BMPT programme

It really doesn't matter what gun the US uses... it pretty much has nothing to do with who has the bigger gun... the new Russian IFVs will have 57mm high velocity guns because the current 30mm weapons wont penetrate current NATO IFVs at battle distances (Marders and Bradleys and Warriors are about 32 tons).
The unsatisfied penetration is a good reason to switch to 57mm gun, which has also a better range and much better HE content.

They do have a new mini missile for shooting at targets at reduced ranges and I suspect it will pack a lot of those for dealing with enemy armour at short to medium ranges.
Do you have a name for this mini missile? Is it the one that called Bulat?

There will be Russian tanks and IFVs to deal with enemy tanks, the BMPT is supposed to be dealing with softer threats.
In fact I think the new 57mm medium velocity grenade launcher with a powerful HE round described as being comparable to a 76.2mm shell in terms of HE content could be used for most targets and a light cannon... perhaps a 23 x 115mm calibre weapon might be used against some targets too, while mini ATGMs would be used against enemy IFVs and Ataka or Kornet for enemy tanks.
IMO the roll of the BMPT-3 is not clear yet, the new chassis will give the BMPT-3 better armor, the APS will give better protection, 57mm gun with 23/115 canon and ATGM like Kornet, will give the vehicle a better firepower and give it the power to participate in any battle it choose.

One of his roll could be to defend the flank of tanks or IFV from enemy soldiers and fight in urban area, as the gun will have 60-70 degrees elevation.

BTW India get interesting to buy/manufacture 1,770 Armata vehicle to replace there old T-72.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/66050040.cms?from=mdr&utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

The unsatisfied penetration is a good reason to switch to 57mm gun, which has also a better range and much better HE content.

Sorry to be a pain, but while it does have better range it does not have better HE content over the 100mm gun on the BMP-3.
It is however a rather good compromise in terms of armour penetration for an APFSDS round and reasonable HE potential for the 57mm round including air burst and guided rounds in 57mm.

The guided 100mm rounds offer significant performance too, but the abundance of lighter vehicles that wont be penetrated with any 30mm round reduces its capacity to be an IFV weapon.

Do you have a name for this mini missile? Is it the one that called Bulat?

Yes. To be honest, I have only seen it on models of new vehicles and old vehicle upgrades.

IMO the roll of the BMPT-3 is not clear yet, the new chassis will give the BMPT-3 better armor, the APS will give better protection, 57mm gun with 23/115 canon and ATGM like Kornet, will give the vehicle a better firepower and give it the power to participate in any battle it choose.

From descriptions I have read, the purpose of the vehicle seems to be as a support vehicle for tanks in places where infantry in the open are simply too vulnerable because of the level of fire power or the location of the fighting. So rather than having IFVs with troops buttoned up inside doing nothing you would use this vehicle.

Another role I could see it performing and being rather useful at is in COIN operations or conflicts where the enemy has no armour or no heavy armour present, so in rear areas would be an example, but instead of being used with tanks instead of IFVs they would be used with IFVs instead of tanks.

And a third role mentioned would be as a convoy escort anti ambush vehicle with heavy ground to ground fire power.

BTW India get interesting to buy/manufacture 1,770 Armata vehicle to replace there old T-72.

Armata is not just a tank, it is a vehicle family... to get the most our of the concept it would be really expensive to replace your entire armoured fleet with Armatas.

I guess if they want to pay for them then they can pretty much have what they want... I doubt there will be a full technology transfer on these because they are state of the art... the Russians can't just give that away to anyone...

"Sorry to be a pain, but while it does have better range it does not have better HE content over the 100mm gun on the BMP-3".
It’s not a pain it’s a pleasure. When you compare one round against the other the 100mm has advantage, but the 57 mm can put 10 times more rounds on the target so the amount of HE will be higher too. That’s one of the reason the US Navy chooses the 57 mm gun over the 76mm gun for its LCS ships.

