also of completely dif-ferent design to that of the left front armourblock. Furthermore, the normal spacing

brackets are installed on this block, but so is anadditional one with a gap of a few cen-timetres betweenit and the verticalbracket of theblock in front. Thepurpose of thisblock�s hinge ismost likely so thatone of the engineaccess hatches can be opened�the ones at the front ofthe engine deck are normally blocked by the turret, soon a standard T-55 that must be traversed through90 degrees before the hatches can be opened for mainte-nance. With the additional armour, even when the tur-ret is traversed to the right, the rear armour block wouldbe in the way of one of the hatches if it were not hinged.

Finally, the rear of the turret has two armsextending from brackets welded to the rear ofthe turret, with a crossbar connecting the two atthe back. Four rectangular blocks of armour

hang from the rear as a counterweight to the mass of theadded armour on the front face, which would otherwisehave made traversing the turret very difficult.

One of the most noticeable things about theadditional armour is the construction, whichappears extremely shod-dy�large weld beads are

visible all over, and even withoutmeasuring them, it is obviousthat no two blocks are exactlythe same size (except perhapsby accident rather than design).Take out a tape measure, and itbecomes very clear that perfection wasnot foremost on the Iraqis� minds when they con-structed this armour. For example, the bottoms of theside armour blocks are in line while their tops are not(leading to the conclusion that they were lined up onthe ground), but the metal bar onto which the blocksare bolted slopes downward slightly from front to backon one side, and from back to front on the other; sincethe bar is welded onto the side of the tank�s mudguard,the result is that the rear blocks sit slightly higher orlower than the front ones.

The strange thing is that this gives the tank the appear-ance of having armour that was hastily cobbled togeth-er out of whatever materials were available, while thedetails lead to another conclusion. The most obviousproof of this is in the lights: all of them, including thesmall station-keeping lights for night driving, have beenrepositioned on top of the new armour, with powercables extended to make sure they work�which is notsomething to be expected from a rush job.

The T-55 normally has three fuel cells on the rightmudguard: one in front of the turret, and two behindit. The front one was removed for the Enigma con-version, as the mudguard it sits on had to be

strengthened. The long, narrow bin that is normal-ly on the left-hand mudguard was put in roughly

the fuel tank�s place, however. An oil tank isnormally located between the fuel tanks, butthis was moved to be on top of the exhaust, onthe left mudguard. Finally, the rectangular

bin that is at the front of the left mudguardwas placed on top of the struts that hold theturret rear armour/counter-balance.

A point of note is that some tanks, such as the one pic-tured on the following pages, has a Russian-styleloader�s hatch with machine gun mount. Some other pic-tures of uparmoured T-55s, however, show vehicles thatwere fitted with Iraqi-designed loader�s hatches withmachine gun mounts.

Colours & markingsLike most other Iraqi vehicles, the Enigma tanks

were painted in a sand colour, to blend in with thedesert terrain. Although notorious for having wornpaint that chipped off all over the vehicle, judging byphotographs taken in the 1991 Gulf War, the paintjobs of Enigma T-55s were in fairly good condition,

certainly compared to a lot of otherIraqi equipment.

The Enigma tanks were apparentlyused mainly (or perhaps exclusive-ly) as command tanks, though at

which level (company, battalion,etc.) is not known. As most captured

examples seem to have been repaintedsince their arrival at the various museums, any

original markings on them have been obliterated;the tank in this net.book an exception, but it doesnot appear to have had any Iraqi markings at all.

The photosThe tank pictured in this net.book is in the collection of

the Tank Museum in Bovington Camp, UnitedKingdom. According to reports on the Modern discus-sion forum at Missing Links, the basic tank appears tobe a Czechoslovakian- or Polish-built vehicle.

