Russia Arms Expo 2013

Second half of this vid- they talk about VBL.

Watching that video with the steeply sloped armour and small zippy vehicle that it appears to be I immediately thought of this vehicle:

Why larger guns or mortars? BMPT doesn't need larger guns and its twin 30mm guns are excellent compromise. We have to know, what main purpose is and why it was designed. BMPT was made to replace AA guns in ground combat, which are very effective, but expensive and weakly armored. You have to know, that modern AA complexes like Tunguska or Pantsir are very expensive with their radars and computers and are not produced in large numbers. To do their AD job, they will be around 1 to 2 km behind tanks (VSHORAD) or 5 to 10 km for systems like Tors or Pantsirs. Here is the point of BMPT.

The Shilka and Tunguska were not used as ground support vehicles because of their air to air capacity... it was largely their ammo capacity and ability to deliver large amounts of relatively small HE rounds rapidly in any direction that was useful.

In many ways a single 6 barrel 23mm cannon can perform this mission where its rate of fire and effective HE round makes up for lack of velocity compared with 30mm ammo.

Lower velocity rounds like 40mm grenades also compliment such fire power as the more curved trajectory means targets in dead ground (ie behind frontal cover but without overhead cover) can be vulnerable to low velocity ammo when high velocity straight shooting ammo just splatters on the frontal protection... imagine a village in Afghanistan where rock walls half a metre thick around every property will mean shooting at a target on the other side of the village either means shooting through 20-30 stone walls... obviously a waste of ammo, or with low velocity grenades shooting over the walls and engaging targets that would otherwise be safe from direct fire.

Having a Gun/Mortar provides direct fire heavy fire power... a sniper behind 10 layers of sandbags in a building will be safe from 23mm and 40mm fragments, but a 120mm mortar shell fired straight into his room will ruin his day... it also offers guided weapons and directly replaces the ATAKA missiles in a much more cost effective way... even better fire power than the BMP-3M...

BMPT will not replace BMPs or infantry, so they don't need mortars or guns, because BMPs will still be there with them to support infantry as well as there will still be tanks with their main guns.

The concept of Armata makes the BMPT idea redundant as it is basically a fire power vehicle like the Tunguska or BMP-3M but with the armour and mobility of a tank... armata will already have tunguska/pantsir-S1 and IFVs with tank level armour.

The BMPT could probably evolve in an armata brigade to perform a fire support role when with tanks and a semi tank role when with IFVs.

There was a plan for BMP-3s... because of their fire power to be used to deliver troops and then be moved to be used as a separate mobile armoured force that could be used like a light tank unit.

There is potential for the BMPT to be used as a light tank when the enemy has no tanks and a high velocity 125mm gun offers few advantages over a 120mm gun/mortar. It can still support tanks... hitting targets tanks simply can't reach and protecting tanks from infantry units... and also anti convoy duties.

The Duster and Vulcan were very very effective in Vietnam for convoy protection duties with two 40mm cannon and one 20mm 6 barrel gatling guns' respectively... the 6 barrel 23mm gun is light and powerful and compact and has light but very effective ammo too.

Keep in mind that the armament of an IFV is dual... it has to be able to support its own troops but it also has to be able to engage enemy IFVs and in an emergency have some capability against tanks.

This makes me think that the next gen Armata IFV will have a 57/45mm main gun plus 40mm grenade launcher and multiple Kornet-EM launcher.

This will leave a gap in fire power of the unit, though APCs will likely have grenade launchers and 30mm cannon, but I think there will be space for a BMPT with the 120mm rifled gun/mortar, 40mm grenade launcher, 23mm 6 barrel cannon and coaxial mgs and lots of ammo.

BMPT on the other hand is in the same line with tanks and could freely fire on them with Ataka missiles as well as with guns.

The limited effective range of 30mm guns along with the relatively low rate of fire of the 2A42... it would be rather better to use guided rounds to engage helos.... I would expect Kitolov-2M would be more effective at anti helo engagement than Ataka and over greater ranges too.[/quote]

Why larger guns or mortars? BMPT doesn't need larger guns and its twin 30mm guns are excellent compromise.

As a fast reaction to an attack your BMPT gunner might turn the turret to a patch of smoke where the Javelin gunner was when he launched his missile... whether he is still there guiding his missile manually or is running away you want to fill the air around the smoke ball with shrapnel as fast as you can... a 120mm direct fire shell or a burst of 23mm cannon shells will both do that effectively.

