If there’s one thing about warfare, it’s that it offers absolutely no luxuries. Sometimes, when one’s life is on the line, you have to buck up and make do with what you have when it comes to your survival. The Syrian rebels are no stranger to this concept and have relied on their ingenuity and basic programming skills to cobble together their own DIY tank. Built upon an old car chassis, the tank, dubbed the “Sham II” in honor of ancient Syria, boasts a camera system, internal LCD display and — perhaps the most important feature — a pivoting gun turret controlled by a video game controller. It may not get any points in the looks department, but let’s face it — if you have to make a decision between “crappy tank” and “no tank,” you’re going with “crappy tank” like, every time.
If the world is ever reduced to a dystopic landscape where traveling from one shanty town to the next is a borderline death wish, this is the kind of vehicle you want when you’re up against an army of punk rock mutant bikers. Until that day arrives, we’d be content to use the tank to chase down ice cream trucks around the neighborhood.
(YouTube via The Verge, image via YouTube)
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