BMPT "Terminator"

Russian forces already have spectacular fire power, and with their new vehicle families their Armata divisions will already have all their vehicles with tank level protection and BMP like fire power.

In fact a T-15 with the troop compartment filled with extra ammo and missiles is really not far off being a BMPT in the sense that the 57mm grenade launcher will offer serious fire power in terms of HE on target and APFSDS rounds as well as missiles for other targets... a couple of guys in the rear perhaps controlling drones and hull mounted external weapon mounts fitted with say 40mm grenade launchers and rifle calibre machine guns, and you would have a seriously powerful system that would not require BMPTs...

Generally you mount two guns to boost rate of fire, but most of the time it is done for anti aircraft weapons... for guns with airburst HE ammo and also guided shells rate of fire becomes less relevant.

If you think of a target 3km away from the vehicle that is 4m by 4m like a helicopter or something.... firing a 100 round burst of 30mm cannon shells would lead to a pattern of impacts that give a reasonable coverage of such a target... the problem is that there will be large gaps in this pattern of hits and if the target is a drone or a cruise missile then most if not all of those cannon shells will miss.

With command detonated airburst ammo if you fire 3-5 rounds and design them so the explode forward in a cone of expanding fragments then 3-5 rounds exploding 10m before they reach the target will cover that 4x4m fabric in tiny fragment holes.... great for cruise missiles and drones and not requiring too many rounds to be fired... 3-5 rounds could be fired by a single barrel 2A72 or 2A42.

With a 57mm Grenade you could probably use one or two rounds with the kill box... the interception area the target will be somewhere within by the time the fired shells reach the intercept area... simply because the 57mm grenade has a lot more fragments and a lot more explosive so will launch a much denser pattern of fragments when they explode.

For more serious air targets however they might use a modifed 2S38 air defence vehicle with the high velocity 57mm gun with airburst ammo and guided rounds as well as cheap dumb HE rounds and APFSDS rounds that will be effective to much greater distances due to higher muzzle velocity.

Pork barrel?

Cynical PD thinking Russian weapon makers are as corrupt as US and western weapon makers, and think Russian military officers are as open to bribery and money wastage as western military are.

The fact that they have a long history of using vehicles like air defence vehicles for fire power support and that to make them safer on the front line that basing them on a tank chassis is being suggested to make them safer, might really just be corruption is quite frankly amusing.

The core of the BMPT idea is an air defence vehicle with the armour to operate on a front line... so in a sense the ideal BMPT would be a 2S38 based on an Armata platform... the T-15 chassis with extra ammo in the troop compartment, with the 2S38 gun turret... but in reality the 12 missiles carried on the T-15 Epocha turret plus the 57mm grenade launcher and rifle calibre machine gun would probably be a better combination. Add a couple of remote weapon stations on the fuselage rear sides with 40mm grenade launchers and rifle calibre machine guns with two crew in the rear aiming them and of course lots of extra missiles and 57mm grenades in the rear hull and you would have an ideal BMPT.

Russia does not have a corporate financed political system like the USA. UVZ and other enterprises do not exert power by buying off
United Russia or any other party. Russian election campaigns are not multi-billion dollar operations where spending amount translates into
vote counts. This is what makes Russia a real democracy compared to the overhyped de facto one party state USA.

The west has the luxury of not being threatened by anyone so they can have a percentage of their inventory that is shit and get away with it most of the time...

The irony is that the last 30 years should have been the peace dividend where there were no big powerful enemies wasting money on useless pointless conflicts that drain budgets and wear out equipment... they should have had 30 years to rebuild and restructure and reform to be leaner and meaner and all round much better than they were 30 years ago, but they have been stagnating and actually moving backwards... the more F-35s they have in service the more money it will drain from everything else.

The BMPT is essentially a fire power vehicle with the protection of a tank, but with its fire power optimised for troops and area targets rather than hard enemy targets... a BMPT with tank level protection and tank level fire power is a tank...

