Ceramic Skirts on a T-72

Not sure what you mean by ceramic skirts. I know that some variants of the T-72 have ceramic inserts in the armor. It helps to defeat shaped charge warheads by defeating the molten jet those produce. The skirts on T-72s are a plastic fabric type armor, either the gill type of the track shroud type. Both work to detonate shaped charge warheads before they impact the hull itself. The EDZ are reactive armor tiles. Teh tiles detonate upon the impact of a shaped charge warhead and prevent the the warhead from penetrating the steel armor beneath the tile impacted.

Do you mean rubber skirts?  The T-80 in the AFV Modeller mag #54 has rubber skirts and those were appropriately flaked like you would expect a flexible material to shed its coat.  I don't know if the T-72 had rubber skirts, but its a possibility.

Thanks for getting back to me everyone

Here is a picture with the ceramic tiles(At least I thought they were ceramic) They could be rubber?

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ipmsgreatplains.org/may08images/P1010061.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.ipmsgreatplains.org/News.aspx&usg=__sKj5jfGv2Ud2yMEKPjvI6q5juc4=&h=588&w=1024&sz=532&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=zB3sWKmzvAQ08M:&tbnh=116&tbnw=202&ei=6To2TaauLYeglAeVvOTJAg&prev=/images%3Fq%3DRevell%2Bt-72%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1195%26bih%3D874%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=858&vpy=244&dur=549&hovh=170&hovw=296&tx=212&ty=81&oei=6To2TaauLYeglAeVvOTJAg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:9,s:0

Thanks

Scott

Ah, tiles; I had thought you meant side skirts, please disregard my post.

The answer to you question is, those are ERA blocks, explosive reactive armor. It has more to do with what kind of ammo is fired at it to what kind of effects will have. A dual warhead round will explode the era and then explode the armor hull punching through. A standard HE round will just explode the blocks and not go through the hull. Again it has to do with where the hit takes place what what was fired. Here are some photos of damaged or destroyed T-72s

More info

The picture you had inquestion is a T-72BV which is their export verision used out side of russia by countries like Georgia and India. This verision uses Kontakt 3 Type A and B. The russian use T-72B and T-72 BM (modernized). The B's use Type A and B were as the BM uses Type D and E. They were both widely used during the first and second Chechnian war and the most currect crisis in Georgia. The BM's are most widely used now with the B's being phased our\t and up graded to BM standards. There is a new T-72S that is currently going throught trials right now that uses a newer style armor around the turret and bar armor on the rear hull along  with a thermal blanket to either hide the IR signature or protect it from  the elements. Here is a picture

All side skirts on T-72's are made from harden rubber much like tires. The ERA blocks are just bolted onto them and still have some flex in the skirt. Some of the blocks can be nocked off from running into trees and any other object strong enough. There are pictures of entire rows of block missing from the skirts or just a few of them. Either way you can have a few of them missing from your model. The turret on the other hand is a different story, more riggid mounting point so if they are missing, more likely got hit by a round. Also the ERA blocks on the turret are raised on top of pegs, they don't sit flush with the turret. You don't have to do this as is a real pain to raise all the blocks. But if you do decide to leave some of them off, besure to have the mounting peg in place of the blocks. I hope this helps some. I have alot of info on the this tank as I have a love for modern russian tanks. Feel free to ask away.