BMPT "Terminator"

If you read books of Zhukov or Guderian, tanks are like cavalry in the past. Their strengt is in speed and maneuver, when you make tank stationary, it is dead.

They are referring to the shock effect of tanks... the ability to outmanouver the enemies forces... especially artillery which can be a serious threat to armour.

The problem is that technology has moved on and a moving tank is no safer from ATGMs than a stationary one is these days. In fact if a tank is going to be stationary for some time then its crew can set up chain link fences around it at a distance of 4-5metres to protect it from Rockets and missiles... so it would be actually safer than a moving tank.

A tank is and has always been a mobile gun platform to support infantry, that in turn needs protection from enemy infantry... which is generally supplied by the infantry it is supporting. Ie mutual support.

Open battlefield is battlefield for tanks. Infantry could not follow them, but inside IFVs, they are useless targets, because they die and could not do much in fight. BMPT here goes with tank and support it instead of infantry, which could be in IFVs in the second line to come, when tanks have to stop.

Tanks operate with infantry but not generally mixed up... usually the tanks will move together and the IFVs will move together to assigned objectives. As they approach those objectives the infantry will dismount and move forward towards their objectives. Any return fire with be dealt with using the IFVs and tanks. Threats to the dismounted infantry will be dealt with by the IFV and tanks using direct fire, and the infantry might also call in artillery and or air support. It will be the infantries role to find threats to their support vehicles (IFVs and tanks) and either engage them or warn their armour so their armour can engage the ATGM teams or RPG teams rapidly.

In the wide open spaces of such an attack the tanks and IFVs can do their job without a specialist BMPT... though you could certainly argue that if the enemy does not have any tanks that replacing all the tanks with BMPT vehicles would improve the firepower of the unit in terms of its ability to engage targets that are not tanks.

A clear example would be in Afghanistan where a ground force has suspicion that there is Taleban activity in a village and they need to send a ground force to check it out.

With the IED and RPG threat they are not going to roll into that village all mounted up... they will look at the local geography and pick the best direction to approach from... they will pick a direction where they can set up their vehicles as overwatch over the entire village but they might drop their infantry on the other side of the village so they don't have a long exposed walk in open country to the village. As the infantry approach the village the vehicles will monitor activity within the village and when the infantry unit comes under fire the vehicles can provide support fire to support the attack, and cover fire if they need to withdraw.

On the other side difficult terrain and close battlefield is for infantry. Tanks even if they are together with BMPTs, could not go alone in urban area without infantry. They lost their strengt in speed and maneuver, so they could only support infantry in battle as well as artillery and air force.

The problem is that BMPT is a theory... it hasn't actually been tried in practise, so I don't think anyone is sure how it will work out.

Just like the BMP was a new theory... originally it was seen as a vehicle the troops could fight from and so they wouldn't need bulky NBC gear or heavy packs... they could just ride around and fight from these armoured vehicles. In the hands of the Arab forces in the Middle East however lots of lessons were learned... the rear door fuel tanks were supposed to be for marches only, not for combat, and they tended to use them like they were tanks... which they are not. Lots of open and frank discussions about the results... the west avoided a lot of painful lessons simply by listening.

Indeed the Bradley was going to be a copy of a BMP including the single man turret which was found to be a failure on the BMP and was rapidly changed on the Bradley too.

That was true for old soviet tradition, but after terrible wars in Chechnya, Russian army see, that artillery could not operate on their own, but with tanks and infantry in the first line and for their needs. This is direction of Russian artillery modernization, to be as much effective in supporting first lines as possible.

Whether it operates on the front line or 10km back there is one tube and one rocket artillery regiment in a brigade and 4 regiments of tanks and IFVs to support.

The artillery regiments will operate as a group.

There will likely be other Artillery units that can be attached to brigades or assigned certain missions that might coincide with objectives of one brigade or another.

