Serbian Armed Forces

A new Serbian modification of the M-84 tank is presented

On the page in the Facebook social network of the Ministry of Defense of Serbia a photo of the new modification of the M-84 tank of the former Yugoslavian production - M-84 AS1 was published.

On the website of the Serb military industrial association "Jugoimport-SDPR" there is information about the tank modification of the M-84 AS. The upgraded tank is equipped with a 24-hour DNNS 2ATK sight with an infrared night vision device and an optional digital fire control system, the KIS M84 information management system, the TOMS commander's observation device, the SOFTKIL system of active interference in the optical range, the 2nd generation dynamic protection, the engine protection From the wrong actions of the driver-mechanic during the pre-start and engine start-up, communication facilities manufactured by Thales, a remotely controlled module with a 12.7mm machine gun.



http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2602613.html

George1 wrote:A new Serbian modification of the M-84 tank is presented

On the page in the Facebook social network of the Ministry of Defense of Serbia a photo of the new modification of the M-84 tank of the former Yugoslavian production - M-84 AS1 was published.

On the website of the Serb military industrial association "Jugoimport-SDPR" there is information about the tank modification of the M-84 AS. The upgraded tank is equipped with a 24-hour DNNS 2ATK sight with an infrared night vision device and an optional digital fire control system, the KIS M84 information management system, the TOMS commander's observation device, the SOFTKIL system of active interference in the optical range, the 2nd generation dynamic protection, the engine protection From the wrong actions of the driver-mechanic during the pre-start and engine start-up, communication facilities manufactured by Thales, a remotely controlled module with a 12.7mm machine gun.



http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2602613.html

It would be about... 4th modernisation in a row that never reached service

Sorry if this has been already posted
China donates military equipment to Serbia
http://defence-blog.com/army/china-donates-military-equipment-to-serbia.html

What are you guys sporting for an AD anyway?

littlerabbit wrote:Looks like we will have some new acquisitions in our AF...4 new Mi-17's and 4 new Mi-35's and some stuff for the Army.

http://tass.com/defense/997538

Obtaining T-72s while we have dozens of M-84s that can be overhauled and placed back in service, and are younger than those T-72s... and obtaining BMP-2s while we have dozens of M-80s that also can be overhauled and modernised. Sounds like logistic nightmare, even worse than one we already had.

Militarov wrote:

littlerabbit wrote:Looks like we will have some new acquisitions in our AF...4 new Mi-17's and 4 new Mi-35's and some stuff for the Army.

http://tass.com/defense/997538

Obtaining T-72s while we have dozens of M-84s that can be overhauled and placed back in service, and are younger than those T-72s... and obtaining BMP-2s while we have dozens of M-80s that also can be overhauled and modernised. Sounds like logistic nightmare, even worse than one we already had.

From what I gather, there is already a T-72 company (with a few more in storage) which will become an armoured battalion with these additional T-72's and BMP-2's

Cyberspec wrote:

Militarov wrote:

littlerabbit wrote:Looks like we will have some new acquisitions in our AF...4 new Mi-17's and 4 new Mi-35's and some stuff for the Army.

http://tass.com/defense/997538

Obtaining T-72s while we have dozens of M-84s that can be overhauled and placed back in service, and are younger than those T-72s... and obtaining BMP-2s while we have dozens of M-80s that also can be overhauled and modernised. Sounds like logistic nightmare, even worse than one we already had.

From what I gather, there is already a T-72 company (with a few more in storage) which will become an armoured battalion with these additional T-72's and BMP-2's

One training T-72M unit exists, serviced by canibalisation of T-72s that are in storage. But its not combat ready unit. These T-72s are also of different variant it seems, most likely T-72S. We never operated BMP-2s, so thats a new weird decision.

And we have like... probably over 200 M-80s that lay around rotting in "reserve".