This specific tank also appears in a few photographs inthe Concord book, After the Storm: Iraqi Wrecks &Fortifications, by Eric Micheletti, easily recognisable bythe large �Jeanne� spray-painted on the side armour. Inthis book, it is captioned as being on the highway fromKuwait City to Umm Qasr, and as belonging to the Iraqi14th Infantry Division. Some small photographs of it arealso in Sword in the Sand: U.S. Marines in the Gulf War by

Tony Engelhart and Pat Foran, though in this itis much less recognisable because the mostobvious graffiti (such as the �Jeanne + Chris�

Right turret armour

Rear turretarmour

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Iraqi T-55 �Enigma�

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and ��91 Calvin & Hobbs� tags) either cannot be seen inthe pictures, or they were taken before most of the graf-fiti was applied. Other graffiti in those pictures, howev-er, seems to indicate the vehicle was captured by the USMarine Corps.

Some things these books show quite clearly is that thetank had rammed the rear of another (non-uparmoured)T-55 in front of it, and that somehow the two fuel tankson the right rear mudguard had fallen off the upar-moured tank. Interestingly, these photos also seem toindicate one serviceman went home with a souvenirEnigma armour block in his pack: the earliest photos

(where no graffiti has yet been sprayed onto thetank) show the left front block in place, whereasin the photos with graffiti, it has mysteriouslydisappeared �

Interestingly, over the years �Jeanne� seems to have lostmuch of the initial graffiti, though it is obvious it was stillin its original paint in 2002.

Modelling the Enigma

Naturally, the mainrequirement for build-ing a model of thistank is a T-55 kit;although these areavailable from atleast four differentmanufacturers, really the only oneworth buying in 1:35th scale is the Tamiya kit. The vari-ous kits by Esci, Skif and Trumpeter all have numerousproblems in both details and general accuracy that makethem poor choices even if they are much cheaper thanthe excellent Tamiya kit.

Similarly, a few different Enigma conversion kits arealso available, including from AEF Designs, CromwellModels and Verlinden. The latterwas originally made for the Esci kit,but has been re-released (with fewor no changes) as being suitable forthe Tamiya kit as well; unfortunate-ly it suffers from lots of dimensionalinaccuracies.

The Cromwell set, number CA131,was made for the Tamiya kit, and ismuch more accurate than the

Verlinden one; apparently, it was based on the samevehicle pictured in this net.book. Not much is known atthis time about the AEF Designs set except its title,KM-14 Iraqi �Command� tank, while Accurate Armourhave also announced an Enigma conversion, includingdecals, for release in 2004 as conversion kit C084.

In 1:72nd scale,ACE produces a T-55Enigma as a completeplastic kit, no. 72152.The general consen-sus among small-scale modellers seemsto be that the basic kitis a bit rough and canuse a bit of work, butthe advantage is that there is no need to scratchbuild,or use a conversion set for the armour. However, theside armour is 1 mm too thin (to prevent mouldingproblems, according to ACE), but this is easy to solveby adding some plastic card to the backs of the sidearmour panels.

Another small-scale Enigma, this time in 1:76th scale,is available from Cromwell Models in their CombatReady range as kit CR2007. As this model was brand-new when this net.book was being put together, no pic-tures or reviews of it are yet available.

Most, if not all, Iraqi T-55-series MBTs seem to havebeen fitted with the older style of track, as provided inTamiya�s kit, not the T-72 track that was retrofitted tomost T-55s and T-62s in Warsaw Pact countries duringthe 1980s.

Armour dimensionsThe illustrations on the following pages show the

armour blocks and their mountings, with dimensionstaken directly from the vehicle ondisplay at the Tank Museum inBovington. Keep in mind that, giventhe apparent lack of precision in theconstruction of the extra armour, it islikely that no two vehicles wereexactly the same. Therefore, if youraim is to build an accurate model,only use these drawings in conjunc-tion with other references.

Cromwell Models conversion kitinstalled on Tamiya model

ACE kit box art

Accurate Armour: www.accurate-armour.comAEF Designs: www.aefdesigns.comCromwell Models: www.xs4all.nl/~cromwell

Verlinden: www.verlinden-productions.com

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Left-side armourDimensions (cm)

height width depthrear 8 64.5 31 21.5

7 64.5 31 226 64.5 31.5 225 63 31 21.54 62 31 213 60 31 21.52 57 31 21.5

front 1 ?/56** 31 ?**

* The first dimension is for one side of the block, the sec-ond for the other side.

