BMPT "Terminator"

The-thing-next-door wrote:.......
With the 5 crew vertion you can engage 3 difforent targets at once.

And lose 2 extra men should the vehicle get taken out

Humans ain't cheap (quality ones at least)

kopyo-21 wrote:So, according to your opinion, should those 2 men get out the well-amored BMPT and walk behind/beside it with Ak-47 in hand instead?

No, they should join third guy in another BMPT

kopyo-21 wrote:I have different thinking. Those two Ags-17 gunners are the same troops who are carried by BMPs that go with tanks and BMPTs. In that case, sitting in BMPTs is much safer that in BMPs or walking outside. According to yours, I can say WTF why BMPs carry 11 troops who all will be killed if the car hit by ATGMs.

5 men crew for IFV. Nope.

It was too much even back in WW2, today it's downright idiotic.

Unless Russian birthdate skyrockets immediately and they drop age requirement for enlisting down to 10 years there is no way it would make sense.

Driver, commander, gunner. 3 men. That's the setup that works.

The purpose of the BMPT is not to be another type of tank... in many ways it is a fire support vehicle designed to support tanks where small arms fire is too dangerous for infantry out in the open...

So in effect we are talking about a very dangerous multi threat multi target environment, where most of the targets are infantry or very light armour.

I had a long discussion a long time ago regarding the BMPT and there were often comparisons with the T-35 and other multi turret vehicles from WWII.

These were total failures, simply because there was no battle management system... very simply in an armoured vehicle the gunner, commander, and driver have very specific and well defined roles and when you broke that role based spread of jobs then the tank didn't work well.

A good example was a T-26... with two crew there was a driver and a commander/gunner/loader.

To explain the problems you need to know the roles and their assignment... basically you need to move the vehicle from safe place to save place, you need to shoot and destroy targets, and you need to find targets and find threats and also find safe places to move the vehicle to.

The driver moves the vehicle, but being down in the hull must take driving location instructions from the commander.

The gunner shoots the targets.

The commander looks for places that are safe to move the tank to, and also looks out for threats and targets... threats because he wants the heaviest front armour facing the threats and targets because he wants the gunner to be shooting at targets and threats... or he wants the driver to drive away from threats.

In a two man T-26 the gunner/commander/loader probably does not have a better view than the driver and really does not have time to look for threats... he finds a target and then opens fire on it... during which any other enemy vehicle will be alerted to his position and presence when he fires can have a free shot while he is looking at the target he just fired at to see if he killed it or needs a follow up shot.

A T-34-85 the commander tells the gunner to engage the target but he keeps looking around for other targets and other threats... if he is shooting at a Stug III that is 1,000m away and then a Panther appears 300m away from behind cover then he will tell the gunner to hold fire on the Stug and shoot at the Panther.... he might also get the driver to move to a different position that offers better cover from both enemy vehicles.

Anyway... what I am getting at is that the BMPT has a commander, a gunner, and a driver, so it could deal with one target at a time while looking for other threats.

With the two bow gunners however they can actually cover a much greater area and engage more targets at one time.

With their limited optics they wont be scanning for targets... the commander will still do that but he will hand off targets... ie a bearing and range, for the bow gunners to engage and then give the gunner another target.

The type of target will determine who he allocates to engage but most will be relatively close and "soft" infantry type targets... because that is what the BMPT is for.

Personally I would prefer to see the bow mounted grenade launchers modified... the new 40mm Balkan GLs are much more compact and could be mounted in mini external turrets that allow a better FOV in elevation and traverse... plus they are effective to 2.5km.

Perhaps a version of the BMPT made from the BMO-T where the front corners have flat RWS with perhaps a Balkan and PKM side by side in its own turret... with modern optics and auto tracking software... over a much wider field of view.. the commander could give them a bearing and range and they could pretty much do their thing under much better protection than if walking or in a BMP where they will have to dismount to use their weapons... of course you could remove the grenade launchers and the bulky ammo and have those two extra crew man some robots armed with rocket launchers and MG and even HMG or light cannon that could drive ahead of the vehicle... hell you could have one operating a ground vehicle and one operating an unmanned aircraft...

They have grenades that penetrate armour already... they have a 30mm underbarrel grenade launcher for special forces that uses captive rod cartridges to launch the grenade silently.

