BMPT "Terminator"

GarryB wrote:

Regarding the old model T-72s even if their turrets are obsolete (for the very early models) you can give the chassis a quick upgrade as use the chassis base for other things like a MSTA base for MSTAs that operate in units of T-72s so there is a commonality of components. They could even use them for BTRTs to replace BMP and BTR vehicles in heavy brigades equipped with T-72s.

GarryB wrote:

***who about get the old T-72 and made them like The BMPT for infantry, but with Berezhok turret
and maybe a-45/57 gun?

The right idea but wrong implimentation.

The BMPT is a fire support vehicle to help tanks operate or to protect convoys.

In afghanistan the equivalent of a BMPT was not a BMP-2, it would have been a Shilka.

Utilising the larger turret ring of the T-72 if you could redesign the Berezhok turret to move the two turret crew below the turret ring level to give them best protection and a new gun as you suggest would be a very good idea in my opinion.

The catch is that the whole concept of the Armata is to separate the crew from the fuel and ammo, and introducing a heavy gun like a 45/57mm weapon puts lots of propellent and HE charges in the crew compartment...

Basically I see the BMPT as a separation of the heavy firepower of the BMP out of the troop carrying role to separate the crew and troops from all that ammo.

The result is that the troop transports will have 14.5mm HMGs and 30mm cannon but not the direct and indirect firepower of the 100mm gun of the BMP-3. The question is, how do you restore that firepower to the heavy brigade because while tanks can deal with medium to long range targets they are not so good at aiming at close in targets.

The BMP-3 could use its 100mm gun against such targets but in close in combat its thin armour makes it very vulnerable.

The solution was the BMPT, but as mentioned elsewhere adnauseum by me I think it needs the following changes:

Use the BMO-T as a chassis concept with the Armatas heavy armour as the actual chassis (BMO-T has more headroom in the chassis).
Change the two 2A42 30mm cannon for a single GSh-30-2... uses the same ammo, but has the option to fire at a slow rate and also at a much faster rate for aerial targets and it is lighter than 2 2A42s.
Add a 100mm rifled gun from the BMP-3, whose weight will help improve the accuracy of the 30mm weapon in all firing modes, and will give relatively accurate HE power out to 7km and very accurate anti armour capability out to about 5.5km and would replace the ATAKA missiles.
Front roof mounted external gun positions for a combo of a PKT and Balkan 40mm grenade launcher on each side of the hull designed to fire back and sideways as well as forward.

The result would be more room for ammo, better use of the 30mm rounds carried from a long barrel high velocity weapon, direct fire HE that is relatively cheap out to about 7km replacing the 4 ATGMs with up to 8 laser beam riding gun tube launched ATGMs, and of course the two hull front roof mounted weapons allow a total of three targets to be engaged at once... the PKT could reach to 1km but the Balkan can engage targets out to 2.5km.

GarryB wrote:Interesting.

So would your BMPT have two turrets or a layer cake design so that the gunners of the two cannon can engage different targets?

*** It will have one turret and one RWS on top of the turret, and the two gunners will be able to engage 2 different targets at the same time. An interesting arrangement of weapons can be seen on the BMP-64. In the turret it has the 30 mm gun, and on top of the turret it has the 23 mm gun with AGL 30/40 mm that can be replaced for PKT. There is more conventional way for the upper gun, like the RWS of the T-90MS.
In our days, every tank needs to have a RWS for urban fighting.
Link for the BMP-64: https://2img.net/r/ihimg/photo/my-images/96/xea9n.jpg/
Link for the T-90Ms: http://www.defence.pk/forums/indian-defence/128802-t-90ms-unveilled-nizhny-tagil.html


The two vehicles you are talking about are the BMPT and the BMP, though the BMPT is also supposed to have the extra use of convoy escort because of its fire power.

*** The BMP is not protected enough for the job, I will stay with the T-72.

As you point out the primary targets are infantry that can't be engaged by using tank weapons (due to weapon elevation limitations mainly).

Tanks are primarily mobile gun platforms and are well equipped to deal with enemy tanks and armour as well as ATGM teams out to several thousand metres using HEAT or HE shells.

The targets they have problems with are infantry units with RPGs outside their field of fire. In a city for example troops on the 3rd floor and higher and even those in basement positions can be hard for a conventional tank to engage.

It needs to be kept in mind however that with an externally mounted main gun and a roof mounted 30mm cannon the Armata based tank might not have the weapon elevation problems of previous T series tanks.

With the main gun being largely remote control it would not be that hard to add a couple of extra remote machine gun mounts.

*** That’s the job of the RWS, and the 23 mm will be perfect.
By the way, to deal with high places, the T-72 as a nice solution that called T-72 Moderna.
Link: http://www.army-technology.com/projects/t72/t726.html


The design of the actual BMPT has a crew of 5 which includes three crew in the front hull with a driver in the centre and two gunners either side manning 30mm grenade launchers in restricted bow machine gun like mounts.