BMPTs have no troop carrying capacity.

It is interesting that they are talking about dual channel engagement capability where a commander can deal with light targets with their MG and optics and the gunner can deal with another target using the main armament of the turret...

The potential in that regard for adding 40mm grenade launchers with dual PKT machine gun mounts that can be independently trained on their own targets with their own optics... perhaps located on the side rear of the chassis of the T-15 might allow for the two external mounts to engage two targets and the gunner and commander to engage two more, where the gunner can engage targets with 57mm and missiles and rifle calibre machine gun coaxial weapons, while the commander can engage with his cupola mounted MG, but can also control missiles in flight too with his sight, while two crew in the rear could operate external weapon mounts... or perhaps tele-control separate robot land vehicles that can engage further targets.

40mm grenade launchers are vastly more capable than rifle calibre machine guns at engaging enemy troops beyond about 1.2km and are are better at any range simply because the fragments from exploding 40mm grenades create a much denser pattern of damage than any burst of rifle calibre bullets.

Rifle calibre weapons are cheap and useful though so a coaxial mount means within about 1km you can selectively fire an accurate burst at a target without injuring everyone nearby... but lobbing 20 grenades at a group of enemy troops 2.2km away would still be very effective... certainly more likely more effective than firing a burst of 100 rounds at the same group.

Product advertised and product delivered turned out to be two different things

The Army makes the decisions and they don't want to spend big money so instead of mini turrets, they got bow mounted weapons with fairly limited traverse and range of fire. They also seem to have a very strange set up for the 30mm cannon, but that is largely due to the manned turret also containing the ammo... an Armata variant with an unmanned turret makes more sense with a better ammo load out.

The BMPT doesn't need APDS or APFSDS rounds... mostly HEI and a light APHEI is fine so instead of two 2A42 cannon, I would replace that with the twin barrel 30mm cannon from the Hind, which is a longer barrel version of what the Su-25 carries.
Add a 40mm grenade launcher and with airburst 30mm and 40mm rounds you are pretty good to go... use a modified Epocha turret with four Kornets and 8 Bulat all ready to fire and say 1,000 rounds of 30mm ammo and 400 x 40mm grenades for the turret mounted weapons... or perhaps replace the 30mm twin barrel cannon for the much smaller 23mm twin barrel cannon in the current Hinds with 23 x 115mm rounds that are much much smaller but with a heavy HE payload for its calibre... you could probably get 3-4 thousand rounds in the turret and rear hull... you would probably need water cooling for the barrels...

In terms of fire power those twin 23mm are devastating against most ground targets...

Be aware that missiles for the BMPT is for manouvering targets at long range like aircraft and drones and light vehicles.

Missiles shown like Ataka will be the HE frag equipped models for hitting point targets at extended ranges... like the western equivalent of a Kornet team.

There are many situations where the enemy has little to no armour and vehicles designed to engage enemy troops in the open or the positions they are hiding in are more useful than a vehicle with a 125mm gun...

With decent thermals and air burst 30mm cannon shells it would be an ideal tool for dealing with smaller drones.

The whole point of mounting two guns is to up the rate of fire a bit for airborne target and to increase the impact effect on area ground targets when large bursts are fired at targets.

The justification for the 2A42 cannons being used is that they are dual feed so you can switch between two totally different types of ammo at the flick of a switch.

When you flick that switch the target aiming reticle will adjust to the type of ammo selected so you can have high velocity APDS or very high velocity APFSDS or HEI or HEI-T, or airburst HEI.

For instance you might have four belts of ammo connected to the two guns... one belt on one gun with APFSDS rounds or APDS so you would just fire one gun if you come across light vehicles, while the second belt on that gun might be HEI. The other gun you might want HEI-T for one belt and airburst HEI for the other belt.