But your reasoning is flawed... armour penetration using HEAT warheads depends on a lot of factors, but an important one is the diameter of the HEAT round... as well as the material it is made of, and whether it has the correct standoff distance to be effective.

I would think a more important factor to think about is what sort of under armour effect a little 40mm round will manage... the Russian special forces grenade was designed to penetrate armoured fuel tanks to set them on fire... if they wanted it to penetrate an APC and kill all the crew they would be wasting their time.

If you want to penetrate light armour the Russians have an enormous... and I mean enormous range of light disposable and reusable rocket grenade launchers... and light guided ATGMs... that would be much better suited.

If they are developing a new round for their new grenade launchers I would like to see an airburst round designed to throw fragments forward for use against enemy troops or soft targets or UAVs and drones.

At some point, the designers of the BMPT would have considered the 2A70 & 2A42 combination of the BMP-3/BMD-4M. Seeing as it is a tried and tested weapon system, which is both in service and in production, they must have looked at it as a possible solution.

I seem to remember a mockup prototype with the BMP-3 setup as an alternative armament for the BMPT... I don't know why they did not go with it, but possibly it was the vulnerability of the turret to enemy fire, or the feeling that the IFVS supporting the tanks and BMPT in combat already had such an armament.

Soviet and Russian experience that led to the BMPT was largely the use of SPAAGs in the ground to ground role... from the old BTR-40 with twin 14.5mm HMGs in the ground suppression role, to the ZSU-57-2 and the Shilka... one could argue the ZSU-57-2 was better suited to the ground to ground role than in the ground to air role, and while the Shilka was devastating against aircraft it was equally powerful against ground targets too.

My personal feelings was that it was a combination of small HE rounds in enormous volumes arriving on target in a blast like effect rather than a steady string as you would get from a heavier slower firing calibre.

Because of this I personally thought the 2A42 x 2 option was weak and that they would be better off with either the twin barrel 30mm cannon as fitted to the side of the Hind, or the same weapon with shorter barrels fitted to the Su-25... high power and devastating rate of fire would rapidly obliterate ground targets.

Having thought of that I next thought the 23mm cannon in the last model Hind in the twin barrel chin turret mount uses the same 23mm projectile as the Shilka, but it has a smaller case and much lower velocity, but HE rounds don't rely on velocity for effect... HE power and rate of fire.

The 23mm gun in the Hind uses a compact round with a 23x115mm case very similar to the 14.5 x 114mm HMG round, but with a much more powerful and effective HE round.

The low muzzle velocity is not so critical, though it would limit the effective range to about 2km or so, but its compact ammo and rather high rate of fire means 10-20 round bursts would be devastating like a shotgun blast of fragmentation shells rapidly landing all around the target.

The low recoil should be excellent accuracy and simple mounting/stabilising, and also large ammo supply for lots of ready to fire ammo.

The rounds would get to target much faster, but the payload is probably smaller than the new 40mm grenades... I would think a burst of 23mm rounds would be effective enough against most targets.

- The manned turret exposes its crew to the ammunition
- The GLATGM fired from the 100mm gun is inferior to more modern anti-tank missiles. External Kornet launchers could replace it in the anti-armor role, while GLATGM's could still be used to snipe static enemy positions (such as anti-tank infantry).

Agreed.

Plus as mentioned... the BMPT wont be operating on its own, it will be operating with IFVS with a 30/100mm combo, but also MBTs with 125mm guns.

What a BMPT really needs is a high volume of fire weapon/s.

Obviously in the end, they wanted a different armament. But what would you say, is the penultimate weapon solution for the modern and future BMPT ? Or do you think the current 2x 2A42 + 2x AGS setup is the overall best choice?

I think the 2A42 is still a weak point and the GSh-30K from the Hind or GSh-30 from the Su-25 would be a better choice.

Even the GSh-23L from the late model Hinds would offer high rate of fire in a small compact round that could be carried in large numbers...

Going back to the original discussion : I agree that the commander has his own specific set of tasks. But in the case of the current BMPT, i see no reason why NOT to give him a sight with an integrated weapon anyway.