As shown in Afghanistan even a 30mm gatling from an A-10 will splatter a building with fragments but will not bring the building down or structurally undermine it. One or more carefully delivered 120mm HE shells could demolish the corner of a building where enemy fire could be coming from... the electronics and acoustic sensors on board should give you an excellent indication of position and range to targets that would otherwise be invisible.

The lions share of ammo on the BMPT should be 40mm and 23mm ammo... with thousands of rounds of each if possible, but carrying 30-40 120mm shells and mortar bombs and of course 10-12 laser guided missiles would also be very useful and might make taking a MBT into combat unnecessary as the enemy might have little to no armour so a direct fire support vehicle would be more useful than a MBT.

No need for it. Main force are tanks, BMPT just support them. For such target 125 mm HE-FRAG round from tank gun is enough, if not, than there are 152mm SPGs and TOS behind to deal with them.

You are missing my suggestion.

In a standard unit you have tanks and IFVs of completely different weight classes where a BMPT makes sense as it can act as infantry support for the tanks in places where exposed infantry or light IFVs wont last long... ie downtown Grozny.

In an Armata unit however every vehicle has extra protection... now against a third world country you could probably get away with not having a tank and just use a BMPT to deal with enemy ground forces that don't include tanks... remember you need tanks and tank level fire power to deal with tanks... IFVs should be able to deal with enemy IFVs, so a BMPT whether it has a 120mm gun/mortar (gm) or 4 Ataka missiles should be able to deal with everything else.

Against a first world country however there are prospects they might have or will eventually equip their forces to the tank level which means tanks will become critical and IFVs will likely get more missiles because 57mm or even 90mm guns wont cut it any more unless they go for very high velocity EM guns. Fitting a MBT gun to an IFV means no room left for troops which is its main role.

So against a first world enemy your tanks will need to have mostly anti armour ammo, your IFVs will need lots of missiles to deal with enemy IFVs with tank level armour, which means a serious shortage of Direct Fire HE.

Forget that the 120mm rifled GM is a mortar... it wont be used as a mortar as such... there will be mortar carriers in the unit as well as 152mm artillery... the 120mm gun will be used the same way the BMP-3M uses its 100mm gun... anti vehicle, anti personel.

In the lighter vehicle classes it will also be a direct fire support vehicle that directly supports troops in the attack.

The IFV will have HE fire power and also APFSDS fire power with a heavy cannon (45/57mm) but the size of the rounds and the number of missiles it might need to carry means a separate dedicated fire support vehicle would be useful and could even substitute for a MBT when the enemy has little or no armour. Remember a 120mm gun mortar would have rather more compact ammo than a 125mm round as the propellent charge is smaller and in fact with the different breach block it should be able to engage targets to 15km or so including with guided artillery missiles already in service including those developed for the 120mm mortars and the 122mm light artillery. Also being able to fire shells with variable propellent bag loads means much more accurate and efficient use of the weapon as well as using mortar bombs offers cheap but much more accurate direct fire HE power.

With a gun you fire full power with every shot which means close targets need to be aimed at directly so the shell explodes horizontally which is very inefficient in terms of fragments... the advantage is accuracy due to short flight time. Lofting the shell with a gun is a problem because they often lack the elevation to lob shells and even if they could the high fixed propellent charge means the round will climb to very high altitude and then fall back down on the target with the problem of accuracy because of the issue of different wind speeds and directions at different altitudes. A 120mm gun mortar can use a minimum propellent load and wont go up very high at all which means much shorter flight time and still near vertical impact which is ideal for fragment patterns on the ground... especially with air burst rounds.

An air burst 120mm mortar bomb or 120mm shell will be totally devastating even to a group of enemy infantry or ATGM team setting up or bugging out.

Army already have SP 120mm mortars like Nona or Vena, so no need to place them in BMPT.

Vena and Nona operate as artillery separate from the ground forces and deliver rounds to coordinates. BMPT is a direct fire vehicle like an ISU-152.

Also those guided mortar rounds are for ground targets, not to engage helicopters, which are main BMPT targets. ATAKA is better for this job. It is wireless and fast, doesn't have proximity fuze, which could detonate missile flying low over ground and being laser guided missile it is safe against countermeasures from helicopter like flares and DIRCM.

The rounds I mentioned... GRAN and Kitolov-2M are designed for ground targets... there is no reason why the beam riding missiles of the BMP-3 (Arkan) or indeed the missiles of the 100mm and 115mm tank main guns could not be adapted to the 120mm gun/mortar for use against helicopters.

And having 8-10 of these missiles in the vehicle... protected by armour and all ready to fire without anyone having to leave the vehicle are all plusses not shared by the Ataka (not that ATAKA is bad or anything... it just seems a bit ad hoc).