You don't need an enormous rate of fire for airburst rounds or APFSDS rounds, but if you are plastering the front of a building or an area of long grass or the edge of a forest with HE rounds then both guns firing HEI rounds or HEI-T rounds makes it rather impressive and effective.

My suggestion for a twin barrel 30mm gun used on the Hind (the fixed gun attached to the side of earlier model Hinds because the recoil was too powerful to be mounted in a turret) and also on the Su-25 would give much higher rates of fire but you would be stuck with a fixed belt of ammo that cannot include APFSDS or APDS because their trajectory is totally different from the HEI rounds. You would have to use APHE and HEI rounds that are matched ballistically so they both go to the same point of aim at most ranges.... the AP performance is not great but against aircraft targets it is fine.

The 2A42 is also a widely used reliable gun that is resistant to dirt and sand and it uses Army ammo rather than Air Force Ammo.

The external mount means build up of gas in the turret as was found with the BMP-2 is not a problem.

Interesting that it mentions it works together with air defence vehicles... so it can probably receive target data about aircraft in the vicinity which would be rather helpful...

That is excellent news and will make all the difference in terms of performance against various aerial targets.

Against a drone the light fragments would be devastating and essentially being able to fire single shots should conserve ammo yet still have a good chance of downing the threat without using super expensive rounds.

Equally enemy troops hunkered down behind a rock or concrete fence could be engaged with airburst rounds fired above their heads.

It was noticed with their 40mm under barrel grenades that the air burst rounds were vastly more effective than the standard impact types... very simply the impact grenades generally exploded on the ground and created leg and lower body wounds. The air burst rounds which used a small HE charge to blow the grenade back up into the air and detonated a main charge at 1.5 to 2 metres in the air were vastly more lethal because they created face and head wounds and wounds to the upper torso which were much more deadly and lethal.

The airburst round actually had a smaller main HE charge because it also carried a small charge to blow the grenade back up into the air before the main charge exploded, but was still rather more lethal and effective.

Conceptually the BMPT is a BMP-2 with its troops dismounted, but instead of supporting the troops it carries... because it does not carry troops.... it supports tanks.

The tanks can deal with enemy armour... enemy tanks and BMPs but it has trouble dealing with enemy infantry... with only about 300 rounds of 12.7mm HMG ammo and about 2,000 rounds of PKT ammo, its main gun ammo is not ideal for hitting individual enemy soldiers in terms of efficiency.

This BMPT is the commander and driver and gunner of a BMP with more ammo choices for the 30mm gun because with two guns it has four ammo feeds... so it can carry APFSDS in one belt on one gun which would be used for self defence against enemy light armour or against enemy flying armoured targets like A-10s or Apaches or Tigers. The other gun might have one belt of air burst HEI rounds for light targets like drones or shooting troops behind front cover but with no top cover. Both types of rounds are specialist rounds that don't really rely on rate of fire to be effective. The other round could be a HEI-T round... one belt each for both guns and that would be the devastating both guns firing round for a big group of troops in the open or there is a sniper somewhere in that building... lets make them put their head down.

The point is that the gunner can direct the two 30mm cannon and the PKT coaxial MG at a target, but the commander could point the turret at a target and launch a missile and then return control of the turret to the gunner to engage a different target. The commander could guide that missile to a threat up to 6km away, while the gunner obliterates some building or bunker... but on most battlefields there are normally more than two potential targets to deal with.... and that is where the bow gunners come in.

Some targets can be engaged with a missile, others require a rifle calibre machine gun, while other larger area targets might need 30mm cannon, and others can be dealt with using 30mm grenades.

With good optics and good communications and auto targeting and tracking optical systems the commander could allocate targets to more than one gunner.

Think of it conceptually as two 30mm AGLs, a rifle calibre MG (PKT) and two 30mm cannon teams and essentially an old Kornet team with four ready to fire missiles.

Having it all in a vehicle protects all the crews from small arms fire and means reloading is not a problem so you have two 30mm grenade launchers that can be aimed and fired by men controlling them, and you have another man with control of two 30mm cannon and a rifle calibre machine gun and four missiles, though the commander could also fire the missiles or the guns too if need be.