Militarov wrote:

littlerabbit wrote:Looks like we will have some new acquisitions in our AF...4 new Mi-17's and 4 new Mi-35's and some stuff for the Army.

http://tass.com/defense/997538

Obtaining T-72s while we have dozens of M-84s that can be overhauled and placed back in service, and are younger than those T-72s... and obtaining BMP-2s while we have dozens of M-80s that also can be overhauled and modernised. Sounds like logistic nightmare, even worse than one we already had.

I quite agree. The T-72 in service could be upgraded and the M-84 also could be upgraded they have the skills to do it. T-72 with help from Russia or Belarus  could be upgraded. I believe that the T-72 their getting were gifted or bought at token price. The
M-80 could easily be upgraded similar to berezhok. They already have M-80AB1 30mm gun and 2T5 anti tank missiles. I would upgrade on this with an AGS and an another variant of M-80 armed with a mix of malyutka with following variants:
2T5(radio guided 5km range for long range sniping)
9M14-2T (tandem warhead improved penetration)
9M14-2F (thermobaric warhead)
this would give theM a multi purpose missile carrier the malyutka still (in upgraded form) a fairly decent ATGW it's cheap  (probably the cheapest) and they have the means to produce it. Serbia should spend money on upgrading current equipment that still is useful rather than one off prototypes that they will never buy. They have many vehicles in storage mainly M-80, M-84, T-55, BTR-60, BTR-50. M-84 could be upgraded and there's no reason why Serbia couldn't make their own TOS or BMPT (using upgraded malyutka) using M-84 or T-55 chassis.
M-80 could also be upgraded or used ATGW.
BTR-60 as command or ATGW or Air defence with strelets or zu-23-2ZOM type upgrade and as for
BTR-50 they showcased a turret version with 20 or 30 mm gun and malyutka although i think this vehicles armour is took week to be a good AFV but i rather think it would be more suited as a mortar carrier with it roof opening doors a 120mm mortar or an 82mm automatic mortar would be ideal. these dont have to be expensive upgrades and nothing outwith there technology know how. This would allow them to field a capable ground  force.

d_taddei2 wrote:

Militarov wrote:

littlerabbit wrote:Looks like we will have some new acquisitions in our AF...4 new Mi-17's and 4 new Mi-35's and some stuff for the Army.

http://tass.com/defense/997538

Obtaining T-72s while we have dozens of M-84s that can be overhauled and placed back in service, and are younger than those T-72s... and obtaining BMP-2s while we have dozens of M-80s that also can be overhauled and modernised. Sounds like logistic nightmare, even worse than one we already had.

I quite agree. The T-72 in service could be upgraded and the M-84 also could be upgraded they have the skills to do it. T-72 with help from Russia or Belarus  could be upgraded. I believe that the T-72 their getting were gifted or bought at token price. The
M-80 could easily be upgraded similar to berezhok. They already have M-80AB1 30mm gun and 2T5 anti tank missiles. I would upgrade on this with an AGS and an another variant of M-80 armed with a mix of malyutka with following variants:
2T5(radio guided 5km range for long range sniping)
9M14-2T (tandem warhead improved penetration)
9M14-2F (thermobaric warhead)
this would give theM a multi purpose missile carrier the malyutka still (in upgraded form) a fairly decent ATGW it's cheap  (probably the cheapest) and they have the means to produce it. Serbia should spend money on upgrading current equipment that still is useful rather than one off prototypes that they will never buy. They have many vehicles in storage mainly M-80, M-84, T-55, BTR-60, BTR-50. M-84 could be upgraded and there's no reason why Serbia couldn't make their own TOS or BMPT (using upgraded malyutka) using M-84 or T-55 chassis.
M-80 could also be upgraded or used ATGW.
BTR-60 as command or ATGW or Air defence with strelets or zu-23-2ZOM type upgrade and as for
BTR-50 they showcased a turret version with 20 or 30 mm gun and malyutka although i think this vehicles armour is took week to be a good AFV but i rather think it would be more suited as a mortar carrier with it roof opening doors a 120mm mortar or an 82mm automatic mortar would be ideal. these dont have to be expensive upgrades and nothing outwith there technology know how. This would allow them to field a capable ground  force.

