Kurganets & Boomerang Discussions Thread #2

I don't really see the point of such vehicles. The gun is good against tanks but it is unlikely it survive such engagement. And its ability to carry soldier is reduced and most wouldn't want to get in near 125mm shells that aren't protected and even 30mm gun could detonate.

This vehicle wont be a troop carrying tank... it will be a tank and it will operate in forces entirely wheeled... if the enemy have a lot of tanks they wont be operating this sort of vehicle, they will more likely use Armata based vehicles or Kurganets.

Imagine these vehicles being used in Afghanistan in a coin type operation, their light weight and mobility means they could operate in places tanks simply could not get to... don't be fooled by the fact these vehicles are wheeled... they are not 12 ton BTRs... they are more than double that weight and comparable to the Kurganets which are also about 10 tons heavier than the BMP vehicles westerners compare them with.

With full ERA and APS and other defence systems fitted they will likely be rather well armed and equipped.... I suspect this vehicle with a SPRUT turret is intended for the light tank role... for actual tank roles with a Boomerang division the 125mm gun armed Boomerang will likely have the T-14 turret fitted with all its sensors and tank related equipment to find and hunt tanks.

Against any other vehicle than tanks the 57mm with apfsds is more than good and most new turrets have built in atgm launchers to deal with anything at long distances.

A Boomerang will be sent to deal with problems that don't require heavy armour, it will be much cheaper than tracked vehicles and much faster and more mobile too... if the enemy only have a few tanks and they are obsolete then a Boomerang for will be fine... a bit like the Bradleys in Desert Storm against T-54s... except the 125mm gun and optics could hit stationary targets at 5km range and the tank gun fired missiles moving targets at 5km too.

As the deputy chief designer specified, " it is assumed that the wheeled Sprut will be export-oriented." Budaev explained that the use of a wheeled tank in the Armed Forces is less likely, since priority is traditionally given to tracked chassis, taking into account the peculiarities of the Russian geography.

They might end up with a Sprut turret on a Typhoon 6x6 light vehicle with the Boomerang able to take the T-14 turret...

These tank vehicles will be tanks and not troop carrying tanks.

It is possible they might look at the 100mm gun of the BMP-3 and create a high pressure version with a smoothbore barrel and APFSDS rounds equivalent to the Israeli 60mm round for use against previous gen tanks... a fin stabilised HE round and a new APFSDS round and of course the ATGM would be a useful gun for a light wheeled vehicle to take on other light vehicles and previous gen tanks.

The future and present of the Russian army

Not really... the BTR-82A turret with a 30mm cannon is certainly the present, but the upgraded BMP-2 Berezok turret will only likely be fitted to existing vehicles as an upgrade I expect like BTRs and BMPs... for the new vehicle families it might be interesting for export, but for Russian use I would expect the Ephocha turret with the 30mm cannon and Kornet-EM and Bulat ATGMs for the Kurganets and Boomerang and Typhoon vehicles and 57mm grenade launcher with Kornet and Bulat ATGMs for the Armata vehicles.

Very simply their armoured formations are going to need tanks and so a Kurganets and Boomerang and Typhoon division will need vehicles that are essentially gun platforms... ie tanks.... for the next few years will older vehicles are still in service then that vehicle will likely be an upgraded T-72 or T-80 or T-90 depending on the unit or force they operate with... eventually though such vehicles will have problems keeping up with light tracked vehicles like the Kurganets and wheeled vehicles like Boomerang and Typhoon and so tank based versions will be developed... it is not critically urgent... testing the T-14 and getting it working makes sense before you cascade that design to other platforms.... but eventually all the old obsolete types will need to be replaced with the new vehicle family types... they wont need to invent 27 x 5 different vehicles.... Armata, Kurganets, Boomerang, Typhoon, and the two chassis Artctic tractor versions make sense so having the 27 odd different vehicle types for each vehicle family makes sense... for the tank model they might even end up with two versions... a T-14 type with the T-14 turret and a Sprut type with a Sprut turret for each vehicle family, so the T-14 and a Sprut version for Armata and for Kurganets and Boomerang and Typhoon and Arctic tractor... sharing the same optics and systems and sensors and guns and weapons and equipment.... no need to reinvent the wheel here.

There might not be a 152mm Coalition equivelant for the Typhoon family of four and six wheeled light vehicles... they might go for 122mm artillery rocket version using 122mm S-13 aircraft based rocket pods or some such solution etc etc.

Ironically the BMPT could just be a T-15 with the troops replaced with extra ammo... it has the fire power of the BMP-T and ammo capacity instead of troop carrying capability, plus the armour of a tank... the BMPT is essentially redundant for an Armata force... but for other forces a fire power vehicle could simply be the 2S38 57mm gun air defence vehicle based on each vehicle family base as a fire power vehicle...

