Iranian Half-Track APC circa 1996

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amsci99

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I have been looking for information on this un-named Iranian Half-Track APC for sometime since reading about it in Jane's Armour & Artillery sometime in the 1990's. If anyone has a picture of it, my appreciation and thanks in advance.

http://www.janes.com/articles/Janes-Armour-and-Artillery/Iranian-Armoured-Personnel-Carriers-Iran.html

So far the known APCs in the inventory of the Iranian Army are tracked vehicles, the Kobra BMT-2 APC and the Boragh APC as well as a couple of wheeled vehicles. I suppose this was a prototype since the literature states that half-tracks fell out of favour in the 1960s but there's seems to be band track conversions for wheeled vehicles nowadays.

http://www.gsengineering.com/Design_Analysis/Tracked_Vehicles/Band_Track.html
 
CostasTT,

Thanks for the post. Strangely this vehicle has been credited as the APC version of the Alacrán as developed by Cardeon for the Chilean Army on some websites, so I had my initial doubts. But upon closer inspection, it does have the waterjet system as lifted from the BTR series and the track and wheels look like they were adapted from T-59 BMT.
 
Below you've got another photo of the Iranian half-track, showing it from its front.

Regards,
Piotr
 

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Petrus,

Thanks for the pic. I wonder if a 3 view is available, it would make a good scratchbuilding project in 1/35 scale.
 
New pictures of said Iranian Half-track!

Images are from the September 22 military parade:
 

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Eagle2009 & CostasTT

My thanks and appreciation for the posts and the pics, was a long time coming. I take it that the APC is not in service although it is exhibited at the Military Parade? Appears that the engine is in front, I'm guessing based on the lourves and grilles beside the driver's viewport.
 
This vehicle is the Shahid Farsi which is also named the Shahid Salman-e-Farsi (named after a companion of the Islamic Prophet Mohammad) in some circles. This was a late Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) Iranian amphibious armored personnel carrier project based on their experiences during Operation Dawn-8 (1986) and Karbala-5 (1987) in the southern region of Iraq, where given the shortage of armour and the marshland environment, the Iranian thrust was forced to use rubber boats-- these catered only for light arms/ equipment and afforded no cover. Based on this the Jehad Sazaandegi materiel committee organized the project in 1988 prior to the end of the conflict. Development work is though to have ceased in early 90s (Perhaps because of the development of the BMP-1 based Boragh amphibious APC in mid-90s). Interior ceiling consists of wide welds of pre-cut parts. The vehicle has no integral armament but later versions have a pintle mount (most likely for a 12.7 mm DShK heavy machine gun) as well as gun portholes to the side and rear. Provides seating space for eight passengers. Operational performance of the vehicle is not known. It is only displayed only during the annual Iran-Iraq War commemorative parade.

Forscher
 
Looks too wide for its height and appears to have inadequate ground clearance. Inside, when the seats are folded down, it looks like you have to sit with your legs stretched out in front of you on top of the obvious drive shaft housing/water-jet exhaust which runs down the middle of the passenger cabin. A most strange vehicle.
 

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