BMP-1 and BMP-2 in Russian Army

Why couldn't the BRM-1 and the BRM-3 detect Ukrainian ambushes with their radars at the beginning of the war. They should be sensitive enough to detect rifles and ATGM mounts

They detect inbound rounds... what are you suggesting... having these recon vehicles at the front and when any Orc force tries to ambush the Russian column these vehicles will detect the incoming rounds and what... tell the other vehicles to take cover because there are incoming rounds?

A few seconds after the enemy fire those rounds they impact... even if they detected the enemy rounds as they left the muzzles of the weapons firing them how much time do you think that recon vehicle has to alert the rest of the convoy and what are they supposed to do in the fractions of a second before those rounds impact their targets?

Having battle field radar does not stop enemy artillery from being used or ambushes being sprung, but they do record the direction and origin of the fire which can be passed to nearby artillery and helicopter units so they can deal with the source of fire relatively quickly.

that means enemy forces will still ambush and still attack Russian forces but if they do their job properly they only get to do it once and might be spotted by drone before they open fire so they might not get any shots off... but that would be rare I would say.... or should I say very lucky.

In an ambush by the time the enemy are firing you don't need a radar vehicle to tell you it is an ambush.

A batch of modernized BRM-1K reconnaissance combat vehicles was delivered to the special operation zone

A batch of modernized combat reconnaissance vehicles BRM-1K entered the zone of the special military operation. The equipment is still in the rear areas of the Northern Military District, the crews are being trained.

At the training grounds in the Zaporozhye region, the Russian military is mastering the modernized BRM-1K reconnaissance combat vehicles; soon this equipment will go to the front line to participate in hostilities. As the military themselves say, the equipment is modern, it differs from the old BMPs for the better, and there are no difficulties in preparation.

New equipment has arrived - BRM-1K, and we have been training since December. (...) Everything works, everything is fine, and there are no difficulties, since we previously trained on BMPs and now everything is easier: loading ammunition, and disassembling weapons, complex no, it takes a little practice - RIA Novosti quotes the words of one of the Russian servicemen.

The Ministry of Defense signed a contract for the supply of BRM-1K in 2020, the first vehicles began to enter the troops in the past. The main difference between the BRM-1K and its predecessors is a new turret from the BTR-82A with a 30 mm automatic cannon and a PKT machine gun, which replaced the "classic" BMP-1 turret with a 73 mm 2A28 Grom cannon. In addition, the car received a new engine, modern communications and on-board electronics. The equipment was equipped with new navigation equipment, reconnaissance and surveillance equipment.

Crew - six people - the commander of the vehicle (he is also a gunner-operator), a driver, an operator of tank navigation equipment, a senior reconnaissance officer, a radio operator, a senior operator.

BRM-1K is a combat reconnaissance vehicle designed to conduct reconnaissance on the battlefield at any time of the day and in any weather. Developed on the basis of the BMP-1, it entered service with the Soviet army in the early 70s of the last century. The development of a modernized version was carried out at the design bureau of the Rubtsovsk Machine-Building Plant (a branch of UVZ), work began in the early 2000s.

https://topwar-ru.translate.goog/210884-v-zonu-specoperacii-postavlena-partija-modernizirovannyh-boevyh-mashin-razvedki-brm-1k.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

The BMP-2s damaged during the special military operation will not only be repaired, but modernized. They will be equipped with Berezhok combat modules, improved chassis and enhanced protection system. Military representative Anton Antipenko spoke about this on the air of Military Acceptance on the Zvezda TV channel.

“Their future fate is to restore the hull, subsequently install the power unit, all units, make the chassis, and send the BMP-2 for further development and modernization. It is not advisable to carry out such work in order to simply repair the BMP-2. And to make a BMP-2 out of it with a Berezhok combat module, like a tank destroyer, it would be much better, ”said Antipenko.

See the new issue of the program “Military Acceptance. Infantry fighting vehicles in the SVO" on the air of the Zvezda TV channel, as well as in the SMART.TV application. You will learn how the modernization of the most massive Russian BMP is going on and what interesting things our designers of these vehicles saw in the cabin of the American M2 Bradley. ■

https://tvzvezda-ru.translate.goog/news/2023813117-96X6K.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB&_x_tr_pto=nui&_x_tr_hist=true

what interesting things our designers of these vehicles saw in the cabin of the American M2 Bradley. 

Let me guess: the Pringles holder. 

franco wrote: They will be equipped with Berezhok combat modules, improved chassis and enhanced protection system.