I agree, but...although we have in reserve 200 of M-80's, it is questionable in what condition are they, after almost 2 decades of total negligence. Maybe our military HQ thinks it will be needed a lot of money per unit to get them operational, so they decided to get 30 or 60 BMP-2's, cos it's cheaper.
Making BMPT's out of T-55A's is great idea, they can even make some of them into something like Israeli Achzarit, but who knows what they have in their minds. Above all, I'm not sure they know what are they doing, honestly.

Hi all. I have been doing some basic research on the BVP M-80A afv, which was in service with the Yugoslav Ground Forces, and today is still being used by some armies, most notably Serbia.
Most of the basic info regarding the BVP M-80A can be found online, but i hope that maybe somebody here has some experience or knoweldge on the vehicle, and can shed some light on some of the questions :

1. Armor protection
Regarding the protection of the BVP M-80(A), various sources claim that they used alimunium in combination with titanium for the armor, as well as steel. But i can not seem to find much detail about which materials where used for what components. I would assume that the aluminium/titanium would be used for the chassis, while the armor itself would be steel, but perhaps i see it wrong? Also, how does its armor stack up against the BMP-1 in terms of protection of the crew compartment? Does it also feature improvements to the protection of driver / commander from mine blasts?

2. Fuel
Where are the fuel tanks located ? Did they use the same design as the BMP-1 and put additional fuel in to the rear doors? Is the main fuel tank located in between the 2 rows of seating in the crew compartment?

3. Weapons
The most commonly used variant BVP-M80A appears to be armed with a 20mm M-55 cannon, which AFAIK feeds from 60 rounds magazines. Later options include the 30mm Zastava guns, but i think i have read somewhere that these gun also have limited capacity of 40 rounds per belt due to the mechanism used. I assume that the dual feed variant has 80 rounds of ready to fire ammunition? Is the 30mmm variant adopted by Serbia or another nation, or do vehicles in actual service continue to use the old 20mm guns? The 30mm seems to be a rather powerfull cannon, which is also compact and simple to maintain/use, but the limitation of the belt length could be considered problematic?  

4. FCS
The BVP M-80 looks like it had some good sensors for the gunner. I can find only limited info about the components, but i am guessing the gunner had a combined day/night sight, using a passive image intensifier for night or adverse weather condition.Like in BMP-2, there is a second sight for engaging aerial targets at high elevation. Commander uses "traditional" passive/active infrared sights. Has the sights been upgraded on current vehicles? how is the gun stabilization ?

Overall, i am quite impressed with this little machine. For its time it seems to be  a rather balanced solution with some nice features. I saw recently that Yugoimport is offering a non-amphibious modernised version with passive add-on armor, better FCS and improved one man turret. Is Serbia or Croatia interested in this upgrade?

Thanks to whoever can answer some of these questions, or tell me a bit more about this machine.

For very light vehicles aluminium is commonly used because of the laws of physics.

If you make a component in steel and then scale back the thickness to reduce weight you can get to the point where it is not structurally strong enough to do what it is supposed to do despite being the right weight.

If you replace it with a lighter metal like Aluminium you can get rather more thickness for the same weight... and 5mm of steel compared with 20mm of Aluminium means the lighter metal is actually a better choice. note that neither will even stop small arms fire so in terms of protection it does not make any difference which you choose.