That would certainly make sense to me... some close in soft targets can be engaged immediately if you have a small weapon slaved to the sight.... rather than get the entire turret to turn the commander could quickly engage the target himself... the problem there is that while he is shooting at some guy who stepped out from behind a building 250m away with an RPG he is not looking for other targets that might or might not be more dangerous.

What I am thinking is that the problem of a support vehicle able to operate with a tank when the enemy are so well armed that troops out in the open would not last very long is about to be solved anyway.

The new vehicle families include vehicles with unmanned turrets and vehicles for the purpose of a tank.

For instance a vehicle with the armament of a IFV with tank level armour will exist in all vehicle families because all vehicle families will have tank vehicles and IFV vehicles and air defence vehicles... a BMPT could simply be a combination of an IFV and a gun armed air defence vehicle with the troops and the anti aircraft sensors removed respectively for more ammo in the rear.

The Armata tank would be supported by IFV and APC with the same level of mobility and armour, while an IFV with a 57mm gun and anti armour missiles like Kornet EM and Bulat short range missiles and the rear troop compartment replaced with an automated ammo handling system that loads extra ammo pallets straight into the turret for use without the crew leaving their front compartment.

Another vehicle based on the air defence gun system but with a 57mm low velocity grenade launcher with air burst shells could also be used...

An extra IFV in every unit could control air vehicles and ground vehicles.

the point is that all the suggested fire power options could be used in these modular vehicle families... a vehicle with a 120mm gun/mortar with a coaxial 23mm twin barrel gun and 40mm long barrel grenade launcher... the range of possibilities is only limited by what the Russian military wants in service.

They already have 23x115mm ammo in Hind units, and they will have 40mm portable grenade launchers and 57mm grenade launchers and 57mm high velocity guns...

Not really that different... same 100mm gun and 30mm cannon...

Actually I think they will go further and use Video stitching software and cameras pointed in all directions to generate a virtual 360 degree view that could be projected to the commander, the driver and the gunner... and in fact to others in a totally different vehicle operating the vehicle by remote control...

The advantage would be the situational awareness of sticking your head out of the turret from a hull position under full armour protection.

The issue then would be that with the ability to see close in threats... they also need the ability to do something about them... which is where RWS come in.

Ironically a row of claymore type munitions that could be launched up to explode down and away from the tank would be a good way of dealing with humans and also other threats near the tank without creating a huge danger zone around said tank.

The munitions in the Arena system around the turret was an interesting example but I would go for the same row of munitions around the hull of the vehicle... perhaps two rows for combat persistence, but each munition would cover a fair area so even if attacked from the same direction repeatedly there should be more then enough coverage until other options can be brought to bear.

Perhaps instead of RWS mounted all over the turret and hull a better solution would be robot vehicles with mounted machine guns and grenade launchers that could be positioned around an armoured force to deal with infantry... or sent into high threat areas first to deal with infantry attacks.

I said turret not weapons. The T-90A and T-72B3 have very difforent turrets but the same weapons.

My apologies, you are quite right... I only glanced at the photo, but now looking carefully you can see the turret is not round it is very similar to the Armata tank turret in that there is a slim box around the gun for the gun and autoloader but the turret where the turret crew should sit is cut away and in the part visible is the gunners sight.

It does look like there is a commanders cuppola though... perhaps he climbs in there but sits below the turret level to protect him from enemy fire from the front...

This suggests this arrangement did not offer the shock fire power they wanted (normally in this role they actually used AA gun vehicles like Shilka or tunguska... which are excellent in terms of fire power, but seriously lacking in terms of armour.

For this purpose it would be better to just mount a few MON-90s to the veicle.

not MON-300?

But seriously I gave my reasoning for using ARENA munitions as they launch up and fire at a downward angle so minimising the danger area around teh vehicle during use.

Imagine a combat situation where you can't get within 150m of your own BMPT vehicles because any infantry movement around them might set off a MON-90?

40m would be much easier to manage. (the purpose of the BMPT is so that you don't need infantry outside of vehicles exposed to enemy small arms fire and shrapnel, so you might even use them to allow a division to move through an area with perhaps snipers, where the risk to individual soldiers is too high to let them out of their troop transports but the threat of enemy infantry attack means you need a vehicle that can deal with infantry attacks efficiently... those sound systems that detect small arms fire and locate the source would be ideal for BMPTs.