What happened to the plans to equip them with Epocha turrets?

gentleman next door wrote:What happened to the plans to equip them with Epocha turrets?

IMO the issue with Epocha is that you don't have good enough anti-armor capability without those fancy "sub-sub-caliber" APFSDS they showed models of. But those rounds require a very different propellant from what I understand...one that burns much faster.

So my guess is that this might be the holdup...it's not trivial to achieve a ~30% burn rate increase (or other ways to impart more kinetic energy within the same time frame, such as holding the high pressure phase for longer) from already well performing propellant, while having it nevertheless be reliable, stable and easy enough to produce. As I understand work is ongoing on propellants such as APTs-MG or semi-canular combined propellants, but I haven't heard about a great breakthrough yet.

Begome wrote:

IMO the issue with Epocha is that you don't have good enough anti-armor capability without those fancy "sub-sub-caliber" APFSDS they showed models of. But those rounds require a very different propellant from what I understand...one that burns much faster.

why no to install 57mm gun? size mass?

I suspect it is easier and quicker to install turrets that are already in serial production rather than put into serial production a turret that is largely untested in combat.

Of course having said that having a vehicle they could send into combat so it could be evaluated in a real combat environment would be a good thing IMHO, but using what works first makes sense and experimenting on all the users of repaired vehicles is probably not such a good idea.

The new 57mm grenade launcher model would have completely different ballistics to the 30mm but the HE bomb is huge and could be lofted over trees instead of having to fire through trees, and the APFSDS round should have excellent performance in terms of size and weight of the penetrator dart and the volume in the round for propellent to make it move fast.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:why no to install 57mm gun? size mass?

The 2A94 gun of the Epocha turret is already a 57mm gun, just not a high pressure one (it's also not exactly low pressure...more like medium pressure). The issue is that to be able to shoot APFSDS projectiles at decent enough muzzle velocity with such a gun, you need to make three changes:

1. the projectile needs to be significantly lighter, which is why those APFSDS 3BM76 penetrators are about the size and weight of typical 40mm sub-caliber rounds rather than 57mm ones; that's the easy part
   
2. the sabot needs to be made out of a very light but strong material, so it doesn't take up most of the kinetic energy, e.g. if it were to be heavier than the projectile itself; progress has been made here, but this might also be part of the reason for the holdup
   
3. the propellant needs to burn off in a shorter amount of time with same or better pressure generated: my calculations yield that when comparing the 2A72 gun shooting the 3BR8 round with the 2A94 gun shooting the 3UBM21 round you have about a 1.75 mass ratio but 3.25 propellant volume ratio; so because of this and because the barrel is rather short and not very strong, the propellant needs to burn faster by ~30-40% and ideally it would have a more plateau-like pressure graph, rather than a big peak
   

If this can be achieved then I estimate m.v. of >1200 m/s might be possible, which could mean that the perforation performance of the 3BM76 would be 50-100% better compared to modern 30mm APFSDS projectiles, especially at medium-long distances, thus giving the Epocha turret the ability to easily penetrate NATO's Pumas, CV-90s etc., nullifying their ridiculous efforts to turn their IFVs into tanks, while nevertheless retaining a gun and munition that is specialized against soft targets, i.e. the primary targets of IFVs.


If you instead meant why didn't they put the 2A91 gun on it then yeah, it's the weight and size...not just of the gun but also the munition, which is much bigger than the 2A94 munition, which itself is already not too plentiful in the Epocha turret (117 APHEFRAG 3OF91 and 63 APFSDS 3UBM21, plus 4 Kornet, 8 Bulat missiles and ~2000 rounds for the machine gun).

Begome wrote:

GunshipDemocracy wrote:why no to install 57mm gun? size mass?

The 2A94 gun of the Epocha turret is already a 57mm gun, just not a high pressure one (it's also not exactly low pressure...more like medium pressure). The issue is that to be able to shoot APFSDS projectiles at decent enough muzzle velocity with such a gun, you need to make three changes:

1. the projectile needs to be significantly lighter, which is why those APFSDS 3BM76 penetrators are about the size and weight of typical 40mm sub-caliber rounds rather than 57mm ones; that's the easy part
   
2. the sabot needs to be made out of a very light but strong material, so it doesn't take up most of the kinetic energy, e.g. if it were to be heavier than the projectile itself; progress has been made here, but this might also be part of the reason for the holdup
   