"It is however a rather good compromise in terms of armour penetration for an APFSDS round and reasonable HE potential for the 57mm round including air burst and guided rounds in 57mm".
No doubt and one more thing, the BMP with APS and radar can get the location of a missile’s launcher and the 57mm can open fire and hit the crew and the launcher with 5 rounds and 40,000 shrapnel in 2 seconds and destroy the target.

"The guided 100mm rounds offer significant performance too, but the abundance of lighter vehicles that won’t be penetrated with any 30mm round reduces its capacity to be an IFV weapon".
That's correct. And that’s way some country in Europe and other countries move to 35, 40 and 50mm gun.

It’s not a pain it’s a pleasure. When you compare one round against the other the 100mm has advantage, but the 57 mm can put 10 times more rounds on the target so the amount of HE will be higher too. That’s one of the reason the US Navy chooses the 57 mm gun over the 76mm gun for its LCS ships.

But that logic does not always work... on paper having 500 rounds of 30mm HEI rounds should make 40 rounds of 100mm HE less useful, because those 30mm shells are rather effective against a range of threats and targets and in terms of mass might be comparable in terms of rate of fire per minute if not full ammo load, but as the Soviets found in Afghanistan... sometimes the target behind cover is not in danger when using 30mm HE rounds.

I remember many in the west assumed the BMP-1 would be totally replaced by the BMP-2 but in practise they were actually used together... the 30mm cannon was an excellent weapon and much better than the slow firing less accurate 73mm gun of the BMP-1, but there were targets where 30mm HE shells were ineffective.

The Muj in Afghanistan often built walls out of rocks at the entrances to caves and to fire at the Soviet forces from behind where 14.5mm HMG and even 30mm cannon shells would splatter against the shell weight not heavy enough to move the rocks or penetrate with the splinters... in comparison a kg of HE from the 73mm weapon had the HE power to blow most walls over with one or two direct hits.

The west was surprised to see the BMP-3 had both the 30mm cannon and the 100mm gun which was basically an improved HE 73mm weapon.

The 100mm certainly has the advantage of larger calibre allowing for a decent ATGM to be used, and its HE rounds are rather potent, while being a low velocity weapon the propellent case is tiny and takes up very little room in the turret so lots of rounds can be carried and it is cheaper to use than missiles for hitting targets out to the max range of 7km.

The 100mm gun of the BMP-3 is brilliant... the problem is the 30mm gun is lacking in AP performance and HE power on todays battlefield for use in an IFV and in air defence vehicles.

The 57mm gun replaces the 30mm gun in terms of AP performance and it is big enough for guided and air burst rounds as well as standard HE rounds, so it makes sense not to fill the turret with a second gun and all the ammo it would need to be useful so it simplifies the design.

No doubt and one more thing, the BMP with APS and radar can get the location of a missile’s launcher and the 57mm can open fire and hit the crew and the launcher with 5 rounds and 40,000 shrapnel in 2 seconds and destroy the target.

That is a good point, though I suspect 2-3 shells might do the job with airburst shells detonating above their position... would not be their day...

AJ-47 wrote:I read that there is contract to build first batch for the BMP-3 with the new turret and the 57mm gun, but they didn’t say anything about which 57mm gun it will have. Do you have any info about that and when we will see the new BMP-3 that will come out from the manufacture line?

It will be the AA version is my understanding.

AJ-47 wrote:"Sorry to be a pain, but while it does have better range it does not have better HE content over the 100mm gun on the BMP-3".
It’s not a pain it’s a pleasure. When you compare one round against the other the 100mm has advantage, but the 57 mm can put 10 times more rounds on the target so the amount of HE will be higher too. That’s one of the reason the US Navy chooses the 57 mm gun over the 76mm gun for its LCS ships.