Russian_Patriot_ wrote:

The fook is that?

Photoshop by the look of it.

The new turrets are designed to be transferable... including that 57mm gun version that can be used on ships as well as land vehicles.

The idea behind the Boomerang and Kurganets and Armata and Typhoon and the new arctic tractor types is to replace all the old types.

In the past they have had BMP and BTR and BRDM as well as MTLB and GTSM and even T series tank based vehicles, from engineer vehicles to ATGM vehicles and everything in between.

The problem is that they were all upgraded too so you might find a modern tank division with all three different types of BMP in service with that unit from BMP-1, BMP-2 and BMP-3 which does not really help unless you upgrade them all to use the same engine and wheels and tracks and transmission etc etc.

The new solution is to base all the engineer and artillery and scouting and other front line armoured vehicles on these five platform families.

Obviously the lighter wheeled vehicles will be cheaper and mobile but might not be suitable for all roles... a Typhoon vehicle probably could not handle the engineer and armoured recovery roles in an Armata unit because it might not be able to tow an Armata vehicle that has broken down... but the idea is to not mix the units so an Armata division would have Armata based vehicles across the board... making them rather more expensive, but unifies their armour and mobility and performance.

Typhoon vehicles will operate in Typhoon divisions that may not even have a 152mm artillery vehicle... or if it does it will be the truck based version with the turret or perhaps the simplified 2S43 Malva, which could use the engine of the Typhoon family in the 6X6 version so engines and wheels and transmissions are the same so the support units don't need to carry spare parts for ten or more different engine types and different wheel and track types etc etc.

The point is to build families of each type of armoured vehicle so for instance the MBT tank vehicle can use the T-14 turret and other systems developed for the Armata based vehicle fitted so they don't have to reinvent the wheel.... make the best and then copy across the vehicle families.

It might turn out that for a Typhoon force a MBT type vehicle is of no real value and a light tank with a Sprut turret makes sense... equally they might decide that the light tank with a Sprut turret does not make sense for Armata or Kurganets type vehicles anyway and a modified unmanned version could be developed with a low sillouette tiny tank turret for a real tank destroyer type vehicle could be adapted.

The point is that the difference between a T-15 and a T-14 is mostly the turret so you can switch between jobs by swapping turrets too.

When you upgrade the vehicles you upgrade them all so there wont be Armata 1 and Armata 2 and Armata 3 types of BMP or BTR or MBT.

Upgrades to the engines and transmissions can be applied to all the vehicles in the families as well as upgrades to armour and APS systems.

My god it's beautiful. The extra armor was also to increase buoyancy btw.

Wow that's an increase in armor package ... tests went on for a long time so seeing this and T-14 makes a lot more sense now, but yeah could just be optional stuff intended as an add-on ?

Btr-82A next to its replacement. It's like 2 times smaller.

I would say they are new production vehicles that would all be used for different roles.

I would think on many front lines and in many situations the Boomerang will replace all versions of the BTR, but in some roles the BTR will remain in use where the Boomerang is too heavy, too big, or too expensive.

Note there was a recent photo of production Armatas that had thicker heavier armour fitted that stuck out further and looked to provide better protection compared with earlier models shown... which I suspect is just natural... tanks and planes and helicopters normally get heavier over their operational lifespans... which is why the Su-57 has a new more powerful engine and the engines of the Armata and Kurganets/Boomerang are modular and are expected to increase power and performance over time... they actually were designed with built in growth potential.

So wheeled boomerangs are basically almost as comfortable and roomy as MRAP and almost as well protected as a tank for the running cost of a wheeled truck. It can be launched from ship over the sea as well.

If naval infantry don't need MRAP due to their role, does that mean they will inherit the armies BTR and BMP, as they can fill the role and its cheap to do. Or they will get the vehicle families as well to simplify logistics?

I seem to remember they were talking about a specialist version of the Kurganets or Boomerang for the Naval Infantry, while the airborne wanted something lighter like the Typhoon range of four and six wheeled vehicles.

As far as I remember they weren't just going to use these vehicles as they are for the Army but were going to make specialist modifications to make them suitable for marine and air transport use respectively.

There was also a separate programmed called BMMP or something for a surf landing BMP variant and I seem to remember it being tracked.

I posted two pictures of the 57mm apfsds for the epoch turret but now I cannot find them and I looked everywhere. Thought I posted them in this thread. Any of you guys have them? One picture is of a guy holding the display apfsds and showing the lettering on the back of it.

One picture is of a guy holding the display apfsds and showing the lettering on the back of it.

As you can see in Holes post the number on the base of the round includes the designation for the gun that fires it... 9A94.

Hole also posted (in the third picture) the 57mm high velocity rounds for the 2S38 AA gun vehicle which are fired from a new gun based on the old S-60 AA gun, whose designation is 9A91.