The driver just moves the group around the battlefield.

In the attack a BMP would be able to spot points of enemy fire from a defensive position and open fire with a coaxial MG or 30mm cannon to suppress that fire... with a BMPT the commander can direct the gunner to engage a target and each bow gunner to engage different targets, and if needed could temporarily point the turret at a fourth target he could launch a missile at and then return control of the turret to the gunner so the gunner can engage targets with the coaxial MG or cannon... that is potentially four targets being engaged at one time by a crewman that does not have to worry about anything else except destroying their allocated target and awaiting instructions for the next target

Most of the time the commander would of course be looking for threats and targets and the vehicle would be linked in to the air defence network so any drone activity or helicopters or light attack aircraft would be detected and they would be warned... while the gunner flicks to airburst 30mm cannon rounds and engages the bow gunners can continue to engage targets like troops with RPGs or ATGMs or snipers etc etc.

While this is happening of course the tanks that they are operating with will be obliterating enemy armour and hard points with 125mm rounds and both can call in artillery and air support as needed...

Imagine a built up area with flat open terrain all around... BMPTs and Tanks with mine rollers and other equipment could fight their way up to the edge of the built up area and then BMPs could come up and deliver troops for the house to house fighting to take the town or city.

Obviously most of the time just level the city or cut it off and take out critical infrastructure... it depends on whether the local population are on your side or not... if it is Kiev and the population is hostile then hit the HQs of the nazis and the politicians that are not under house arrest, and take out a few other choice targets and then leave.

But to engage enemy tanks with an AIFV full of intantry was not so good either. So some military thinkers came up with the concept of splitting the workload of the AIFV into two: a dedicated infantry carrier (with light weapons only so that the crew didn´t engange enemy tanks) and the fire-support vehicle with autocannons and ATGM´s.

The BMPT is what remains of this concept.

No, I don't agree. In WWII the vast majority of troops walked... in the richer countries like the US they rode in trucks which gave them excellent mobility but not so much protection. The obvious next step was an APC or in Russian speak a BTR an armoured troop transport vehicle... it was no tank but offered the mobility of trucks or better, with protection from small arms fire and fragments of artillery and also later radiation protection and light fire power too... the vehicle delivered the troops to where it was needed and then pulled back using its weapon... normally a heavy machine gun or light cannon to support the troop attack.

The Soviet invented the IFV or as they call it BMP with much better protection and much better armour and the main difference is that the BMP is designed to fight enemy troops and troop transports and has rather better armament.

There were rumours that the Soviets planned for a force of BMPs to deliver their troops and then for three quarters of the BMPs to then leave and form a mobile armed reserve that was like a group of light tanks while the quarter of BMPs remaining supported the troops, but I have only really seen western speculation about that so I don't know if it is true or not.

The point is that the BMPT evolved from something different... sometimes in combat the Soviets found that high fire power vehicles were useful... the BTR-40 was a wheeled APC fitted for AA use with two 14.5mm HMGs... which are very much equivalent of western 20mm cannon. Later the BTR-152 was fitted with towed twin 23mm cannon for the same use and the single 37mm ZSU, as well as its replacements ZSU-57-2 and ZSU-23-4 and then Tunguska 2S6M were all used for the air defence role but were found to be very effective against some types of ground targets too... their overwhelming fire power was overwhelming.

Their lack of armour not so great.

When the Soviets were in Afghanistan they took the formations they had in Europe which included chem and bio warfare units and air defence units and anti armour units that were not really a lot of use in such a conflict, but they found that keeping these forces together and using them for other roles was more useful than breaking them up and using them for other things. The enemy had no drones or aircraft, but the Shilkas were devastating because of their high elevation and enormous rate of fire and powerful projectiles delivering HE in large volumes very rapidly.

