The article mentions a larger machine gun on the Iranian MBT but doesn’t discuss the remote weapon system that is holding that larger gun. That RWS looks very much like the Russian UDP T05BV-1 until you look a little closer. It’s appears to be a simpler system with a bigger gun. The Iranian “tank” is trying to look like a T-90MS for certain, but those simplifications and the addition of bigger barrels (usually fake) is a pretty standard Iranian and North Korean trademark fake.

Additionally AFAIK no Iranian armored vehicle model in service utilizes a modern remote turret. Nor does Iran produce working ones. This would require Iran’s domestic tanks to have modern digital computer systems. Which they don’t have.

Additionally as the article very briefly touches on, the Iranian vehicle sports an atypical “space tank” thermal sleeve on it’s main gun. It resembles a somewhat reduced version of the sleeve on the Polish PL-01 which is probably the most futuristic looking tank in the world. This would be an obvious tank to borrow from if you were building a fake tank to impress many audiences (giving analysts a boner). However the Polish gun is so atypical that the Iranians really couldn’t adopt a thermal sleeve of the same size. It makes sense that it would be reduced to fit the turret. The Iranian’s do not have a working domestic gun system incorporating a useful thermal sleeve of this kind. It’s horse shit. It’s for show.

These two things are pretty key imho. It’s a Russian T-90MS trials vehicle (sent to Iran for demonstrations and then sold to them) with cosmetics or a very very very convincing T-72 made to look like a modified T-90MS which had plenty of time to study when they were trying out the Russian vehicles for the supposed MBT acquisition.

There are plenty of reasons for the Iranians to not buy T-90MS ($$, and politics) and plenty of reasons for Russia to sell them one (air corridor over Iran for access to Syria for starters). Anecdotally, it’s suspected that Kim Jong Il, years ago, returned from Moscow on a train that was carrying a single T-90 MBT for “research” purposes.

They most certainly are not producing a MBT that is even close to competitive with Russian and American tanks from the late 80s.

but what do I know.