MSTA can't aim at targets less than 6km away so there is no point in having it on the front line... I rather suspect that the combination of datalinks and netcentric C4IR, and of course front line units having modern equipment that the role of artillery will certainly change but not in the sense that it will be moved to the front line, but that it will be more flexible and responsive, so a tank commander can request artillery support and can ask for a single 152mm round to take out a bunker that he can't seem to take out from the front (a laser guided 152mm shell through the roof can ruin any ones day), but that doesn't tie up the entire tube artillery unit for half an hour... it is just one vehicle firing one shot coordinated with the tank on the front line that gave the precise location of the target via GLONASS and laser rangefinder... the shell will hit the target with either GLONASS guidance or laser assisted... in the past that request would have tied up the entire regiment for half an hour while they rained down dozens of shells from each vehicle to destroy that bunker, now it will just need 1 or 2 rounds, and if another call for assistance comes in the commander of the tube artillery regiment can allocate another vehicle to that job, so he still has four vehicles ready if needed.

Far more powerful, more responsive and flexible.

but it is not designed for clearing mine fields, but to clear infantry, bunkers, ATGM teams, etc in front of first line.

In a full scale war with an enemy village where the locals are supporting the enemy willingly then TOS would be devastating. Equally a complex of bunkers and trenches and land mines would also be a good target for TOS.

The BMPT is a tank support vehicle, in other words a vehicle to support tanks.

It is not a replacement for an IFV, or a tank.

I can’t agree with the idea that the BMPT needs to have 120mm Gun/Mortar.

The BMPT has three roles in the battlefield:
1. Fighting with the tanks in the front line engaging enemy APCs, soft targets and allow the tanks to fight against enemy’s tanks and IFVs.
2. Protect the tanks from “Tanks Hunters” armed with ATGMs.
3. Protect the tanks from soldiers armed with RPGs.

Simply you would be making a mistake to do that.

A tank is a tank and an IFV is an IFV.

If you want the BMPT to replace the IFV then that is OK but basically you can't reduced the number of IFVs because they take the troops to the front line, and so what you are suggesting is a reduction in tanks to make room for an armoured vehicle as big and as heavy as a tank and as expensive as a tank but not able to fight enemy tanks on equal terms.

Tanks will do the fighting with other tanks role because they are best equipped to do that... a 120mm rifled gun/mortar is no substitute for a high velocity tank main gun.
The IFVs will engage enemy IFVs and targets that threaten their dismounted infantry.
The BMPT is for ambush situations with ATGMs and close in infantry attacks on your tanks. The infantry can protect their own IFVs.
Tanks will be protected from RPGs mostly by APSs.
BMPTs will make enemy infantry pay for such attacks.

For lines 1 and 2, the 57mm gun, with his long range, verity of smart ammo will be perfect.

Agree, but as IFVs and those tanks themselves are very well equipped to engage point targets out to 6-7km or more that is not a job for BMPT.

For line 3, RWS on top of the turret equipped with 7.62mm Gatling gun and 30-40mm AGL, will be perfect too, and will keep the enemy’s soldiers far away from the tanks.

A 30 cal gatling is only really useful from helos to suppress enemy fire, from a heavy vehicle like a BMPT it would make more sense if the calibre had a decent HE payload... like a 23mm round in a compact design.

What I'll not do is to send tanks and BMPTs to fight in an urban areas. Tanks with there limit gun elevation, as nothing to do in urban fight, and if tanks are not going into the fight, the BMPTs will be out too.
So, if tanks and BMPTs stay away from urban areas, there is no need for 120mm gun/mortal for the BMPT.

And what do you do when the enemy is inside a city and you need to fight the enemy?
Not wanting to fight in cities is perfectly sensible but quite often there is no choice in the matter.

When you have to go into a city then a tank is a powerful weapons platform. A BMPT is supposed to allow that tank to operate more safely because the enemy cannot hide from its weapons.