It's amusing reading the propaganda against the 100mm gun, but conveniently no one addresses any of the new developments in it's ammunition. To quote one of my older posts:

Good news for the 100 mm cannon, it's HE-Frag shells aka "Cherrys", have been modernized and has double the performance of the old shells. The modernized 100 mm HE-Frag shell known as "Cherry-1" has a effective shrapnel blast radius of 360 square meters, which the increase in performance is more than double that of the old shells, which had a effective shrapnel blast radius of 168 square meters:

In Russia, created by high-explosive shells "Cherry-1"

http://www.russiadefence.net/t5002p75-bmp-3-in-russian-army#121019

And that's ("3UOF19-1" Cherry-1) a HE-Frag shell, a dedicated thermobaric shell would have double the blast force, greatly surpassing that of a 155mm HE-Frag shell, and closing on 203mm shell territory. The new Cherry-1 shell (adopted in 2014/15) has more than double the size of the blast radius, which is like firing 6 of the older HE-Frag shells for the price of 1. The BMP-3M upgrade saw the autoloader magazine go from 22 shells to 34 shells, and without infantry BMP-3M is capable of housing 100 shells.



With no infantry and housing 100 "3UOF19-1" Cherry-1 Frag shells is comparable to 600 of the older HE-Frag shells. Were not even talking about how KBP Tula has been improving the 100mm HE-Frag shells to the point that they seem to double the effective size of the blast radius every 10 years. The old Cherry shells had nearly double the blast radius of the old 100mm HE-Frag shells of the Soviet period, and the modernized Cherry-1 shells have doubled the effective blast radius again. There's no evidence showing that those shells wouldn't improve by the same margins in the coming future decades.

franco wrote:

AJ-47 wrote:I read that there is contract to build first batch for the BMP-3 with the new turret and the 57mm gun, but they didn’t say anything about which 57mm gun it will have. Do you have any info about that and when we will see the new BMP-3 that will come out from the manufacture line?

It will be the AA version is my understanding.

This is the EXACT truth. It's like claims that are widely disseminated but never proven: claims that Su-57 and Armata weren't going to be bought in numbers, and claims that the 57mm was the definitive and only BMPT armament. All of these claims were proven laughably false, with the current contract of 76 Su-57's (not including the 12 that were ordered previously), the contract for 100 Armata vehicles, and the T-72 BMPT being inducted in to service (even shown in the Victory Day parade).

The BMPT is a fluid concept, and we've seen MOD support multiple versions for multiple purposes since the late Soviet period.

I read that there is contract to build first batch for the BMP-3 with the new turret and the 57mm gun, but they didn’t say anything about which 57mm gun it will have. Do you have any info about that and when we will see the new BMP-3 that will come out from the manufacture line?

We have seen a lot of turrets for different vehicles but I think the turret they have shown on the BMP-3 so far does not include ATGMs... which makes me think it is actually a SPAAG rather than an IFV turret.

The turret shown with the 57mm high velocity gun plus external ATGM tubes looks to me like it will be one standard IFV turret... I have seen a model showing the 57mm medium velocity grenade launcher plus external ATGM tubes and a retractable system with another 12 small shorter range missiles (I think it was two rows of 6 missiles in a retractable mount) that will likely be the other IFV turret option when the chances of enemy armour are perhaps low.

I suspect they will use a combination of turrets for their IFVs like they used to have BMP-1 and BMP-2 turrets together in units because it offered a variety of fire power.

The high velocity 57mm rounds are actually rather big even compared with the 100mm rounds for the BMP-3 so there would not be enough room for a high velocity 57mm gun and a 100mm gun in the same turret.

It's amusing reading the propaganda against the 100mm gun, but conveniently no one addresses any of the new developments in it's ammunition.

The west has no real modern combat experience with infantry vehicles with heavy HE fire power... but during WWII there were several light vehicles armed with short 76mm guns designed for direct fire fire support roles... near the end of the war the Soviets were using 152mm guns in that role in cities with heavy concrete buildings to deal with...

With no infantry and housing 100 "3UOF19-1" Cherry-1 Frag shells is comparable to 600 of the older HE-Frag shells.

The BMP-3 is a good vehicle that is very well armed, but for infantry support they will have vehicles with 120mm mortars as well as tanks with 125mm guns and of course 152mm artillery support as well as infantry with all sorts of rocket propelled weapons and grenade launchers... there will be no shortage of fire power.

The BMPT is a fluid concept, and we've seen MOD support multiple versions for multiple purposes since the late Soviet period.