0nillie0 wrote:Hi all. I have been doing some basic research on the BVP M-80A afv, which was in service with the Yugoslav Ground Forces, and today is still being used by some armies, most notably Serbia.
Most of the basic info regarding the BVP M-80A can be found online, but i hope that maybe somebody here has some experience or knoweldge on the vehicle, and can shed some light on some of the questions :

1. Armor protection
Regarding the protection of the BVP M-80(A), various sources claim that they used alimunium in combination with titanium for the armor, as well as steel. But i can not seem to find much detail about which materials where used for what components. I would assume that the aluminium/titanium would be used for the chassis, while the armor itself would be steel, but perhaps i see it wrong? Also, how does its armor stack up against the BMP-1 in terms of protection of the crew compartment? Does it also feature improvements to the protection of driver / commander from mine blasts?

2. Fuel
Where are the fuel tanks located ? Did they use the same design as the BMP-1 and put additional fuel in to the rear doors? Is the main fuel tank located in between the 2 rows of seating in the crew compartment?

3. Weapons
The most commonly used variant BVP-M80A appears to be armed with a 20mm M-55 cannon, which AFAIK feeds from 60 rounds magazines. Later options include the 30mm Zastava guns, but i think i have read somewhere that these gun also have limited capacity of 40 rounds per belt due to the mechanism used. I assume that the dual feed variant has 80 rounds of ready to fire ammunition? Is the 30mmm variant adopted by Serbia or another nation, or do vehicles in actual service continue to use the old 20mm guns? The 30mm seems to be a rather powerfull cannon, which is also compact and simple to maintain/use, but the limitation of the belt length could be considered problematic?  

4. FCS
The BVP M-80 looks like it had some good sensors for the gunner. I can find only limited info about the components, but i am guessing the gunner had a combined day/night sight, using a passive image intensifier for night or adverse weather condition.Like in BMP-2, there is a second sight for engaging aerial targets at high elevation. Commander uses "traditional" passive/active infrared sights. Has the sights been upgraded on current vehicles? how is the gun stabilization ?

Overall, i am quite impressed with this little machine. For its time it seems to be  a rather balanced solution with some nice features. I saw recently that Yugoimport is offering a non-amphibious modernised version with passive add-on armor, better FCS and improved one man turret. Is Serbia or Croatia interested in this upgrade?

Thanks to whoever can answer some of these questions, or tell me a bit more about this machine.

I am SAM servicemen, so i wasnt in mechanised corps but i had the pleasure to break my neck twice in BVP-80 with the grunts so i will throw in some things.

1. To my knowledge there is no titanium or aluminium used on BVP-80, tho i did read it more than once online, possibly written by keyboard warriors. My father says its made by welded rolled homogenus steel sheets that are in thickness of 9, 12 and 14mm. On later variants of it (never fiedled) wheels were to be replaced tho by aluminium casted ones, due to problems with steel ones. Armored protection itself is abit better than on BMP-1 on its sides, rest of the protection is more or less comparable to it.

Even tho by the book it was supposed to be able and survive direct hits from 20mm shell from its front, it was more often than not penetrated by 12,7mm HMGs, from sides its protected aganist 8mm Mauser (7,9x57mm) FMJ. There is no additional armor liner or "double hull" under driver for mine protection.

2. Fuel is in the middle, you actually kinda sit on the fuel tanks. Face-outwards as you are supposed to use gunports... gl with that one.

3. Yes, 20mm cannon is used on all BVP-80s in service. While cannon itself is okay, feeding mechanism is problematic and it seems no gunner ever in its lifetime managed to fire whole belt without jamming. 30mm ammo while more effective would turn the turret into living Hell as there is actually more space in box of sardins.

4. Gun doesnt have stabilisation hahaah . Sorry, but that was so cute, you actually thought it had gyroscopic stabilisation . There is/was actually variant which featured stabilisation but it was never fielded due to...well...breakup of Yugoslavia. Yes there is image intensifier PNS-1 and daylight sight DNS-1. There are also two periscopes, TPKU2B as daylight, and TKN-1 IC periscope which was very, very rarely used by the commander. And sights are the same as they were.