Instead of the 57mm gun it will have the 100mm and the 30mm combo guns like on the BMP-3.
These guns with very high elevation, HE shells and high rate of fire, will be very effective in an urban fighting.

The 120mm gun/mortar uses automated ammo handling and has a similar rate of fire to the 100mm rifled gun of the BMP-3. The difference is that the 120mm gun mortar has a much wider range of ammo types that include mortar bombs and shells as well as several missile types that can all be tube launched. The shells also have the advantage of having a variable propellent charge system which makes them more accurate and more capable.

It would also be cheaper to drop the 100mm rifled gun from the armoury.

Tanks will inevitably be put into urban environments, there is no escaping that fact. Guerrilla fighters have made urban combat their specialty, proven in Iraq and Chechnya.

Exactly... a guerilla force has the choice of where and when to fight and they will certainly not choose to take on tank equipped forces on flat open plains where the tanks can use their long range vision and firepower to hammer them at long range.

They will try to ambush the enemy forces in close, man on man where their chances of inflicting damage are better, and the enemies advantage in artillery and air support are restricted... that means in mountains and cities and even forests... or if they are really weak IEDs and suicide bombers.

Sometimes I think the best thing they could do is let the guerillas capture some old armoured vehicles so they are better equipped to defeat them.

True, difference is only that, that in open battlefield infantry support armor, while in urban battlefield armor support infantry.

This is true, but it is more mutual than that, and we need to keep in mind that fighting in the desert or barren mountain region is about the only open battlefield you will get. In lots of places there are folds of ground or lines of trees or hedges that can make even fairly open country dangerous for tanks, and some cities have wide streets and small single story buildings, while others have narrow streets and tall buildings, and in both cases the tanks provide the direct fire support while the infantry have to do the door to door work of actually removing enemy forces from buildings or fortified positions.

I think half the problem with talking about the BMPT is that it makes sense with the current generation of vehicles.

Case in point in Chechnia when attacking a guerilla position with tanks and BMPs often the Chechens would recognise the threat the firepower of the BMP represents and take them out first. This leaves the tanks in a vulnerable position because the enemy can then attack from angles outside the range of motion of their main gun and take them out at their leisure... after first taking out the front and rear vehicles.

The BMPT was very much a vehicle with BMP like firepower that could also do the job they used to use the Shilka for of really hammering a position, that had the armour of a tank so it could go where tanks went but could not be outflanked by shooting from the 5th floor of a building where a tanks gun cannot elevate to hit or the basement floor where the tank gun could not depress far enough to hit.

Having said that the armata model BMPT IMHO has exactly the right balance of existing weapons that provide the firepower of a Shilka, more than the HE fire power of the BMP-3s 100mm rifled gun along with the advantage of using an already existing calibre plus mortar shells (including NATO standard 120m mortar rounds) and also at least two types of laser guided rounds (Gran 120mm and Kitilov 122mm), plus it has the low velocity grenade launcher, which if it is the Balkan is a small compact weapon with pretty good performance that uses caseless rounds like the 40mm under barrel grenade launchers the Russians use, only a much bigger round with a range of 2.5km. If it has a 30mm grenade launcher the range is 2.1km and the grenade is smaller but it is still effective.

To be honest... now that I think about it, perhaps a Kord as a coaxial weapon might be a useful addition just for a bit of direct fire punch. For hitting a sniper position in a building without bringing the whole building down. The 50 cal rounds would have the punch to rip apart the sandbags they might use to reinforce their position, though a burst of 40mm grenades would also make things uncomfortable too.

Then again a burst of 23mm cannon fire... maybe 5-10 rounds would probably ruin his day too.

Give me a nice open shooting range and maybe 2-3 armata BMPTs and lots and lots of ammo and test dummies and I would be happy to test to see what weapons work best...

Well that is interesting... that seems to show a 152mm main gun with a coaxial 30mm 2A72 cannon (as used on the BMP-3).