The turret contains the commander and primary gunner of the vehicle who command the two single barrel 30mm cannon plus coaxial PKT rifle calibre MG and 4 ATAKA anti tank guided missiles... most likely in the upgraded laser beam riding derivative version with a range of 8km or so.

My objections to such a layout is that the two cannon still have a fairly low rate of fire for aerial targets while being heavier than some much better alternatives already used by the Army, and the fact that the BMP-3 probably has better firepower for the role though lacks the tank level armour required.


I also think the hull mounted weapon positions are not flexible enough to get the full use of the idea for putting them there in the first place. The Balkan 40mm AGL is compact and powerful and together with a PKT would offer excellent fire power out to about 1,500m for the PKT and 2,500m for the 40mm grenade launcher.
Together the two weapons would allow each of the two hull gunners to engage a wide range of targets, and with proper external mounts able to shoot at targets in front of and to the sides of the vehicle it would improve the angles the vehicle could deal with targets from and mean the vehicle could realistically engage three different targets at once from a much wider range of angles.

*** I will stay with the 23 mm, which has a higher velocity and rate of fire then the Balkan, these advantage might be very important when fighting with RPG’s teams.

We have quite a few threads on the BMPT so rather than repeat everything I would invite you to have a look at some of those older threads for our discussions.
*** Thanks I'll do

I think with the BMPT that the front engine version of the Armata might suit it best because I would be tempted to have a hull super structure at the rear with a small turret at the front and a small turret at the rear but raised above the front turret with low profile small calibre weapons turrets on the sides and rear of the rear superstructure. Lots of ammo and rifle calibre machine guns and grenade launchers.

What I am suggesting that that fire power requirement will not just go away, in fact the Heavy Brigade will need even more fire power than current units, but for crew safety there needs to be a separation of fire power and troop transport... pretty much in every family of new vehicles.

I would think a 23mm KPB and an AGL would be a rather redundant combination and both rely on heavy projectiles with low velocity ammo for effect. I would expect the decision would come down to the future plans for Russian AGLs, whether they adopt the 40mm Balkan and/or the 23mm calibre KPB.

but keep in mind that if the Armata has a RWS 30mm cannon as standard then the requirement for a tank fire power support vehicle diminishes.

The Russians have had air burst munitions in service for three decades with their 40mm under barrel grenades which have a small charge in the nose to blow the grenade up into the air like a bounding betty mine before the main charge goes off. It is cheap and simple and works at any range and would be very simple to apply to the balkan grenade design.

I quite agree, but I think that an APS fitted to the tank and other vehicles should deal with the actual RPG, while the BMPT deals with the soldiers that launched it, and crews setting up to launch another rocket.

I think there will be layers of protection... for instance with Nakidka fitted to all the vehicles in a heavy brigade then Javelin will not be able to be used in fire and forget mode because there will not be enough of an IR signature to target.

In manual mode the low flight speed of the Javelin will make the firer very vulnerable to being suppressed but grenades from AGLs will take dozens of seconds to reach 2.5km, so the GSh-30K comes in to its own.

With net centricity artillery can be called in to the location of the launcher but ideally a 125mm cannon shell exploding near them will have rather more effect.

Fitting a twin barrel 30mm cannon means both ground and air targets can be engaged if needed, while a 45mm or 57mm gun with very high velocity anti armour rounds should enable anything but tanks defeated with frontal shots, and they would have the HE power and rate of fire to deal with a range of other threats.
The point is that these high velocity 45/57mm guns will be very high velocity flat shooting weapons, and with laser beam guided shells could kill enemy helicopters at 8-10km range with a single shot.

Having a twin barrel 30mm gun mounted with a 100mm rifled gun from a BMP-3 would give indirect fire power to engage targets will good frontal protection but little or no top cover.
As an added bonus the 100mm gun could be used to fire laser guided missiles in a lofted flight profile to achieve a top attack capability.

Yes, I know about that... it is expensive and is only slightly more useful than the much cheaper and simpler Soviet solution that entered service in the early 1980s.
To be effective the US system needs a precise laser range finder... +-5m accuracy is not good enough. It also needs a ballistics computer to calculate the trajectory and an electronic fusing system. The ammo is also expensive as it requires a very high precision timer accurate to within miliseconds to be effective.
Simply standing behind a hedge means you don't know how thick the hedge is and how far back the target is from the hedge so you have to guess so it is not perfect either.
At the end of the day the Soviet/Russian system has many of the benefits without all the costs and complications and have had it in service for about 30 years.
The reality is that in a vehicle mount the laser rangefinder and night vision equipment and ballistic computer can be built into the mount... but to be honest I really don't see the benefit of making each round cost 10 times more than a standard round with less HE to do something they are already doing... it is not like the target has time to take cover in the milisecond it takes between impact and main charge explosion.