** As this block is missing on the tank that was measured,its size could only be determined from the rusted area,which is 56 cm high. The height of the other side of theblock is unknown, but was probably some 40 cm; itsdepth is also unknown for the same reason, but willhave been about 21 cm. (This is also why the block isdrawn semi-transparently in the illustration.)

Glacis armourDimensions (cm)

height width wepthleft 1 23/44* 73 12

2 93/113* 70 12.53 103/123* 100 12.5

right 4 23.5/44.5* 72 12.5

Right-side armourDimensions (cm)

height width depthfront 1 40/56* 31 21.5

2 57.5 31 21.53 61 31 21.54 62 31 21.55 64 31.5 21.56 64 31 21.57 64 31 22

rear 8 64.5 31 22

front

front

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heightwidth

depth

width

height

depth

±28 cm

±105 cm

±72 cm

±37 cm

±52 cm

Dimensions in this drawing are approxi-mates, from the front of each beam to thefront of the next; the right is (for practicalpurposes) identical. The diagonals are notincluded in the measurements.

Left side (top view)

Right side (inside view)

Left side (inside view)

30 cm

3 cm

26 cm

46 cm

28 cm

33.5 cm

30 cm

46.5 cm

front

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Turret rear armourDimensions (cm)

height width depthright 1 72 31.5 12.5

2 72 31 12.53 71.5 31 12.5

left 4 72.5 31.5 12.5

Turret right armourDimensions (cm)

front top centre bottom bottom backwidth width width depth width width

front 1 41 48 ? 38 66.5 582 41 48 50 ? 56 ?3 41.5 48 50 ? 56 ?

rear 4 41 49 50 37 56 56.5

Turret left armourDimensions (cm)

front top centre bottom bottom backwidth width width depth width width

rear 4 42 48.5 50 37.5 56/47* 55.53 40.5 49 49.5 ? 56.5/?* ?2 41.5 49 50 ? 56/?* ?

front 1 41 50 50 36 71/49* 59* The first dimension is for the bottom width at the front

the block, the second for the width at the back (the sideagainst the turret).

front widthbottomdepth

centre width

back

top width

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28 cm

33 cm

31.5 cm

31 cm28 cm

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front

Left side(inside view)

Left side (bottom view, with armour blocks)

27 cm

Unfortunately, most dimensions for the left-side framework are not available.Beams spacings in the inside right view are measured between thebeams�they do not include the beam thickness of 5 cm. Although the beamsare shown as solid in these illustrations, they are hollow on the real tank.Also, though the end plates are shown with a straight edge, they are really cutinto a curve to fit the turret shape.

Right side(bottom view)

front

32 cm

15.5 cm

100.5 cm

100 cm25 cm 23 cm

25 cm

45

.5 c

mRear strut & mount

front

14.5 cm

27 cm

front

36 cm 37 cm 35 cm

3 cm 6

cm

7 cm

22

.5 cm

7 cm

3.5

cm

Right side(inside view)

Iraqi T-55 �Enigma�

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Left front viewThis photo shows most of the extra armour

added to this T-55 by the Iraqi army; only thelarge blocks on the glacis and those on theback of the turret are not visible.

The turret armour over the driver�s hatch isin the raised position, giving a view of the bot-tom face, which has been cut open to show theway the armour is constructed.

Note the rusted areas where the front-mostblock of the left hull-side armour used to be.This was already missing and rusted whenphotos of this tank were taken soon after it wasabandonned by the Iraqis. The most likelyexplanation is that the blocks were installed onthe brackets without being painted, after whicheverything got a coat of paint�which wouldnot have been able to get far down between theblocks, leading to rusting.

Glacis armourThe additional armour plates on the tank�s hull

front are much larger than those on the hullsides, and smaller blocks are carried on themudguards to either side of the top of the glacis.