The BMPT is just a very flexible system that can be used not only to support tanks, but also to support infantry in situations where the enemy has no armour... but a high fire power vehicle full of ammo instead of more troops makes sense.

There were talks lately about the new turret for the BMP-3 and I like to add few words about the APC and IFV concept.        
For the APC roll I would like to have vehicle that has strong passive armour, an ERA modules and APS. The only vehicle that has it all is the T-15. I know it’s expansive one, but if it will be manufacture in big numbers and maybe without some of his expansive parts, like his turret, it might be more affordable. The T-15 should be the HAPC with all the MBT brigades in Russia.
There is also need for 20-25 ton APC like Boomerang and Kurganets and few more, to go through places that 50 ton vehicles just can’t drive like bridges, Rivers etc. But for most cases we need to have the T-15 HAPC.

For the HAPC roll I’ll do some changes in the firepower of the T-15:
I’ll replace his turret with one of the two options:
1. Remove the original turret and install RCWS with 14.5mm HMG, or the Balkan 40mm AGL, and 7.62mm coaxial MG.
2. Replace the original turret with the new Epoch turret that has the 57mm LSHO gun, 4 ATGMs, 7.62mm MG and 8 small missiles name Bulat that I will replace with the PRO-M flamethrower.  Below is a link for the PRO-M:
http://www.military-today.com/firearms/rpo_shmel_m.htm

As for the IFV, I’ll get out from the IFV concept. The IFV doesn’t carry enough soldiers and/or doesn’t carry enough weapons. That’s way I’ll replace the IFV with the Fighting Support Vehicle (FSV) concept. The main different is that the FSV doesn’t carrying foot soldiers. Even due the T-15 will be the best fit for this goal, I think that it will be chipper and faster to use the BMP-3M. The only question I have, is what kind of weapons the FSV should have. Here are 2 options:

1. Keep the original turret of the BMP-3 and add: 4 ATGM missiles two on each side of the turret and put RCWS on top of the turret with 14.5mm HMG and 7.62mm MG.
2. Replace the original turret with the AU-220M turret with 57 mm gun that has carousel magazine with 96 rounds, high rate of fire and 14 km range. I’ll replace the 7.62mm MG with 14.5mm HMG and put on top of the turret RCWS with 7.62mm MG.

The Armata family of vehicles are T vehicles... so T-14, T-15, T-16 for the tank, the IFV and the engineer vehicle... there will be T designated vehicles for every vehicle in a division from artillery and command through to transport and air defence and everything else in betweem

The Kurganets vehicles have a B designation so their vehicles will be B-14, B-15, etc etc and the Boomerang vehicles have a K designation so K-14 and K-15 etc etc.

The turrets and therefore weapons and systems and sensors will be largely unified... so that 125mm tank turret on the T-14 is going to be the same as the 125mm gun turret on the Boomerang and the Kurganets and they will likely be called K-14 and B-14 respectively... it will be the same with APC and IFV turrets... we have seen the 30mm cannon turret on the T-15 but I rather suspect that is actually the first gen turret.... remember we saw they had plans for new turrets for APC and IFV... both have been shown as 30mm cannon turrets but I suspect the real IFV turret will have a 57mm high velocity gun and ATGMs of two different types Big (ATAKA/Krisantema) and Small(Bulat), and that the APC will look very similar but will have a medium pressure 57mm grenade launcher with a much smaller much lower velocity round with more payload and much smaller ammo rounds.

I think the 30mm turrets will be used in much lighter vehicles as a more general purpose weapon.... sort of like the BTRs had 14.5mm HMGs, but later got a mix of HMGs and 30mm cannon.

The concept behind the vehicle families is to take a current division with dozens of different vehicles, some wheeled and some tracked, some BMP based, some BTR based, some tank based (ie artillery vehicles like MSTA are T-80 based) and some MTLB based... all with different engines and parts and wheels etc etc and replacing them within each division with one vehicle type with one engine uprated or derrated depending on the weight to give comparable mobility and armour and unify spares and support to minimise that logistics chain and improve mobility.

One obvious advantage would be that only Armata divisions will need bridging equipment... everything else should be amphibious...