3. the propellant needs to burn off in a shorter amount of time with same or better pressure generated: my calculations yield that when comparing the 2A72 gun shooting the 3BR8 round with the 2A94 gun shooting the 3UBM21 round you have about a 1.75 mass ratio but 3.25 propellant volume ratio; so because of this and because the barrel is rather short and not very strong, the propellant needs to burn faster by ~30-40% and ideally it would have a more plateau-like pressure graph, rather than a big peak
   

If this can be achieved then I estimate m.v. of >1200 m/s might be possible, which could mean that the perforation performance of the 3BM76 would be 50-100% better compared to modern 30mm APFSDS projectiles, especially at medium-long distances, thus giving the Epocha turret the ability to easily penetrate NATO's Pumas, CV-90s etc., nullifying their ridiculous efforts to turn their IFVs into tanks, while nevertheless retaining a gun and munition that is specialized against soft targets, i.e. the primary targets of IFVs.

interestingly This one says its muzzle velocity is 1350m/s impressive for such a "grenade launcher"  as you can see this pic is from telegram channel not this Pole info

If you instead meant why didn't they put the 2A91 gun on it then yeah, it's the weight and size...not just of the gun but also the munition, which is much bigger than the 2A94 munition, which itself is already not too plentiful in the Epocha turret (117 APHEFRAG 3OF91 and 63 APFSDS 3UBM21, plus 4 Kornet, 8 Bulat missiles and ~2000 rounds for the machine gun).

oh well 2A91 is my absolute favorite - high Vo makes it suitable for AAD role (helos UAV) , anti armor type western heavy IVF or anything lighter but for anti infantry apps you need more like airburst with bigger warhead (long time ago Gurkhan was referring to Russian scientific-military article about 57mm airburst with bigger warhead and less propalant - equivalent of explosive like 76mm gun...

Then you could remove all those mini bulats or other weapons but ok its only me

GarryB wrote:I suspect it is easier and quicker to install turrets that are already in serial production rather than put into serial production a turret that is largely untested in combat.

Of course having said that having a vehicle they could send into combat so it could be evaluated in a real combat environment would be a good thing IMHO, but using what works first makes sense and experimenting on all the users of repaired vehicles is probably not such a good idea.

The new 57mm grenade launcher model would have completely different ballistics to the 30mm but the HE bomb is huge and could be lofted over trees instead of having to fire through trees, and the APFSDS round should have excellent performance in terms of size and weight of the penetrator dart and the volume in the round for propellent to make it move fast.

APFSDS as you can see Vo is 1350m/s i hope this is enough to be efficient but 1200m/s heavy 57mm shell could work even better I hope that 57mm grenade launcher would be the only gun in EPocha no more 100nn/30mm combo


and here it is form another Russian site, not verified tbh but looks familiar.

https://vk.com/@aboutwar-novaya-epoha-dlya-rossiiskih-bbm

Good article you linked! One of the best quotes from it:

article wrote:According to the total weight of explosives in the shells of one ammunition set, the Epoch module not only overtakes the Boomerang-BM [comment: this module uses the 30mm 2A42 gun] (340 HE shells and 160 AP) with 17.64 kg of explosives in the ammunition set, but also the AU-220m Baikal module with 12.3 kg of explosives when they are fully loaded with shells, and accordingly for BM "Epoch" this indicator is equal to 74.4 kg of explosives.

This demonstrates why the Epokha design such a genius idea: you have far higher efficacy against infantry and soft targets, not only due to much higher total explosive available (1 3OF91 round is comparable to 5-10 hand grenades), but also much better fragment spread due to the low m.v. for these rounds from this medium pressure gun (indirect fire can be up to 10 times as deadly as direct fire, because the fragment cone will be utilized far more efficiently, especially, but not only, if the target is behind cover; same goes for direct fire with low velocity rounds, such as 3OF91, vs direct fire with high velocity rounds...the latter have a much narrower fragment cone). The 3OF91 round is very likely the round Gurkhan referred to that you read about. All the while Epokha is unmanned (better for crew protection) and light enough to allow reasonably well armored amphibious IFVs.
Bulat is still useful, because it can be used against fast moving targets, such as drones, helicopters (should they be stupid enough to get close), or even light armored transport vehicles, which try to evade fire. Another use could be as "decoys" for enemy APS to allow a Kornet to get past the APS.