Note the damaged headlights, the cause ofwhich was probably the collision with anotherT-55 that this tank suffered during the Iraqiretreat from Kuwait. When the headlightswere relocated, a tube for their power cablewas added, running approximately down thecentre of the right-hand armour panel.

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Hull side & front

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Hull frontA view of the area arround the driver�s hatch

(the flat object at the right of the photo). In theforeground on the left is the top of the leftmudguard armour block, while in the back-ground is the right-hand glacis armour panel.The left-hand one is barely visible between thetwo because of its reduced height.

The mudguard armour block is held on bytwo bolts that connect it to an angle iron brack-et on the front mudguard. At least one Enigmahad some kind of hinge arrangement on theback of this armour block: one small, steelplate with a hole in it welded to the rear face ofthe block, and a similar one to the mudguardbracket, with a pin or bolt put through theholes make a hinge. The tank pictured here,though, has no such thing.

By the way, in the foreground, the rectangu-lar object to which the hose is connected, is thetank for the driver�s periscope washers.

Left side glacis armourOne of the two armour panels on the glacis,

showing to advantage the large opening thathad to be left in them in order to allow thetank�s towing lugs to remain accessible.

The panel is held in place by four bolts thatgo through the discs near the corners, and alsoby a single triangular lug welded onto theglacis near its front edge; in this photo, it ishidden by the museum�s information sign vis-ible at the bottom of the photograph.

The other panel is wider, and held up by twolugs in addition to the bolts. Just visible in thisphoto is also that the left-hand panel is also alittle lower than the right one, so as not toobscure the view from the driver�s periscopes.

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Glacis armour

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Right hull frontThese are the standard Russian night driving

lights, which on a T-55 are normally located atthe upper corners of the hull. When the Iraqiarmy upgraded this tank, the lights were repo-sitioned on the outer corner of the hull frontarmour panels. The front-facing light is miss-ing the forward part that holds the whitelense, however, and is also bent backward�probably because of the collision with anothertank before its capture.

This photo also gives a good view of thebracket on the back of the front-most armourblock on the hull side, which is much lowerthan the brackets of the other blocks�forobvious reasons.

The long, narrow box visible at the back ofthe photo is the one normally fitted in front ofthe exhaust on the left mudguard.

Right hull side armourThis photo takes in (just) all eight blocks that

make up the hull-side armour. The top of thefront block is sloped toward the front of thetank, at about the same angle as the hull font.The forward block is missing on the other sideof the vehicle, but would have been similar tothis one.

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Right side armour

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Left armour mountingBy the looks of it, the Iraqis installed a frame-

work of metal tubing on top of the existingmudguard, in order to hold up the longitudi-nal bar onto which the armour blocks are bolt-ed. This bar is 5 × 10 cm in cross-section, andruns back further than the armour itself�farenough, in fact, for the installation of anotherblock and a half, though since no holes fortheir bolts are visible, it looks like this was notthe intention.

At the back of the photo, the periscope wash-er tank is visible (the rectangular item with thefiller cap on top). This is not present on theotherwise excellent Tamiya kit, and its shape isnormally hard to see because a bin is usuallyinstalled to the left of it.

Armour mountingSeen from the opposite side, this is again the

left mudguard and the armour mountingpoints on it. Each armour block has two U-brackets welded onto it, one as visible in thephoto and the other upside-down, with themounting bar sitting between them. Two boltsgo through holes in the brackets, and throughthe bar, to fix the blocks to the bar.

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Left side armour mounting

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Right frontA view of most of the right front corner of the

T-55 Enigma, giving a good view of both thehull front and right turret armour. The latterconsists of four wedge-shaped blocksarranged in a quarter circle, providing goodprotection to the turret face, although there isa fairly large gap between the hull and turretarmour that an incoming round could quiteeasily get into.

Unlike many other Iraqi T-55s, this one doesnot have a curved steel plate around thesearchlight, though there are photos ofEnigmas that do have this feature; standardis-ation seems to have been near the bottom of theIraqi army�s �to do� list. Note the shine of thesearchlight�s infrared filter: enough to reflectone of the light fixtures of the museum hall.

