Russians improving 1950s armored tractors for war in Ukraine - media

That's according to Forbes, Ukrinform reports.

A recent Russian media report from the brutal battle for Avdiivka depicts at least one old MT-LB armored tractor armed with an old 2M-3 naval turret fitted with over-under 25-millimeter autocannons.

"We've seen these MT-LB-2M-3s before. Sitting outside the workshop that apparently helps to produce them. Riding trains from Russia into the Ukraine war zone. Standing guard alongside civilian construction crews in occupied Ukraine, apparently in order to protect the crews -- then busy digging fortifications for the Russians -- from Ukrainian drones," the article reads.

But the MT-LB-2M-3 in the recent media report is different than most of its vehicular kin. The 2M-3's guns are more flush with the hull of the MT-LB. The turret, in other words, is somewhat integrated with the vehicle that carries it.

This is a change for the line of do-it-yourself MT-LB fire-support vehicles, which should be able to hurl 1.5-pound shells out to a distance of 2,500 yards at a rate of 300 rounds per minute per gun.

The Russians began cobbling together the weird vehicles back in the spring, mixing and matching old stored hulls and turrets in what obviously was a desperate bid to make good escalating losses of modern combat vehicles in the now 22-month wider Russian war on Ukraine.

In most cases, the 1950s-vintage MT-LBs and their even older 2M-3 turrets have been minimally integrated. Technicians apparently have just welded or bolted the two-ton turrets to the tractors without blending their hydraulics and electrical systems—and without rebalancing the MT-LB's center of mass.