Effective range of 23 mm gun is 2 km, for 30 mm gun is 4 km. 2 2A42 guns give together more than 1000 rounds/min, what is more than enough for its job. With higher rate it is only too quickly out of ammo.

The 30mm cannon is effective to 4-5km using HE rounds... the 23mm cannon would be effective to 3-3.5km with HE rounds.

The high rate of fire is useful to achieve a cluster of rounds on target rather than a stream. Very short bursts will be fired, so bursts of 5,10,20, or 50 rounds might be selectable depending on the target and I certainly agree that the 23mm gun can empty a magazine much faster than any other in service weapon but continuous fire will rarely be used due to the nature of the targets it would be engaging.

The 23mm round has a very heavy payload for its weight but uses a very compact case and has low muzzle velocity and low recoil.

Ideal for ground targets at short to medium range.

Helicopters at 5km would have moved too far for the flight time of either round so these ranges are against ground targets too.

1,000 rpm simply isn't enough for use against a helicopter... in comparison the Tunguska has two twin barrel guns firing 2,500 rpm. It was tested on the original pantsir with 2 2A72 cannon and was found to be effective against ground targets but lacking against aerial targets so the Pantsir-S1 has two twin barrel 2A38M cannon like the Tunguska.

Kitolov and other artillery guided rounds need laser markers to mark targets. Helicopters could too quickly change their position for those rounds to follow. ATAKA, Kornet and Krizanthema are better suited for this job.

Autotrackers could easily follow a helicopter, that is what Kornet would use to engage such a target, but I agree that a laser beam rider would be better suited, so Arkan with a 5.5km range which pretty much matches ATAKA would suffice fired from the 120mm gm.

For engaging ground targets and helicopters rate of fire with 1000 r/min is enough, what is higher is more waste of ammo.

I higher rate of fire is not a waste of ammo unless you are using uncontrolled bursts.

Su-25 pilots found engaging targets in Georgia that the 30mm cannon was spitting out ammo too rapidly at 3,500rpm and they found they were wasting ammo... or running out too quickly.

With fixed burst lengths there is no issue of ammo waste.

True, but those heavy Tunguska and Pantsir will be still on their positions behind to do AD job and those IFVs will still carry infantry, so in this position BMPT could be better protected or have more ammo inside.

Indeed the AD vehicles are looking at the skies for targets, the IFVs are delivering, transporting and supporting troops, the BMPTs need to support tanks by taking on enemy anti armour capacity or engaging enemy that represent a threat that the tanks have trouble dealing with.

I think that with the Armata brigade especially; the distinction between IFVs and APCs is going to blur to the point that they would only need IFVs really; i.e. a vehicle capable of transporting infantry, that comes with heavy firepower and is capable of directly supporting them after they dismount, as well as travel in columns or in urban areas together with tanks or in an open space not far behind them; and help them engage any threats that appear.

Interesting... because I am actually thinking the opposite... the focus will turn back to APCs because IFVs will become as well armoured as tanks so the gun that can defeat the enemy IFV used to be a light cannon (30mm), then got more powerful as IFV weight went from 20 tons to 30 or 40 tons, which made guns go to 40mm or 45mm or 57mm, and that the next step will be MBT based APCs which means the IFV will need a MBT level gun... or missiles with a lighter cannon... so do you keep the IFV or do you go to an APC that has a HMG or light cannon armament with a few missiles for self protection and then go for a missile vehicle to deal with all the enemy IFVs and APCs with tank level protection?

If you change to an APC then you loose a lot of direct fire fire power... so a BMPT suddenly becomes interesting again, though 30mm guns would be a bit anemic... a larger calibre gun firing decent HE rounds preferably using standard ammo... 120mm rifled gm ticks those boxes to me.

The added bonus is that against an enemy that is not armoured the BMPT would be excellent for engaging enemy forces that lack heavy armour, where the enemy does have some heavy armour the armata MBT can load all HEAT and APFSDS rounds and some missiles while the BMPT deals pretty much with everything else and the APCs just deliver troops and supports them or laser marks targets for BMPTs to engage or artillery if you really need 152mm...

There seems to be little point in creating an APC on the basis of something as heavy as an Armata chassis; i.e. a battlefield taxi that deposits the troops and then drops back, with only a little weaponry for defensive purposes.
You might as well jack up its armament to IFV standards and use it as an IFV; it's got the armour and tracked mobility for such a role already, and its frame is able to support anything up to a 152mm tank gun.

The problem is that if you want armament and troops and to keep both separate you will have a reduced troop capacity and a reduced ammo capacity and add risk of losing a lot of troops if the ammo area is penetrated... blow out panels are not perfect.