It is interesting, because when it was a 120mm rifled gun as with the model of armata then it was obvious they wouldn't have developed a high velocity 120mm rifled main gun, because smoothbore suits high velocity, therefore if it is a medium or low velocity weapon they already have a gun/mortar in 120mm calibre so it was logical to assume it was that.

With these drawings however it is not totally clear if this is a low velocity or a medium velocity or a high velocity weapon.
If it is a low or medium velocity weapon then it would be logical to assume this is a BMPT.

If on the other hand it is a high velocity weapon then this could indeed be the MBT model armata that is equipped with a high elevation main gun (if it can take a 152mm gun that elevates to 60 degrees then presumably it can take a high velocity 125mm gun with a similar elevation performance) with a 30mm cannon to allow it to engage a range of targets.

Of course while I don't speak Russian some of the letters are familiar and I think I recognise OMSK on the page with multiple line drawings... the top one being a conventional T-72/90 like tank with a super elevating main gun, while the top down drawings seem to show a straight sided turret vehicle with two crew positions in the turret, which suggest to me perhaps these are a black eagle based BMPT with Kornet and 30mm cannon and presumably the 152mm smoothbore gun that T-95 was designed with.

This tells me these drawings/ideas predate the collapse of the Black Eagle program and probably came before armata.

Not that a high elevating main gun tank vehicle is a bad thing.

The second drawing reminds me of drawings put out after it was released that the armata will have front and rear engined models and appears to be fan art.

To be honest of the models/drawings I have seen I like the armata model the best... assuming it has a 120mm rifled gun/mortar, a 23mm GSh-6-23M gatling gun, and a 40mm Balkan grenade launcher. I would probably add a coaxial PKT machine gun to the 40mm grenade launcher with 3,000 rounds of ready to use ammo and might be tempted to add a coaxial Kord to the 120mm main gun with 500 rounds of ready to use ammo for use against light vehicles.

Wasn't the newest model that was shown of Armata from OMSK anyways?

Well that is the problem... I think those models were presented by an artillery company so they were showing models of the medium vehicles (made by kurgan...vagon (can't remember their name off the top of my head), plus also Tigrs and Kamaz Taifuns, and of course Armata which will be made by UVZ, though the model could be from Omsk.

The stuff on display then is probably more accurately modelling the final weaponry to be used, but not necessarily from the companies or exact weapon combination mixes that might result.

Those drawings are clearly from a time when it was assumed that the new tank vehicles would be armed with a 152mm main gun.

As you point out their manned turret configuration suggests they are no longer likely representative of the final vehicle.

If you read books of Zhukov or Guderian, tanks are like cavalry in the past. Their strengt is in speed and maneuver, when you make tank stationary, it is dead.

During WWII a stationary tank was much easier to hit. Today with modern systems and even guided munitions even the fastest moving tank is vulnerable, though of course across rough country and indeed proper driving technique of changing speed and direction all the time it can become almost impossible to get a clean hit... a moving target is easier to detect, both from the ground and from the air.

In open country with mobile forces the tanks and infantry don't move together. They operate together, and support each other, but they don't operate side by side. If the enemies anti armour capability is very good then infantry will move forward and the IFVs and tanks sitting back will provide direct fire support. If the enemy has weak anti armour capability then the tanks might lead the attack.

In urban combat however it is infantry combat and tanks are used to support their operations, but it is a mutual operation because the infantry also protect their tanks from enemy infantry.

AFAIK the concept of the BMPT is in situations where it is simply to dangerous to operate infantry in the open, but to be honest as the infantry would need something like the combination of a direct fire artillery (ie NONA) and the firepower of an air defence vehicle (Shilka) and the one thing they don't need is a tank killing capability (ie 125mm high velocity gun with APFSDS rounds) then I think the BMPT could actually replace the tank as the preferred armoured vehicle in urban combat.

