MTU-72 Russian Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge (AVLB) System

The MTU-72 armored bridge layer is a combat engineering vehicle, designed to launch an assault bridge for tanks and other military vehicles across trenches and water obstacles. It entered service with the Soviet Army in 1974. It replaced or supplemented the previous MTU-20 and MT-55 bridge layers, based on the T-55 medium tank. Production of the MTU-72 ceased in 1990. Its replacement - the MTU-90 was ready for production in the late 1990s. However due to funding problems it received no production orders. It appears that the Russian Army was never keen on investing in armored bridge layers. The MTU-72 bridge layer is based on a modified T-72 main battle tank chassis. A number of the Soviet T-72B or T-72M1 tanks were converted to an armored bridge layer by removing the turret and replacing it with a bridge-launching system. Some sources mention, that some bridge layers were produced utilizing newly-built T-72 chassis.