Absolutely, which is why tanks needs systems to detect optics and APS systems.
With their work on DIRCMs and their anti optics ground based laser systems I would expect Armata will be fitted with a tank based optics detection system and DIRCM to defeat optical and IIR guided missiles of all types. It will also likely allow threats like 50 cal sniper rifles being used with powerful scopes to take out vehicle optics or APS systems to be detected and engaged.

The Russians are way ahead of you... the standard HE FRAG shell can be fitted with a new electronic detonator with a new automatic fuse setting system that is fitted on the T-80UK and T-90 as standard. It is called Ainet.

Traditionally the purpose of the BMP armament is self defence against tanks via guided missile, and fire power against a range of other targets. Initially they used the 73mm gun because of the long minimum range of the AT-3 which left a dead zone up to 400m where the BMP couldn't reliably engage heavy armour. The solution was the 73mm gun which at the time could penetrate the frontal armour of an M60 at any range it could hit it... and I am reliably informed by a chap who served on a BMP-1 that it could hit a tank out to about 1,200m in good conditions.
With the BMP-1 they tested all sorts of main weapons including 30mm cannon but the ATGM limitation mandated a larger weapon to defeat tanks.
The BMP-2 got the new AT-5 and AT-4 roof mounted missile that had a minimum range of less than 75m so the heavy gun was no longer necessary so they went with a 30mm cannon.

In practise however they operated the BMP-1 and BMP-2 together and even though they replaced the AT-3 with the AT-4/5 launcher they didn't replace the armament because it was found that with some targets the heavier gun was useful while other targets were better engaged with 30mm.

The result was that the BMP-3 had both an autocannon of 30mm calibre ( a new weapon with a lower rate of fire and longer recoil distance to prevent fumes building up in the crew compartment like they did with the BMP-2s 2A42 in its high rate of fire setting) and a rifled 100mm medium pressure gun.

The requirement to defeat tanks was satisfied by 100mm gun fired missile and the requirement to defeat enemy IFVs was satisfied with the 30mm cannon.

The problem now is that the opposing IFVs have all gained weight and most are more than 30 tons and are only going to get heavier. An increase in calibre might allow a compromise where the new gun packs enough HE power to make the 100mm gun no longer needed, and has enough velocity to make the 30mm calibre weapon unnecessary.

The combination of guided shells and AINET shells will further add to its usefulness, but it will need a nice heavy HE round and a very high velocity APFSDS round too, and in fact a good APHE shell might be useful too as lighter vehicles like APCs will only be damaged with an APFSDS round as it punches a hole through the target but an APHE punches a hole in and then explodes and would be far more lethal against MRAPs and APCs and IFVs from the side or rear.

Of course I don't think the 45/57mm will immediately replace the 30mm and 100mm weapons from service and they might serve together.

The 100mm is a custom designed round with a large projectile and a small stub propellent case, which makes it compact and easy to carry in larger numbers.

The concept of the Armata is unmanned turrets so a BMPT with lots of 100mm shells and 30mm shells and 45/57mm shells should be relatively safe for the crew as they will be separate in the hull protected by firewalls separating them from fuel and ammo.

Certainly with laser guided shells the 45/57mm rounds will reach out and get to an ATGM team much faster than a 23mm gun using 23 x 114mm rounds, as the latter are low velocity... something like 700m/s... they get their effectiveness from shell weight and low recoil and high rate of fire.
If this vehicle is operating with a heavy tank or motor rifle brigade I agree, but in convoy protection roles things are different.
Remember the old tank brigades and motor rifle brigades had BMP-3s with 100mm guns and mortar support, but these new heavy tank and motor rifle brigades the standard IFV will likely not have 100mm guns... they will probably only have 30mm cannon and rifle/hmg/agl calibre RWS, so I think putting these extra weapons on the fire power vehicle of the unit is still justified and will make them more useful when used independently.

More importantly such an armament will make it more useful than a tank in a low intensity conflict so it can be used to support infantry units too.

Certainly the 120mm gun/mortar of the mortar unit is a very similar weapon to the 100mm gun of the BMP-3 and with heavier shells and longer range I think at some stage they might ask themselves if they need both.
The 100mm/30mm turret is useful for medium and light vehicles in terms of fire power and weight and recoil.

And BTW I hate combination scanners printers photcopiers etc etc... who needs a setup where you can't use the scanner because you are out of ink... Laughing

The problem is that the old 57mm round they are using is huge and not particularly efficient. I would think a telescoped case round with a 57mm projectile initially and later perhaps a 65mm round when the 57mm is not powerful enough would be the best solution but with all these new vehicles can they afford to develop a completely new round?