With all the armata vehicles having tank level mobility and armour the requirement for the BMPT has changed if not been eliminated.
With an unmanned turret and external gun then main gun elevation could be extended to a wide range of angles, which when applied to all vehicles could make the need for a BMPT redundant.

That’s true, but the main threat is the ATGMs and RPGs. The BMPT will be better equipped then tanks to fight against these threats.

A tank has APS and also soft kill options to defend from the actual weapons themselves.

From the RPG operators and ATGM teams right in close is a problem... more than 500m however a tank has its coaxial MG and of course a 125mm HE shell.

Generally the protection of a tank from hand held AT weapons was a screen of infantry that operated in front of the tanks that picked off the enemy threats before they could engage the armour.

In places where dismounted infantry is not safe and neither are IFVS, then the BMPT becomes the solution.

Its better protection and IFV/SPAAG type armament make it effective.

No, IFV should dismount the troops before go into fight with enemy IFV. Hit in our IFV will kill too many soldiers. That’s way we need BMPT for infantry, 4 crewmen, a lot of ammo, and the right guns.

That is what I said... The IFVs will engage enemy IFVs and targets that threaten their dismounted infantry.

In other words the IFV deploys its infantry... if that infantry comes up against a concrete bunker with MGs and sniper fire the IFV opens up with its 100mm rifled gun and blows it up. If enemy infantry starts engaging your dismounted infantry then the IFV will offer fire support with 30mm cannon and 30mm grenade launcher fire. If there is an enemy APC present then your IFV will engage it using either 30mm cannon (for a light APC like an M113) or 100mm missiles for enemy IFVs.

The BMPT would not add anything new except that it is another armoured vehicle that did not bring any infantry and can't take any infantry with it.

Tanks cann't fight everything and cann't see everything, that's way we have the BMPT to help the tanks so the tanks can concentrate on there main job.

No armoured vehicle can see everything, but certainly the tank will be manouvering to engage enemy tanks at max range where possible. BMPTs on the other hand will be looking for threats in the middle distance and also close in.

The problems urban areas create is to allow enemy forces to sneak up close and it is the role of infantry and BMPT to deal with such situations.

The thing however is that when the enemy is up close in urban combat against guerilla forces it is fairly rare for the enemy to have tanks, so the question becomes do you need tanks in such situations?

The tank is a powerful gun platform that is useful for supporting infantry in urban combat, but its limitations in elevation are covered by the addition of the BMPT which has serious firepower and none of the elevation limits of the tank. The result is a fire support vehicle designed to support tanks suddenly becoming a viable replacement for a tank in certain situations. Tanks are good at engaging tanks and medium armoured vehicles, but if the enemy has no armour I would suspect the BMPT could replace the tank in the infantry support role in urban combat.

you need to send foot soldiers, BMP-I, 120mm mortar, Tos, D-9 very important, there is enough power with out sending tank to the streets.

By BMP-I you mean a tank based troop transport, then the correct designation would be BTR-T, or heavy armoured personel carrier, and in this case really what you are doing is trading the tank with an IFV.

A standard BMP-3M would not be something you would send into urban combat against a well equipped enemy.

The difference between sending in a BTR-T and BMPT is that the latter will carry weapons and equipment optimised for the job... because that is what it is for. With the BTR-T the armament would be relatively light, perhaps a 30mm cannon plus a 30mm grenade launcher and maybe a few Kornets, because in a tank based vehicle there wont be enough room for a BMP-3M type armoury and troops.

For the job in an urban area, the 120mm is overkill, that might hit our soldiers too, and take a lot of space and reduce the ammo for the gun. I think the 100mm is more than enough.

In a tank based IFV there wont be room for a BMP level of armament, it will be more like the armament on the BTR-82A.

A direct fire 120mm round would be very accurate and should be able to take out rooms of buildings very effectively without hurting friendlies.