I'm a bit hesitant to accept the statement from that Pole on Twitter about m.v. and would love to know his source, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility (in my detailed analysis, which I won't post here, that was basically the upper bound of possible m.v. values for this round). Note that in that analysis I also looked at the 2A91 gun and so estimate that its APFSDS, which is considerably bigger and heavier, can reach up to 1500 m/s m.v. due the that gun having much higher pressure capacity. You could basically still knock out Pumas and CV-90s at >6 km range with that gun (if you can hit them). The downside of the AU-220M module that uses the 2A91 gun is the low ammo capacity as well as weight and size, which is why I doubt that we'll see it in larger numbers...that module is primarily for the T-15, which will eventually be the main IFV of the few offense-oriented tank armies, which will always have a lot of tanks for more "explosive delivery" and a lot of artillery and air support, as well as, in the high performance version, which is even heavier, on the Derivatsiya AA gun.

Begome wrote:Good article you linked! One of the best quotes from it:

Im glad you liked it


This is an old pic from Armya exhibition, this is from Epoch stand. You can see HE 57mm shell, Kornet, Bulat mini and just below subcalber ...

I'm a bit hesitant to accept the statement from that Pole on Twitter about m.v. and would love to know his source, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility (in my detailed analysis, which I won't post here, that was basically the upper bound of possible m.v. values for this round).

it was written across proto with subcaliber round but this Telegram channel has changed its name:


please note it was news like 3 years ago i tried to search buy round name was not successful
https://t.me/warhistoryalconafter

Note that in that analysis I also looked at the 2A91 gun and so estimate that its APFSDS, which is considerably bigger and heavier, can reach up to 1500 m/s m.v. due the that gun having much higher pressure capacity. You could basically still knock out Pumas and CV-90s at >6 km range with that gun (if you can hit them). The downside of the AU-220M module that uses the 2A91 gun is the low ammo capacity as well as weight and size, which is why I doubt that we'll see it in larger numbers...that module is primarily for the T-15, which will eventually be the main IFV of the few offense-oriented tank armies, which will always have a lot of tanks for more "explosive delivery" and a lot of artillery and air support, as well as, in the high performance version, which is even heavier, on the Derivatsiya AA gun.

here I can only agree size and power is better suitable for T-15. It's main task would be rather antihelo or antiuav or even anti cruise missiles defense, perhaps some direct fire support high velocity 57mm round can pierce thick concrete wall and explode behind) ... T-15 could carry surely more than 80m rounds.

The 57mm grenade launcher essentially uses the telescopic round idea, where the HE round is all HE bomb and a small propellent charge to launch the round.

In that sense the 57mm grenade can be a heavy HE bomb which is not as powerful as the 100mm gun of the BMP-3 but certainly more powerful than even the 57mm cannon HE shell.

The APFSDS round on the other hand is far larger than a 30mm shell which means the penetrator dart can be much longer and heavier than anything that could fit into the 30 x 165mm shell but that it also has more volume space for a much bigger propellent charge, so you have a much longer and thicker and heavier projectile than could be fitted in a 30mm round which improves longer range performance, but also rather more propellant.

The barrel is not as long as the 2A72 or 2A42 30mm cannon, but faster burning propellent can achieve high velocities in a shorter barrel and achieve better on target performance anyway.

Essentially the 57mm weapon replaces both the 100mm gun and the 30mm cannon and with a compact ammo type it can carry in significant numbers... the grenade is rather more compact than the 57mm cannon shell.

1350m/s would be a very good muzzle velocity for a longer heavier penetrator than that fitted to the 30 x 165mm shells.

The 57mm gun is ideal for air defence with their air burst rounds and computer calculated ballistics they should be rather accurate and effective with the exploding shells allowing for deviations in flight of the target during shell flight to the intercept point, while the 57mm grenade launcher sends a heavy bomb for its calibre and has an APFSDS round that is rather good too... combines slow heavy HE bomb with light fast penetrator from the same gun... and if needed they can extend the barrel for higher velocity if they needed to, but they clearly felt they didn't need to.

If the BMP-2 didn't have the AT-4 and AT-5 ATGMs that could hit tanks at 25m or so then it would have been fitted with an improved longer barrel 73mm gun firing higher velocity more powerful ammo, but because the new ATGMs could deal with heavy armour the main gun no longer needed to.

The first designs of the BMP1 included 30mm cannon but the lack of a missile that could hit targets reliably within about 300m meant it could not be used on its own.

Imagine if they did to the 100mm gun of the BMP-3 what they are doing with the 57mm grenade launcher... it would be very similar to that 60mm Israeli shell designed to kill previous generation tanks, but would have a much more effective HE shell, and would also have rather more compact ammo due to the larger calibre.