In Chechnia they found the same, though in Afghanistan when they ripped out all the radar equipment they could get 4,000 rounds of ready to fire ammo in the Shilkas... when they tried to do the same with the Tunguska and BMP-3 they found they no longer fired.... like a brand new car if you rip out the electronics then the systems don't work... their new vehicles were not the soldier proof simple machines of the past.

The point is that the BMPT is not a BMP... it is a SPAAG for use against light aircraft and also ground threats.

Remember the armoured forces the BMPT and T series tanks operate with will still have Tunguskas and TORs to shoot down helicopters and A-10s and other threats, so the BMPTs will mostly be used for engaging light very low flying drones, but also ATGM positions and snipers and MG positions and troop concentrations etc etc.

Note the advantage of the 30mm grenade launchers would be their 1.7km range which would essentially put the vehicle outside effective rifle calibre machine gun fire, but of course grenades would be effective to that range.

The 30mm cannon shells and missiles would also be effective at that range too, but I suspect when the 40mm grenade launchers are cleared for service their 2.5km range and lack of shell cases would make them even more useful for vehicle mounts.

In a COIN type fight or even against the Ukraine night vision optics and powerful weapons would make this effective against infantry forces... defence against Javelin would be mostly smoke grenades and Quarry type optical jammers (DIRCMS).

Definitely the other way around - it's a BMP and not a SPAAG. The BMP-T was developed from the experienced gained during the Chechen Wars. They felt the need for an infantry fighting vehicle that can support tanks in heavily build-up areas with much better armour than the BMP's. The BMP-T happens to be able to defend against attacking aircraft and helicopters but was never developed as a SPAAG.

I suspect you are confusing what you call a BMP-T... which does not exist... there is BMPT, but no BMP-T.... with the tank based troop transport, but being a machine gun armed troop transport it is called BTR-T and it is a tank based APC or in Russian language BTR.

The BMP is IFV but the BMPT is not an IFV, nor is it a troop transport... it is a support vehicle that operates with tanks without infantry.

SPAAG's on the other hand proved to be very useful in the ground support role as you've mentioned. The M-42 Duster was literally dusted off from storage as they were considered obsolete, but they proved their worth during the Vietnam War. Same with the Shilkas but all of them had very thin armour.

The Soviets had dedicated AA systems... the ZSU-37-1 and ZSU-57-2 and ZSU-23-4, but they also had BTR-40s with twin 14.5mm HMGs in the back as well as BTR-152s with 23mm cannons in the back that were of course used against helicopters if they presented themselves but most of the time were used against ground targets in the same way that in Afghanistan the VDV lashed 23mm twin gun towed mounted ZU-23s onto the back of BMDs, or the same light towed cannon were fixed to the flat beds of trucks because of their fire power.

The Soviets continued to use mobile 12.7mm and 14.5mm HMGs and also 23mm cannon on towed mounts and fixing them to light vehicles continued too simply because that made them more mobile and therefore useful.

The use of Shilka and Tunguska is an extension of the dual anti air and ground based fire support roles they continue to this day with... including on trains and even river boats and small ships.

The 2 extra dudes are necessary - extra eyes and firepower to better simulate the firing line of dismounts only its behind armor. Remember, current tactics calls for the infantry to dismount and form up with the tanks 500 m from the threat in a dismounted attack - and walk all the way. The BMPT might be not as well armored as the tank but it sure beats open air against the mass of small arms fire any halfway decent opposition can muster.

I agree totally. People can talk about AI and all sorts of new sophisticated stuff, but at the end of the day a human needs to be in control because in the chaos of battle you don't want your BMPT to mow down friendly troops or civilians or just waste ammo.

On paper the T-26 was probably the best version of the Carden Lloyd tractor... it had reasonable armour and a decent powerful gun for the time period that could penetrate any German tank at battle ranges, but its core problem was it was a two man tank, while even the more pathetic early German tanks had full sized turrets with enough crew so the jobs could be distributed and done properly.