Of course if friendlies are very close then a burst of 23mm gatling rounds or 40mm grenades might be more appropriate, though a delayed fuse 120mm round exploding inside a large building will do a lot of damage inside without destroying the neighbourhood.

The thing with protection like sand bags is that it works both ways... it stops fragments getting in from external explosions, but with internal explosions it stops the fragments getting out too.

The concept for the BMPT was created before the idea of armata tank based family vehicles was decided upon and I think there is enough overlap to justify a separate BMPT armata based vehicle that will compliment and sometimes replace a tank. In the role of convoy protection an AD vehicle might be the best solution but its lack of armour means you need a few tanks there too and perhaps some BMPs. With a BMPT you don't need the tanks or the BMPs because it has both the firepower and the protection level. If we add armata based vehicles however then having some troops might be useful so an IFV armata plus BMPT becomes an option as well, but then you could say mobility could be an issue so then you start looking at Boomerang-25 wheeled vehicles might be better suited with the boomerang-25 BMPT and IFV...

It's true, that modern ATGMs could easily hit driving tanks

What I am trying to say is that modern weapons can hit moving targets, so being a moving target no longer makes you safe.
Proper use of tanks is not rushing the enemy out in the open hoping they have nothing that can defeat you, it is still moving rapidly from cover to cover looking for an engaging targets.

Ideally they will want to stand off at max range and kill their enemies... they can be used in a wide variety of roles and situations.

BMPT as a concept has evolved through the use of other vehicles that were useful but not totally suited to the role... ie they used Shilka but it didn't have the armour to perform the role properly. The solution was the BMPT vehicle based on the T-90 tank, but I suspect the logic will change with the new concept of Armata vehicles.

Ironically if any opposing force adopts a similar scheme then a BMPT vehicle becomes useful because other vehicles can concentrate on anti armour performance (because if the enemy has an armata equivalent then all the enemy brigades vehicles will need the firepower to take on tank level protection vehicles, so a vehicle with weapons optimised for use against infantry becomes useful.)

It is an interesting situation made blurry by the introduction of vehicle families.

The one using the T-90 chasis is new and is called 'Vepr' (Boar) with a 152mm gun/howitzer...but it's just a paper project at this stage

Now this is interesting.

I remember in the 1990s there was talk of a 152mm calibre gun/howitzer being developed.. and the concept is intriguing.

A howitzer by definition is a bit like a gun that can act like a mortar when needed. A gun is a high velocity long range powerful weapon. It is a direct fire weapon most of the time though in the indirect role it is often used for counter battery fire because of its range. The howitzer on the other hand is a lower velocity weapon that usually fires a heavier more effective shell and it often has separate bag propellent so you can vary the propellent charge. This means that if you are shooting at close targets you can use a small propellent load so the round doesn't go up so high. It therefore spends less time in the air on its way to the target which makes it much more accurate against short range indirect targets. In cases where the target is visible of course a gun is very accurate, but close range shots over small hills at close targets are generally not possible with guns because they generally have limited ammo and to elevate over the hill the high velocity of the shell would have it screaming over the target landing dozens of kms away. A howitzer on the other hand could elevate to a high angle with a reduced charge and have the shell follow the curve of the hill.

Well this all got me thinking.

With the variable charge system you could design a 152mm gun that is a very high velocity weapon with several large propellent bags that can be used as a main tank gun. For use with HE rounds as an artillery vehicle however you could use guided main HE shells (which means it is OK for the gun to be a smoothbore because the guidance will make it accurate) and a much smaller propellent charge so that it is useful for direct and indirect fire without needing a recoil spade. As long as the APFSDS round is high enough velocity to do the job of tank gun then it would be a very interesting vehicle that could replace mortar carriers, tanks, BMPTs, because of the elevation of its main gun it could engage its own targets at close range on top of buildings etc... with a coaxial 30mm cannon and a grenade launcher and a RWS with a MG it would be a very capable tank/BMPT, and mortar carrier, and even long range artillery.