The only real advantage of the telescopic shell over the 57mm grenade round the Russians have is that the telescopic shells can be loaded into a revolver type system for firing... inserted from the rear to load and the shell case ejected out the front of the revolving cylinder chamber.

For its calibre the round is very compact and stacks efficiently because it is a straight walled case round.

That is what I said... the AT-3 couldn't reliably hit a target within 300m (officially, but in practise more like 500m) before the operator could get the manually guided missile under control and fly it into the target.

The 73mm gun, which is just essentially an SPG-9 with the back end closed off meaning less propellent was needed... it could penetrate the front armour plate of an M60 tank at any range it could hit it.

I had a chat to a guy who operated a BMP-1 and if you did all the calculations for wind and range etc it was reasonably accurate out to about 1,200m, but was no precision sniper weapon.

The HE round could bring down rock walls and bunkers that 30mm would just splatter against, which is why the BMP-1 and BMP-2 tended to be used together as their weapons were complimentary... hense the weapon choices for the BMP-3 that combined the two weapon types.

I agree the Sagger wasn't the greatest ATGW system but at the time of its era is was no worse or better than anything else out there. The fact that it saw widespread exports and still in use today (with upgrades) says something about it. Having studied many Soviet systems during my time in the forces what surprised us was the cost of the system it was very cheap. Depending on the warhead missiles ranged from $600-800. The tandem warhead, thermobaric warheads, stand off probe, and now the new command guided missile (2T5) with a faster missile and range of 5km (cost approx $1000-1,200) still make this useful against buildings/bunkers, and static armoured vehicles. This system was used a lot in Syria as was the SPG-9 mainly as a cheap way of dealing with scumbags in buildings. If that had been the USA they would be using $200,000+ javelins to do the same job and with the same sort of penetration power. The Russians could technically fire Metis-m and Kornet all day but why do that when you could use something that isn't overkill and cheaper. Fagot, Konkurs etc. I

remember there was an article a couple of years back saying Russia was looking at a system similar to SPG-9 after experiences in Syria. It stated that they wanted something that was lighter, more accurate, and not longer range, and slight increase in range while keeping the system cheap. Although we haven't seen anything yet. Maybe we will maybe we won't. I always thought if they did produce another system similar that could fire a variety of shells up to 2.5-3km it could be useful for built up areas and as a bonus could also fire Bulat missile which would give it a guided option.

The Russians I believe have a solution for every scenario that's cost effective and for for purpose. This is something the west doesn't have the luxury to say.

@d_taddei2

If by 2T5 you think of  missile that Serbia produces, than that is not the price. Prices i've seen quoted if purchased by Serbian Army are around 5-6k euros and more for export.
Serbia does make wire guided upgrades for Malyutka which are 2F and 2T that are wire guided and their price might be in the range you quoted.
Original Malyutka with MCLOS was very cheap, but operator needed to be very well trained in order to hit moving targets at longer distances. In Yugo wars, it was mostly used for static targets at max engagement range.

caveat emptor wrote:@d_taddei2

If by 2T5 you think of  missile that Serbia produces, than that is not the price. Prices i've seen quoted if purchased by Serbian Army are around 5-6k euros and more for export.
Serbia does make wire guided upgrades for Malyutka which are 2F and 2T that are wire guided and their price might be in the range you quoted.
Original Malyutka with MCLOS was very cheap, but operator needed to be very well trained in order to hit moving targets at longer distances. In Yugo wars, it was mostly used for static targets at max engagement range.

I was going by an article sometime back. Maybe the article left a zero off the $ price tag. But even at 5-6k euros it's still pretty cheap. Everything else was from info available during my military service was sub $1k. But of labour costs in Russia was probably a lot lower than they are now as well as material costs.


@Alamo
Yes the speed was an issue even the 2T5 only increased this to 200m/s however one of the tactics when attacking buildings in Syria they would suppress the enemy building with 12.7mm or 14.5mm while the sagger was on route then stop firing last few seconds, then hopefully at that point the enemy might be ballsy enough to stick head out to return fire and then boom. If they fled then that was one building level they ain't going to be using again. And if they used thermobaric missile then chances are they be toast.

As mentioned it's a far cheaper method than Kornet or javelin. And if facing a ill trained rag tag army it should be enough. Ok course if u need further range konkurs or AT-6 would be next option. Of maybe just use T-34-85, T-54/55, T-62. Or other anti tank gun D-48, BS-3, T-12 although u would have to adjust well to get a range further than 3km