If you have heard about the saying "Necessity is the mother of all invention," this quote particularly rings true for the Syrian Rebels who are fighting a better equipped and ruthless army. They will try to make anything they can to achieve parity against the opposing force, including building this Playstation tank. Airsoft tank builders, better take note.

This video link sent to us by a reader, shows Russia Today, the Russian English Language Broadcast Network, showing the "Sham II", a homemade tank made by Syrian Rebels and with its turret controlled by a Playstation console. Sham is an old name for Syria and the Playstation controls what seems to be a mounted PKM, good for providing support for rebels and at the same time may just flush out enemy troops from machine gun nests and sniper positions, with the latter taking a huge toll on rebel and civilian lives in the ongoing civil war.

The tank is driven the traditional way, and not with the Playstation. But looking at it, we wonder how good it will be in the battlefield. Perhaps against small arms fire, it would be effective, but for heavier caliber weapons, the people and electronics inside might be rattled with all the ding and ping of bullets impacting on the sides, rendering them ineffective.

The greatest danger for  this vehicle is are two: road mines and rocket propelled grenades. As you see in the video, the underbelly of the tank looks like a regular vehicle with no armor, a well placed land/road mine or grenade might immediately disable this or even kill the occupants inside. An RPG impacting anywhere can easily disable this with its warhead.

We'll never know how effective will this be, but it's not totally useless if rebel commanders know how to deploy such as against smaller enemy squads armed with just rifles and nothing heavier or massive than those. The only thing that will prove its effectiveness will be in battle and though we won't count on it lasting long, even that LCD TV inside is not Mil-Spec and may not withstand battle.

But for airsoft, the Syrian rebels just proved that any off the shelf stuff can be used to make a tank. If Sham II is used in airsoft event, it will be the star of the game. Just mount any airsoft support weapon, use the Playstation console and LCD TV, and mayhem can be brought into the airsoft battlefield.

Airsoft players can call it "Shazam Too."