Equally the enemy wont be able to pick off the BMPs and BTRs and then take out the tanks at leisure in built up areas...

Possible BMPT-3, according to Charly015.

I would say this are not RPO-2, but Bulat missiles.

Interesting modification. It seems this version of BMPT get new gunner sight, similar to that in Derivatsiya-PVO. This could mean guns will have higher elevation than today versions with +45^o.

I actually would like to see a 40mm grenade launcher added to the top back of the turret like the BMP-2 upgrade a while back that is fixed firing straight forward but can elevate independently too because it would mean you could fill the top rear of the turret with hundreds of 40mm grenades and they would be external to the vehicle so if hit would not pose a risk, but low velocity HE rounds you could lob over walls and fences or over small buildings to get targets beyond would be useful.

In comparison the 30mm cannon shells are high velocity which are powerful and useful as well but sometimes low velocity HE power is more effective or more useful...

Sometimes there is too much front cover to shoot through, but the roof armour is weak so low velocity rounds make sense too.

I would also add a rifle calibre machine gun to the commanders optics so he can shoot at what he sees.

The missile launchers are interesting... bulat would enable enemy vehicles and aircraft to be engaged... we really don't know what sort of range it has yet, but it just looks like a scaled down Kornet...

Those positions could be modular and allow unguided RPO rockets, or Bulat, or perhaps Kornet or Ataka, or perhaps even one of the new squared rocket pods for aircraft in 57mm, 80mm, or 122mm calibre...

Like this modification.

An unmanned and much smaller turret allows to increase armor on the sides.

It would be interesting to see a MBT like a T-90 remade with a smaller gun in an unmanned turret for places where enemy heavy armour is rare and could be handled with a Kornet instead of a main gun round, so main gun ammo can consist mostly of HE frag for direct fire fire power against infantry positions and bunkers.

Perhaps a 57mm high velocity main gun that could effectively deal with any vehicles from armour IED platforms right up through previous generation BMPs and BTRs like warriors and M113s etc, together with a low velocity long range deliverer of HE like a 40mm grenade launcher and perhaps a 23x115mm calibre model of the KPV hmg for targets that don't require a 57mm round.

With a remote weapon station attached to the commanders optics that can fire rifle calibre machine gun ammo and of course a rifle calibre machine gun coaxially mounted next to the main gun there should be onboard space for enormous amounts of ammo in enough variety to engage a variety of threats and targets... perhaps with two pods on top for either Kornet or Bulat or unguided rockets like RPO/RPG type rounds or aircraft rockets of the 57mm, 80mm and 122mm calibre...

Of course it could be argued that in such a situation a better main gun would actually be the 100mm rifled gun of the BMP-3 because it has more HE power, though it probably only has half the range (7km vs about 12km), but packs more punch and probably doens't take up much more room inside the tank because the shells are all projectile with a small stump of propellent, but in such a case you would want a high velocity weapon to compliment the low velocity high capacity HE round... and rather than trying to squeeze a 57mm gun on there as well I would probably go for a 30mm cannon... though I might be tempted to go for a single twin barrel cannon as fitted to the Hind and the Frogfoot for rate of fire. The entire turret bustle could be filled with 30mm cannon shells in enormous numbers... say... 2,000 rounds, and a box on top with 300 x 40mm grenades for a rear roof mounted 40mm grenade launcher that is fixed in traverse with the turret but can elevate like the 30mm grenade launcher on the BMP-2 upgrade.

The BMP-3 can carry 40 x 100mm shells in its autoloader so in this much larger turret with no crew positions inside I would expect more than double that could be carried because they are relatively small rounds... so a double ring of 100mm rounds with perhaps 90 shells and the space inside the ring where the crew in the BMP normally sit could hold coaxial machine gun ammo in enormous volumes.

Perhaps fit the twin barrel 30mm cannon to the side of the turret elevating independently from the 100mm gun with its ammo feed directly from the turret bustle holding perhaps 2,000 round of 30mm rounds.

