Armor: December 2, 2000

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Iran has unveiled a new turret for its tracked Boragh armored fighting vehicle (a copy of the BMP, or rather a copy of the Chinese copy of the BMP) capable of launching the Toophan anti-tank missile (a copy of the US TOW). The turret is operated by one crewman. Toophan-1 can penetrate 550mm of steel armor with its 3.6kg warhead. Toophan-2 uses a tandem warhead (total 4.1kg) to penetrate 760mm of armor (in addition to penetrating the reactive armor). Both versions of Toophan have a range of 3,850m, and the new turret can launch either of them. The new turret lacks full armor protection for the gunner, but his may be provided in a future version. The Iranians are working on a laser beam-riding version of Toophan.--Stephen V Cole