As for the BMPT, what might be really nice is one 23mm gattling gun on one side of its turret, and a single 30mm cannon on the other side
The 30mm will have some penetration capability for more armoured or better defended targets; while the 23mm can be used against soft targets.

Interesting, though perhaps too much duplication.

The 23mm in a gatling would need a dual feed if you want to use it as an anti armour vehicle as the HE would have a different trajectory to any APFSDS round you could develop for it which means mixed belts would have totally different points of aim so you would need to select AP or HE with the aim point adjusting for the different ammo types.

The main problem is that except with exotic materials the 30mm is becoming marginal in terms of anti armour performance, whereas a 45/57mm gun ticks both boxes of HE and AP performance but with much larger rounds of a much reduced ammo capacity potential.

But I do like GazBs 120mm gun/mortar idea too; very tempting indeed for a BMPT that can fulfill different roles depending on whether its embedded more with tanks or more with IFVs/infantry/support vehicles.

And I appreciate Medos perspective that this vehicle ideally is a Shilka/BMP-2 that can survive enemy ground fire like a tank.

I think the BMP-3Ms armament would normally be ideal for a medium and light brigade, but that for an armata brigade, I think the situations it will be used in would benefit from the increased fire power of a 120mm weapon, and the increased ammo capacity of the 23mm gatling. Previously I have suggested replacing the 2 2A42 cannon with a single twin barrel GSh-30K cannon, but the 23mm gatlings rate of fire offers a lot of potential against ground and aerial targets in my opinion... with a decent fire control system and controlled burst fire... perhaps with dual feed and APFSDS rounds or perhaps not.

This is absolutely true for point targets, but infantry is usually not a point target, but area to cover. So with too high rate of fire you could empty your load before you reach the end of area.

With variable gas system you could easily vary the rate of fire of the GSh-23-6 if you need to. As far as I know the gun in the Mig-31 is referred to firing at 9,000 rpm while the guns natural rate of fire is something like 12,000 rpm.

With different gas settings different firing rates could be achieved and indeed even at very high rates of fire the speed of traverse of the gun can be altered to cover an area faster with a higher rate of fire... blazing away at an unseen enemy is dreadfully inefficient anyway.

It gives you time to nail enemy infantry on the ground that other artillery could than clean that area.

If you don't know exactly where they are then it really doesn't matter what you use as long as it is HE...

It is enough. Higher rate of fire is important for fast jets or small targets as bombs or missiles, but helicopters neither small neither fast. Helicopters are problematic, because they could hover very low and quickly change position to use its weapons and with that problematic for AD behind to not to shoot on their own troops in front of them. BMPT in that case is in front together with tanks and have no problems with fire.

I think you are simplifying it too much... helos will hunt AD vehicles first when they can, but even when hunting armour they will use stand off distances whereever possible because armour includes APCs and APCs have soldiers with Igla gripstocks and lots of 30mm cannons.

BMPT has no air search radar and will be no better off engaging helos than a BMP-2 or BMP-3.

With modern fire control systems a modern tank probably has a better chance of a kill than a BMP or BMPT... the distinctive signature of main rotor blades showing from behind a tree... APFSDS rounds will penetrate the tree easily and demolish any aircraft hovering behind out to very long range... Missiles will kill even further out.

23 mm gatling is excellent weapon to engage small flying targets as mortar rounds or high flying ATGMs like Javelin or Spike.

I disagree... the 23mm round is too small for a proximity fuse so only the rounds that hit will explode and do damage... the rest will be wasted.

Against a ground target on the other hand... all will hit the ground on or near the target and all will contribute to a fragment storm that will damage the target and things around the target.

A quick burst of 23mm directed at the puff of smoke where a Javelin or Spike originated from offers a reasonable chance of injuring a member of the crew, but a guided shell or APS are much better for dealing with the incoming missile.

Infantry is not always running in the open. Often they are dig in. To nail them means to not allow them to fire ATGMs and not to allow them to escape enough long, that rockets from Tos clean the area.

In such a case there should be little difference between a 23mm and a 30mm cannon, though the plunging fire from a 120mm mortar would be rather better than either...

BMPT doesn't have infantry to care about.

No, they have tanks they have to cover, so they really wont have the luxury of playing cat and mouse with helos...

Air defence vehicles will be scanning the skies (ie with sensors and eyeballs) for threats, the BMPT will be too busy looking for threats to the tanks.

About search radar, many AD systems doesn't have search radars like Strela-10, Avenger, LAV-AD, etc. They all got info through data link and C4I, same as BMPT. AD battery command posts could provide target info to BMPT too.