Right rear turret armourThe side of the rear right armour block, which

shows the blocks� wedge shape to advantage.Also visible is the hinge that, on the right sideof the turret, is only on this block; its most like-ly function is to allow the engine deck hatchesto be opened (on the T-55, the turret needs tobe traversed before this can be done, but with-out the hinge, on the Enigma the extra armourwould get in the way when the turret is turnedfar enough to clear the hatches).

Although the armour blocks are held somedistance away from the turret main armour bymetal struts, plates have been welded on at theends to close the gaps this would otherwiseleave. It appears the plate on this side isattached to the struts, and so would be liftedup with the hinged block.

The hole in the lower strut is for a lockingpin, but only the weld of its bracket on the tur-ret remains on this particular tank.

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Right turret armour

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Right front turret armourThis is the right turret armour seen from the

front, again showing the wedge shape as wellas the plate welded between the extra armourand turret face. The armour blocks do notextend all the way to the gun because the ovalopening for the coaxial machine gun wouldotherwise be blocked.

The front block is wider than the other three onthe right side of the turret, although this is notreally obvious, especially not from this angle.

This picture also gives a good view of theheight difference between the left and rightglacis armour panels.

Left front turret armourThe front block on the left side is also hinged,

and is displayed in the up position on theBovington exhibit. Unlike the rear right block,though, this one is provided with two counter-balance springs (one is just visible at the top ofthe photo) because the driver will need to liftthe block every time he needs to get into or outof the tank. The block is locked down by aspring-equipped latch, but as can be seen here,the lower end of the spring has come off onthis vehicle.

Note the way the struts for the remainingthree armour blocks fit, and the much simplerway the raised block is spaced from the turretby nothing more than two lengths of squaretube welded on. Also, no plate has been weld-ed to the block or the turret on this side.

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Turret frontal armour

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Left rear turret armourThe fourth block on the left turret side does

have a plate to fill the gap with the turret. Therear three blocks on the left are (almost) iden-tical in size to the rear three on the right, butthe left front and right front blocks are differ-ent, both from the other six and from eachother. Also, the left rear block is not hinged,unlike the one at the right.

Rear armour struts (1)The panels that make up the rear armour are

held about 1½ meters away from the turret bytwo struts that are well-secured into bracketswelded onto the turret rear wall. The strutsthemselves are made up of two metal tubes(once more 5 × 10 cm in cross-section) in a flatY-shape, with a steel plate cut to this sameprofile welded on at the outside.

Some Enigmas have three triangular,piecesof steel as braces on the inside of the joinbetween the bracket and the turret reararmour (one at about an angle of about 30° tothe horizontal at the top, a horizontal oneabout halfway down, and another horizontalone all the way at the bottom). This tank,though, has no trace of these at all.

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Left & rear turret armour

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Rear armour struts (2)Another view of the struts holding the rear

armour, which also serves as a counter-bal-ance. This photo shows more details of theturret brackets, which are of substantial con-struction, though they are not solid�theyconsist of two plates spaced far enough apartfor the struts to go between them. Seven largebolts as well as some crude welds keep every-thing together.

Turret rear armourThe back of the rear turret armour, with some

graffiti still in place. Each of the four blocks isboth taller and thinner than those on the hullside; whether they are true armour blocks, oronly serve as couunterweights for the turretarmour is not entirely clear.

A grab or stowage rail has also been added tothe rear of the turret, centrally and much lowerdown than standard T-55 turret rails are fit-ted�the additional armour is in the way oftheir normal locations.

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Rear turret armour

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1&Rear armour underside

The underside of the armour on the rear ofthe turret, showing that the rear panels areheld on with the same kind of brackets that thehull-side armour is mounted on. Crossbeamsrun between the struts, and the bin that is nor-mally located on the T-55�s left front fender hasbeen placed on top of them.

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Rear turret armour

1&