The 125mm gun can fire to about 9km with HE shells but that is only because the gun can't elevate above about 25 degrees. With a variable charge option up to very high velocities with a 152mm guided shell you could probably use it as SPA in lighter brigades. Obviously the high pressure of the gun will only go so far in giving the gun range ad the very long barrel of the Coalition should give it an enormous advantage in range, but for some units the commonality might be useful.

Obviously it doesn't make much sense to introduce it right now because the 125mm guns are still in use, but for the future when they introduce the 152mm main gun they could use it to replace both the 125mm and 120mm weapons.

Of course making it a 158mm they could have tank guns and 160mm mortar compatibility as well, but I suspect the fact that the 160mm mortars are only for Mountain units and not widely deployed it makes more sense to unify the calibre with 152mm artillery.

Interesting new video of BMPT. They also explain, why BMPT have two 2A42 guns. It was by requirement of MoD, that one gun have AP rounds, while other have HE-FRAG rounds. This is also good to regulate rate of fire.

Well that is just stupid.... the 2A42 cannon is a dual feed weapon that can change from AP to HE at the flick of a switch.

Equally using the GSh-30K from the Hind would allow much better performance with longer barrels to improve muzzle velocity of all rounds and offer the choice of two rates of fire... 400rpm and about 2,500 rpm... the former good for ground targets and the latter for high speed aerial targets.

But that is the point... high rate of fire in short bursts means the rounds hit in groups instead of streams, which is ideal for area ground targets or slow or hovering aircraft.

High rate of fire is critical for aerial targets, but for ground targets it can be a problem if the rate is too high. The GSh-30K as used on the Hind can fire at either about 400rpm which would allow single shots and short bursts at ground targets, and also 2,000 rpm for aerial targets.

The main problem for a BMPT is that the rounds are rather large and take up a lot of space and their high velocity is not critical against most of the targets the BMPT would be engaging.

Note the 23mm gatling gun on the armata model is ideal in the sense that it is a much less powerful round that is much smaller and more compact so more ammo can be carried, yet it still has a very heavy HE shell for its size. The very high rate of fire can be used in very short bursts to saturate an area rapidly with HE splinters.

In fact once the 14.5mm KPV round has become obsolete in the armour piercing role then it would actually make a lot of sense to rebarrel all those HMGs and rechamber them for the 23 x 115mm round which is just a necked out 14.5 x 114mm round.

The advantage would be that the 23mm round could have a sabot round developed for it to get decent AP performance, while at the same time improve the HE performance of the round without going to a much bigger calibre.

Note the 23mm round used by the Shilka and ZU-23 is a much larger round in comparison and is 23 x 152mm.

Against most ground targets the increased velocity is meaningless, while the HE capacity is the same because both rounds use the same HE projectile... the 23 x 115mm just takes a little longer to get there though arrives in much tighter groups due to the much higher rate of fire and uses much less ammo space for the same result.

[qutoe]The MT-LB had a variant with the GSh-30k, but IIRC it was intended to be anti-arcraft.[/quote]

Careful though... because unlike the west the Russians and Soviets have a long tradition of anti aircraft guns that are used as ground support weapons... the BTR-40 with twin 14.5mm HMGs, through the BTR-152 with twin 23mm and of course the BMD troop transport with a ZU-23 on its back, while both the Shilka and the ZSU-57-2 and Tunguska have all been used against ground targets with devastating effect.

The BMPT is a much better armoured Shilka/Tunguska though the focus is reversed in that it is a ground support weapon with some air defence capacity, while the Shilka and Tunguska are air defence vehicles that can be used in the ground support role... though carefully because of their light armour.

Remember against ground targets short bursts can be used... it is against manouvering aircraft that long bursts with lots of ammo expended per kill is needed.

I kind of figured the size of the 30mm round kept it off the BMPT, larger shells = less ammo. The 23mm shouldn't have ammo storage issues like the 30mm would.