It would be far more efficient for AD vehicles to worry about enemy helos... even friendly fighters are far better equipped to take on helos than most non AD ground vehicles.

Phalanx have only 20 mm gatling gun and is very effective in C-RAM use.

With reduced weight projectiles the muzzle velocity is very high, which means flight time to target is relatively short which is useful for engaging aerial targets.

Of course the lightened projectiles means less effect when the rounds hit the target... but no point in having super lethal rounds that never hit.

The Swedes use their Bofors Naval 57mm cannon in order to engage anti-ship missiles; I suspect that a helicopter would pose no problem.

57mm is a calibre where you can start to do interesting things... like AINET like fuses... though I have heard the Russians have developed such a fuse for 30mm ammo.
With 57mm however they have developed a SALH round that makes low rate of fire totally irrelevant...

with a good FCS the IFV should be able to track and hit the helicopter directly with every shot fired.

Certainly with laser guided shells that should be the case...

I actually wonder if they may go for the 120mm BMPT to save money as the Armata chassis will be costly. If the BMPT can also serve as a indirect fire weapon in a pinch, they wouldn't need a purpose built Armata mortar carrier wasting available Armata's for the heavy brigades.

The issue I think will be equipment or as they are called in aircraft avionics. The BMPT and a mortar carrier have similar armament but very different roles and different ways of using their main armament.

A mortar carrier is tube artillery that hangs back from the front line to engage enemy hard points with plunging indirect fire, but with a MBT level of protection there is no reason for it to sit back... it could operate with the troops which maximises its range. However if it is moving with the troops then direct fire will also become a likely occurrence too so it will likely be using direct and indirect fire while the BMPT will use mostly direct fire.

They will likely both engage enemy hard points or areas of suspected enemy activity so I guess by linking it to the artillery net the BMPT should be able to do both jobs, but it will do the mortar carrier role from a different position in the formation and in a different way. Use of guided shells should make it much more efficient so fewer rounds will be needed to perform the same mission.

I really don't see it as a way of saving money by reducing the number of types within the unit as the BMPT would be a new vehicle so more vehicles would be required and I suspect to support the tanks... which is their role that in some circumstances a two to one ratio with tanks would be needed so one BMPT for two MBTs, while in others a higher ratio of two BMPTs per MBT might be desirable (where there is no infantry support at all).

In such a case having BMPTs in the tank platoons as BMPTs and also in the mortar platoons as mortars would mean you have a reserve to change the balance of vehicle numbers depending on what is needed.

Exactly. Helicopters are the most dangerous treat to tanks. Tanks could deal with enemy tanks and other armored vehicles and even with infantry with their heavy machine guns. Helos are the treat BMPT have to deal with.

But that is the issue... I think tanks with MG fired laser beam riding missiles and even APFSDS with scramjet boosters and some guidance would be several levels better at engaging enemy helos than the BMPT except when the BMPT has a 120mm gun.

As FP points out however IFVs with 57mm laser guided shells would actually be much more efficient and effective than both, and actually Pantsir-S1 and TOR and BUK would also be rather more effective.

And deliver the most dangerous helos to BMPTs, because they could not fire on them, if they don't want to fire on their own troops.

The 30mm cannon on the Pantsir-S1 might be rated as lethal out to 4km but the missiles are actually faster than the cannon shells at 2-4km range...

The enemy wont have that many Helos and with the wide distribution of MANPADS which is common in Russian units they wont last very long anyway.

True, the problem are helicopters, which fly extremely low and AD vehicles could not fire on them, because they are far behind. It's true, that fighters are the best weapon against helos, but Russian doctrine is based on option, that they have to fight with stronger enemy, what means enemy could have air dominance.

I think you are over estimating the potential of enemy helos... at 2km range a tank can hit a very small target and the very short flight time of the round means that even moving targets can be engaged accurately. With laser beam riding missiles its effective range is dramatically increased... with modern optics modern tanks are less vulnerable to helos than they are to enemy ground troops in anything but the flattest and most open terrain.

R-77 can hit hovering helos at 5m altitude... the helo would have to have its wheels on the ground to get its main rotor below that...

I agree... the reasoning behind Tochka-U and Iskander-M is an all weather ability to deliver a 500kg payload to a point target in minutes... in the west that would be an F-16 with a laser guided bomb, but for Russia it is an Army strike weapon that can hit point targets 24/7 without worrying about enemy air defences or aircraft availability.

Equally they don't expect to fight with their own air force above them so they are very well equipped to engage enemy air power too.