Its armor is composed of homogeneous, cold rolled, welded steel—it is very thin by modern standards, 13 mm at the front, 10 mm on the sides and top and 7 mm at the rear. While its maximum armor protects it fully against small arms fire and small artillery shell fragments, it cannot protect it against large shell fragments and .50-caliber machine gun bullets. Although its front armor might protect it against 7.62 mm small arms fire, that same fire can sometimes penetrate the sides. The vehicle is equipped with an IR driving light and an IR searchlight. It lags behind other Soviet armored fighting vehicles as it has no fire protection systems and, with the exception of the BTR-50PK variant, it has no nuclear, biological or chemical (NBC) protection systems, which significantly reduces its effectiveness. .