I agree, though the T-90 based BMPT has two 30mm cannons, which presumably means 4 storage bins for 30mm ammo as each gun has dual feed.

In comparison the 23 x 115mm round is much closer in size to the 12.7 x 108mm round than the 30 x 165mm round.

That model of the BMPT based on the armata seems to have the best of everything in terms of fire power... the 120mm gun mortar would be a very powerful weapon against even well fortified structures and its missile capacity should allow point targets to be engaged effectively. In terms of fire power the 23mm gatling firing at 12,000 rpm has the HE fire power of 3 Shilkas in terms of rate of fire with the same projectiles that the Shilka fires though the gatling has a rather lower muzzle velocity that doesn't matter much for slow moving ground targets.

The addition of the 40mm grenade launcher just adds another capability as a low velocity round with a good HE payload per projectile that can be lobbed over frontal cover into courtyards that would be safe from high velocity rounds.

With its three gunners the T-90 BMPT would have been better able to engage multiple targets though two of the three targets would need to be in front of the vehicle to be engaged effectively due to the lack of traverse of the hull mounted weapons I would suspect that the gunner being able to rapidly traverse the main turret and fire a range of weapons at a range of targets would be as effective.

In many ways the concept of the BMPT eliminates the anti personel role of the tank so the main battle tank in the Russian army could focus almost exclusively on the role of anti armour operations. This means that in low intensity operations a BMPT might actually be more use than a MBT, which has a much more optimised role now.

This could make the modern Russian MBT even safer as HE rounds can be reduced and more anti armour rounds carried.

Anyways having checked the BMPT model I saw this "sight" or maybe Shtora thingy on top of the mantlet like the one in the Challenger 2.

Sights mounted directly above the gun are mainly for high velocity weapons... because for low velocity weapons the elevation of the gun to lob rounds at the target would block the line of sight. An exception was the old model BMP-3s that had the laser range finder and laser beam guidance box on top of the 100mm gun for guiding tube fired missiles to target, but once the missile was fired the barrel could be lowered and the laser beam placed on the target by the computer... the gunners sight mounted on the turret would be kept on the target and the laser would be aimed by the guidance computer by lowering the barrel after the missile is launched.

For an Armata BMPT it would not make much sense, while for the MBT armata I would think the commander would need a 360 degree panorama view while the gunner would be better served with a sight on the turret rather than the gun.

2A42 gun is heavier and have heavier barrel than lighter 2A72 or GSh-30K, and with this is more precise, what is more important for single shots. Lighter guns need to be fixed in two points like in BMP-3 or in Mi-24, because in single fixing point they have problems with precision.

It could easily be attached to the 120mm rifled main gun of the armata BMPT and with electric primers it should be able to have computer controlled bursts of any length or rate of fire in theory, up to it maximum of about 2,500rpm.

The longer barrel of the GSH-30K should offer the higher muzzle velocity of about 960m/s with standard ammo and should further improve the anti armour performance of the APFSDS rounds.

Having said that I actually am warming to the idea of a 23mm gatling because of its rather more compact ammo with a heavy HE payload for its size. It is gas powered so no electric motor and it winds up to full rate of fire much faster than weapons with electric motor drive. A few squibs on board to pierce the side of the shell case to ignite the propellent if a primer fails means that it should be as reliable as any electric drive gatling (that will eject any round whose primer fails to fire the round) without the problems of extra weight and space needed for the electric motor.

New model Hinds have 23mm chin turrets so the Army will be using the calibre, and as I have mentioned a cheap and simple way to upgrade their KPV 14.5mm HMGs would be to modify them for the 23 x 115mm rounds... which should be fairly straight forward and offer a serious increase in anti personnel fire power and if a new armour piercing round could be developed with an increased powder charge and a sabot design the larger diameter of the barrel means more energy can be pushed down the barrel so the anti armour round could be even more powerful than with a 14.5mm sabot round.