The third picture he should have posted was this one...



Which shows the Kornet missile across the top outside of its tube, its tube on the right hand side and the Bulat missile tube on the left side... it is much smaller but probably faster and possibly with quite good range for use against IFVs and light armoured vehicles or manouvering flying targets.
In the centre are the HE Frag rounds (Gray with black tips) and the APFSDS rounds and the 7.62x54R coaxial MG rounds in front.

Thanks hole that was what I was looking for! And I had not seen that picture yet garryb!

They are excellent pictures and in the bottom left corner you can see who made them.

Vitalys website is excellent for photos of Russian equipment and well worth a serious look too:

https://www.vitalykuzmin.net/

Actually just skimming through that excellent photo site I found this image:



It is a BTR-82A with what it calls a Ballista turret.

Interesting because it is a new turret design I had not really noticed before, but it seems to have old style ATGMs... Konkurs perhaps fitted to the turret, but also the main gun is a 30mm cannon but the Coaxial weapon seems to be at least a 40mm weapon which is the interesting thing.

Machine gun fire can be devastating but automatic grenade fire would be even more so out to much greater ranges.

At 2km range a rifle calibre machine gun would need to be fired in bursts at area targets and even then you would need to fire quite a few bursts to have any chance of getting hits on either large soft targets like a truck or boat, dispersed enemy troops.

At that range with a 40mm grenade launcher you can aim so the grenades land around your point of aim and spread fragments all over the place making that location incredibly dangerous even with just a burst of 5 to 10 grenades.

They would take longer to get there but not actually a lot longer and you can aim ahead of a target to compensate... I don't think the target would see or hear them coming and would not be able to avoid them.

Looks like an unmanned turret that does not penetrate into the vehicle designed for older vehicles to use up old stock missiles and perhaps lower priority units, but using 40mm coaxial weapon is interesting and could be a quite devastating addition for other vehicles simply because they can effectively fire out to 2.5km and would be very dangerous.

There was a recent report about unifying the various different vehicle types in Russia with the aim of consolidating them down into just a few vehicle families.

This will save money and also help unify designs so that modular armour can be standardised so add on armour like ERA or Slat armour or other add on armour modules can be sent out to the field and mounted on the vehicles in the field instead of having to drag them back to an overhaul site for the work to be done.

It is not hard to explain why this is so important... in combat the enemy is trying desperately to hit your vehicles and damage them and normal combat means constant hits from tiny fragments right up to serious weapons that can do mortal damage to the crew and the vehicle... being able to bring up some ERA blocks and take off those that have been triggered and replace them with new munitions means vehicles don't need to go back and forth from the front to the rear... during deep strikes sometimes as we have noticed you can't get the vehicle back to fix it so it gets abandoned... not ideal obviously but if no one dies who cares.

The point is that mobility is dramatically improved if you have armoured logistics vehicles that can bring equipment to near the front line where repairs can be made and not only do you not lose a tank from your attack, you get it back up to strength with modules replaced... obviously this will require much better low level air defence against artillery and drones but the Russians are working on those things too... lasers, jammers, and mini missiles to defeat incoming artillery shells and rockets etc etc etc.

New levels of thermal imagers with HD resolution and of course new radars that operate in optical frequencies is going to be very interesting moving forward...

https://ria.ru/20230404/bumerang-1862793083.html?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop
Tests of combat vehicles on the Boomerang platform began in Russia.
"the completion of state tests of the APC and BMP "Boomerang" is scheduled for the end of this year."
It seems that Boomerang is not dead...

It never was. I watched the olde pisode of "Combat Approved" again. There they say that the model we saw on Red Square was
a development model and that the version which will be delivered to the Armed Forces will look markedly different.

I think they had to wìden the crew compartment a bit. Russian boys were just too well fed, they grew an inch or two too much since the last ergonomics standards were updated so the Bumerang gets a little tight for the passengers. They have to alternate their knees just fit their legs which is not ideal to say the least.

They also had to take into account the Ratnik III equipment Russian soldiers will be carrying around so making the vehicle bigger now just makes sense.

It is already pretty big, but making it bigger means more comfort and room for equipment.

Exactly. Mechanized and Motorized infantry don't need to lug their stuff around, they can leave it wit the the IFV/APC. That leaves a lot of room on their person to pack on the pounds with weapons, or armor that would simply be impossible for the light infantry.

In the episode the personal equipment was stored on the sides of the vehicle. Outside.
Maybe altering the height of the compartment a little and they could keep their backpacks
under the seats.

Personal effects are deliberately left outside in most AFV designs. Less internal volume to protect, the less armor you need to protect the space. The packs can also mess with the fuze on ATGMs and RPGs since they aren't really designed to hit something soft like cloth or canvass or in a few grisly cases, flesh