The 100mm main gun centrally position in the front of the turret with a rifle calibre machine gun and a 23x115mm KPVB single barrel gun mounted coaxial either side with their ammo stored in the crew locations... 1,500 x 23mm rounds and 5,000 rifle calibre rounds, and a rear central turret mount for a 40mm grenade launcher with a 400 round ammo pack scabbed on top of the turret. One pod of rockets/missiles holding either four Kornets, 8 Bulat missiles, or rocket pods of various other types of ground and aircraft carried rockets... On the 360 degree optics for the commander a rifle calibre machine gun which has its own ammo stored around the rear part of the optical mount that turns with the optics and holds about 1,500 rounds.

With miniature optics and slim weapons like the PKT and the 40mm grenade launcher being quite compact I would be tempted to go back to the multi turret tank designs of the 1930s... back then they were awkward to control efficiently and made the vehicle huge with extra people and reduced armour because of these factors, but with a central system management having a couple of small flat turrets that sat at a lower level than the main turret you could effectively engage multiple targets at one time... suppressive fire is important and if it is all properly aimed it is much more effective and if it is from below armour it can be properly aimed.

One of the models of the BMPT actually had positions half way down the hull with weapons where the operators sat behind the turret in hull positions operating side facing weapons.

Properly designed flat remote weapon stations should allow a broad arc of fire while still being able to use the main weapons on the central turret... the problem of course is cost... and in action target management.

Normally with a tank the gunner just engages the target he is instructed to engage by the commander, it is the commander who looks for threats and for targets and decides which gets engaged... for instance if he detects an M1 Abrams tank and a Bradley, if the vehicle has ARENA and Shtora, he will likely instruct the driver to turn the frontal armour towards the Abrams and the gunner to open fire on the Abrams while he monitors the Bradley... perhaps instructing the driver to move the tank so the Abrams can be engaged but the bradley is not visible and then when the Abrams is destroyed direct the gunner to engage the bradley and the driver to move to the bradley is visible but nothing else is...

For a BMPT the targets of interest will be different and likely much more plentiful... the BMPT commander will mark the abrams and the bradley on his map for the local tanks to engage, but will most likely concentrate on troop positions and other vehicle types to engage... targets that do not require heavy weapons to engage can be handed off to the bow grenade launcher positions, while the gunner takes on threatening targets like an ATGM team using cannon.

The gunners manning the separate RWSs might be engaging drones or MG positions or sniper positions, or just spraying an enemy infantry line to suppress them while friendly infantry move forward...

Of course these days land drones with machine guns and light cannon and grenade launchers could also contribute too...

BMPT without ATGM´s.

First units are planned to arrive this year to the Russian Ground Forces.

Hole wrote:
BMPT without ATGM´s.

It is already out udated even before it goes into service. How it can protect tanks when it can't surveillance and destroy enemy's ATGM from out of missile range.

kopyo-21 wrote:

Hole wrote:
BMPT without ATGM´s.

It is already out udated even before it goes into service. How it can protect tanks when it can't surveillance and destroy enemy's ATGM from out of missile range.

Its not intended to be an all-in-one solution, or a specific protection against the most modern ATGM threats. It is designed to be able to provide additional protection against a very wide variety of threats in a wide variety of combat environments. It also has one of the more advanced FCS of any armored fighting vehicle in active service with the Russian Army, for quick detecting and engaging of threats within the capabilities of its weapons, and the weapons of the vehicles it operates with. There are more factors taken into consideration including logistics, cost-effectiveness, crew safety, crew training, mobility, etc...  

Finally, the fact that so few vehicles have been ordered already indicates that the vehicle in its current configuration is obviously a stop gap measure and its limitations will be taken into consideration when and if it is actually deployed in combat.

There will never be a "wunderwaffen" that provides all the answers, and even if this vehicle may be somewhat outdated, there is still nothing like it in service anywhere else, so i do not see why there is any reason for concern.

...or perhaps they should put rotor blades and 8000m range ATGM's on it so it can protect tanks from 5000 meters in the air.

Furthermore, you can find an argument about most military hardware currently in service that makes it outdated in some form or another. That does not mean it can not be deployed effectively (both in a military sense and an economic sense) on the battlefield, as most modern conflicts have shown.