Serbia is apparently interested in its modernisation (Croatia would rather throw them into the sea than do anything with Serbia) the variant that you saw. However its questionable how viable is that modernisation in general or how to put it: "Is it worth the trouble".

Thanks for the info !

0nillie0 wrote:Thanks for the info !

You welcome.

http://www.srpskioklop.paluba.info/m80/opis.htm Some decent and fairly accurate data about it, just in Serbian. Try using google translate.

Celebrating the Day of the Armed Forces in Serbia





Some interesting hardware











https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3172211.html

Serbia allegedly in negotiations to recieve-buy FK-3/HQ-22 Air Defence System from China instead of second hand S-300

https://www.blic.rs/vesti/politika/otkrivamo-vucic-trazio-od-kine-tri-mocna-raketna-sistema-fk-3/ccmj9ek

Militarov wrote:Serbia allegedly in negotiations to recieve-buy FK-3/HQ-22 Air Defence System from China instead of second hand S-300

https://www.blic.rs/vesti/politika/otkrivamo-vucic-trazio-od-kine-tri-mocna-raketna-sistema-fk-3/ccmj9ek

So instead of '2nd hand S-300' they'll get '3rd Party S-300'...

magnumcromagnon wrote:

Militarov wrote:Serbia allegedly in negotiations to recieve-buy FK-3/HQ-22 Air Defence System from China instead of second hand S-300

https://www.blic.rs/vesti/politika/otkrivamo-vucic-trazio-od-kine-tri-mocna-raketna-sistema-fk-3/ccmj9ek

So instead of '2nd hand S-300' they'll get '3rd Party S-300'...

Quite funny indeed. Serbia may have gotten a loan from China in order to buy it. Which would make sense.

But as Papa said, they need Buks. And I imagine Tor as well to protect Buk sites. Buk-M3 being probably best option OR the chinese knockoff that is more or less a land variant of Shtil-1 which is vertical launch Buk.

Isos wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:

Militarov wrote:Serbia allegedly in negotiations to recieve-buy FK-3/HQ-22 Air Defence System from China instead of second hand S-300

https://www.blic.rs/vesti/politika/otkrivamo-vucic-trazio-od-kine-tri-mocna-raketna-sistema-fk-3/ccmj9ek

So instead of '2nd hand S-300' they'll get '3rd Party S-300'...

Quite funny indeed.  Serbia may have gotten a loan from China in order to buy it.  Which would make sense.

But as Papa said, they need Buks.  And I imagine Tor as well to protect Buk sites.  Buk-M3 being probably best option OR the chinese knockoff that is more or less a land variant of Shtil-1 which is vertical launch Buk.

They already think about buying chinese drones. More SRBM and long range rocket artillery would be a better investment than a copy of an old buk. And why not a dpuzen of jf-17 jets.

If this Chinese system is really good, I'm all for it. We need something like that to scare off potential predators, especially NATO countries. I've heard that drones we are buying from China are coming in the same package with technology transfer. That is an excellent news.

I'd imagine that if they got S -300 it would be small in number and more of political show of power as like people have said it's over kill. Moscow could of course donate or token price 4 systems and this would provide long range deterrence. 

Ideally Buk M-3 would be great but unlikely to happen. M2 or buk MB and some belarussian stilets would be enough (could do a deal for buk MB & stilets together) Tor nice but too pricey. Pantsir with possible additional tunguska(donated/token price) and sonsa R. And a mix of manpads/strelets/dhigit/zu-23-2ZOM, possibly zsu-23-4M. With their modernised s-125, kub, sa-13. They would be good. 

Biggest problem is money. Hence they would need a loan and receive token prices and donations. Upgraded zsu-23-4 & zu-23-2, sa-13 along with manpads/strelets would be sufficient for short range. The Pantsir/Tunguska would protect Buk, S-125, kub and sonsa R and stilets could be used to protect other units or buildings. The Buk Pantsir sonsa are moderately only expensive the rest are cheap including upgrades and providing favorable prices given.