eehnie Sun Jan 29, 2017 4:30 pm
franco wrote:The GAZ 3937 Vodnik was accepted into the Russian Armed Forces in limited numbers for recon but was then given to the Strategic Rocket Forces as escort vehicles for the mobile Topol units. They are being replaced by Tigrs and BTR-82's.
It was reported that there were also some BPM-97 Vystrel accepted into the Armed Forces but I have never seen any prove of that. Have seen them with Border units only.
I found in reliable sources that the Bulat 6x6 apc (developed from the BPM-97) accepted for the Russian Armed Forces in 2012, and later deployed doing this role of scort for the Strategic Rocket Forces.
http://www.militaryparitet.com/nomen/russia/a2targets/data/ic_nomenrussiaa2targets/23/
But I found not the same evidence for the Vodnik or the BPM-97 4x4. In fact what I found would be evidence of non acceptance.
http://www.militaryparitet.com/nomen/russia/a2targets/data/ic_nomenrussiaa2targets/7/
Like you can see the source includes many variants, a good number of them reached not the Russian Armed Forces.
There is not doubt that some decens of units of both were produced, but I found not official reports about its acceptance, delivery or service inside de Russian Armed Forces (yes in the case of non military security forces). In the case of the Vodnik a good number of them were delivered to Uruguay. In the case of the BPM-97 it were agreements with Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan that surely were not totally successful.
If you can provide some link proving other thing, it would be interesting to see.