Back in July my platoon was tasked with a escort mission to the Al Musayyib area . During this mission we checked on the progress of a police station that was being re-built . Well sitting across the road form the police station in a small field there apperard to be what was left of a few T-72 s . My dismount and I decided to give it a look - after a minute or two I relized that it was missing the outer armor , so my guess is that these were trainer tanks . They had most of the insturment pannels and controlls in the turret and hull . If they were ever used in combat is a pure guess , they didnt appear to be damaged just partaly dismantled . I just thought I would share this with you , and I kind of wish that I was in one of the pics oh well . Thanks for looking

Pretty interesting, was it just those things in that area, or other abandoned tanks?

Looks like some kind of training turret to train turret crews for tanks. Don't know which one actually.... I could be mistaking

Greetz

Intreasting photo's thanks for posting!

Thats interesting maybe they were gunnery trainers.
When I* trained on Chieftain Mk5 and the CVR[T] series in the 70's we used dummy turrets, with a .22 calibre rifle mounted, against rubber scale tanks, some that moved by a piano wire and motor, on an indoor 25 meter range, to practice the duties used in the turret and those techniques that were part of a gunners job. This is of course prior to laser sights, when gunners had to estimate fall of shot and such things when firing. It was of course cheaper too.

Thanks for sharing such interesting and unusual pictures.

Regards,

John

They are turret trainers. We used them at Ft. Knox for the M60A1 and M60A3 tanks.