In a T-26 the driver is driving but the commander has to look for targets and threats, direct the driver where to drive to, operate the radio if there is one, load aim and fire the gun... in the thick of battle that meant the commander was not commanding... he was often focused on the target firing the gun and could easily be attacked by other tanks from the flank or rear.

The BMPT has a commander with all round vision... day night vision... and inside the turret with him is a gunner whom he can direct to engage the most dangerous target... and while that gunner is engaging that target the vehicle is not a sitting duck... the commander can look for targets which can be allocated to the bow gunners with a command to the driver to turn the vehicle if needed to get within their field of view.

Most importantly the bow gunners could have optics that give an all round view of the tank... those laser warning sensors often have cameras with thermal capabilities so in addition to detecting when the vehicle is lased it gives and night and day all weather view around the vehicle... well those bow gunners could be looking at that video feed with as good a battle field view as the commander up in the turret looking for enemy sneaking up on the vehicle... marking a target on the display could indicate to the commander a target that they might not have noticed... remember good visibility means lots of real estate to scan so having three sets of eyes or four if you count the gunner is a very good thing... but once you start engaging targets then sets of eyes become focused on their targets so having two bow gunners looking around... maybe watching the sides and rear while the commander and gunner look forward at the main enemy positions while the driver drives from position to position pointing the hull where you might want to fire the bow guns with the turret pointing at targets for the main gunner...

Auto target detection and auto target tracking is all good... the commander can use such systems to jump from potential target to potential target instead of having to scan 360 degrees from 0 to 90 degree vertical angles but there will be a lot of places you can look so extra eyes is useful to keep up with all the potential moving targets or thermal hotspots the system might be detecting...

The only real reason this is done in the first place is because of the vulnerability of the soft-skinned BMPs to even HMG fire on the exposed flanks. As long as the current setup of MBTs and soft-skinned IFVs persists there's still room for a BMPT vehicle. Its only really when the BMPs get the thicker hides of the MBTs would BMPTs be obsoleted.

The purpose of the BMPT is a direct fire support vehicle that can engage enemy troops and enemy positions that is not as vulnerable as a BMP or troops in the open. Tanks on their own are too vulnerable to enemy infantry so to support them you need a BMP like vehicle, but a BMP like vehicle would be too vulnerable because of its thinner armour and it would probably to too dangerous to deploy troops so a BTR-T would not make sense because the troops would remain in the vehicle all the time meaning their fire power and weapons could not be deployed effectively.

A BMPT is essentially in its current design two 30mm cannon teams, one PK machine gun team, two 30mm grenade launcher teams and four Shturm/Ataka ATGM missile teams all with lots of ready to fire ammo and protected mostly with tank level armour that can move where the tanks move because it is based on a tank.

I suspect with Armata divisions that the T-15 with a 57mm grenade launcher, rifle calibre machine gun, four Kornet EM 10km range missiles ready to fire and 8 Bulat missiles ready to fire and perhaps two either bow mounted or perhaps rear hull mounted 40mm grenade launchers with the rear hull filled with extra ammo for the weapons instead of troops will make the BMP-T redundant. Note the T-15 with troops effectively makes the BTR-T redundant too with a BMP level of fire power and troops in a vehicle with tank level protection.

The BTR-T was mainly pitched as an upgrade for the T-55 for export but its operational costs would be pretty high for an APC because of its size and weight.

Equally the upgrades for the T-55AM3 to 5 didn't sell very well either because it was a lot of work and money to get something that was not hugely better than a T-72. Buying a T-72 and then upgrading it would result in a better vehicle that was not much different in price.

Didn't help that the core upgrades of the T-55AM5 was replacement of the turret with the T-72 turret and the T-72 engine and wheels etc etc... made more sense just to buy T-72s and give them upgrades... which the Russian Army did as a cheap numbers tank while they are waiting for the T-90 and T-14 etc to be ready.