BTR-80/82A and variants: News

I know that the Btr82 gun isn't stabilised but was the 57mm gun prototype?

I always felt that the Btr60/70/80 platforms could have been fitted with more different types of weapons than they actually fielded. The 120mm mortar system was a good decision. But the potential is huge and it seems Cuba was the only country to fully expand on weapons mainly through necessity and using what they had in stock. Cuba fitting weapons such as zu -23-2, single and double 37mm 61-K, double 57mm, and even the turret from a T-55. So simply using older equipment can give you a different capability and it's a good way to use up older stock.

The list below is just short list of possibilities:

T-34-85 turret
PT -76 turret
Bmp -1 turret
Bmp -3 turret
Zsu 23-4 turret (Air and ground support role)
2S1 turret
BM-14 140mm (single or double pack)
Zpu -2
Zis-3 76mm artillery
D-44 85mm artillery
Various 122mm artillery pieces
130mm M-46 (possibly )
Zis-2 57mm
D-48 85mm anti tank
BS-3 100mm anti tank
T-12 100mm anti tank
82mm automatic mortar 2B9 vaselik (can also use anti armour rounds )
160mm mortar (possibly if recoil dampening system introduced )
Strelets anti air system
Sonsa -R anti air system
Pantsir (possibly )
Tungkuska (possibly )
Sa-8
Sa-13
Sa-9
Zu-23-2M1/ZOM1/ZOM1-SM anti air system
Zsu 23-4M4/M5 anti air system
And the following ATGW systems AT-3, AT-4,
AT-5, AT-6, AT-7, AT-13, AT-14. AT-15.

and I know that there's no doubt many other options.

Is there any options you would suggest?

GarryB wrote:According to this:

http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/land-forces/armored-combat-vehicles/btr-82a/

The guns are stabilised.... as it mentions in this paragraph:

The BTR-82A is the result of upgrading the BTR-80A APC in order to improve its main performance and service characteristics through the use of a higher-capacity power plant, an armament stabilizer, a combined (day/night) sight, as well as improvements to transmission and running gear units.

I would suggest a modern stabilised 30mm cannon is perfectly suited to most uses... a lower velocity weapon with a heavier HE projectile would be the ideal compliment as used in the BMP-3 turret combo.

So a 100mm rifled gun or 120mm gun/mortar, though a 30/40/57mm grenade launcher, 57mm gun or 82mm mortar would be good alternatives.

sorry I read somewhere stating it wasn't to which when I read it I was surprised hence the question.

Of course 30mm is sufficient but I am also addressing the issue if you have any of these weapons and Btr 60/70/80 you can have yourself a multitude of options and capabilities and it uses up old stock. In most cases just making it self propelled with some armour and good mobility on land and water suddenly makes the weapon that more useful

GarryB wrote:According to this:

http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/land-forces/armored-combat-vehicles/btr-82a/

The guns are stabilised.... as it mentions in this paragraph:

The BTR-82A is the result of upgrading the BTR-80A APC in order to improve its main performance and service characteristics through the use of a higher-capacity power plant, an armament stabilizer, a combined (day/night) sight, as well as improvements to transmission and running gear units.

I would suggest a modern stabilised 30mm cannon is perfectly suited to most uses... a lower velocity weapon with a heavier HE projectile would be the ideal compliment as used in the BMP-3 turret combo.

So a 100mm rifled gun or 120mm gun/mortar, though a 30/40/57mm grenade launcher, 57mm gun or 82mm mortar would be good alternatives.

Is the 100mm gun of bmp3 able to fire apfsds rounds at high velocity ? It looks to be a small gun for HE and HEAT with a small range. They could use a longer version to make it able to destroy other APC with ctive defences from long distances with APFSDST.

Isos wrote:

GarryB wrote:According to this:

http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/land-forces/armored-combat-vehicles/btr-82a/

The guns are stabilised.... as it mentions in this paragraph:

The BTR-82A is the result of upgrading the BTR-80A APC in order to improve its main performance and service characteristics through the use of a higher-capacity power plant, an armament stabilizer, a combined (day/night) sight, as well as improvements to transmission and running gear units.

I would suggest a modern stabilised 30mm cannon is perfectly suited to most uses... a lower velocity weapon with a heavier HE projectile would be the ideal compliment as used in the BMP-3 turret combo.

So a 100mm rifled gun or 120mm gun/mortar, though a 30/40/57mm grenade launcher, 57mm gun or 82mm mortar would be good alternatives.

Is the 100mm gun of bmp3 able to fire apfsds rounds at high velocity ? It looks to be a small gun for HE and HEAT with a small range. They could use a longer version to make it able to destroy other APC with ctive defences from long distances with APFSDST.

It has 3UBK10M3 laser guided round  which can obliterate any APC and most IFV's at range of 5500 meter. It also has new HEF round reaching out to 7km. Engaging targets directly beyond that range, active protection or not, is simply not likely to be possible in most combat situations. There will be other vehicles that would deal with such threats ? I could be wrong but feel free to point out a plausible scenario.

There are APFSDS rounds available for the 100mm MT-12 tank gun but these projectiles are smaller than the 2A70 ammo as far as i know, so i doubt they are compatible.  

I think a more realistic approach for defeating APC's with advanced active protection would be trough electronic warfare / jamming of the system, or to designate artillery fire on such targets.

GarryB wrote:The 100mm rifled gun on the BMP-3 is a medium pressure gun optimised for firing HE shells.

Its other standard round is a guided missile..

The requirements of a powerful HE delivering gun are totally different from that of a tank gun which needs high velocity.

The BTR chassis as well as the BMP chassis and MTLB chassis are good platforms for a variety of vehicles but at the end of the day keeping old obsolete calibres in service is not a good thing for Russia.

Often a newer platform makes more sense and can be upgraded to a higher level with minimum cost than an older vehicle.

Gifting the older stuff to allies that can use them like Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan and Yemen and Libya Helps them and reduces the diversity of systems and ammo for the Russian military.

Is the bmp 3 gun enough against other nato ifv and apc ??

Russian can't give free stuff to its main buyers ... who will buy them arms if those countries get fre stuf.

Interesting: Bastion-Karpenko is reporting Algeria has been mounting Kornets on BTR-80s


Thats a nice little upgrade project.

I Always wondered why the BTR-82A got no ATGM on the side of the turret. Maybe because the russian army sees it more as an APC as an AIFV.

From memory I saw a picture of a BTR-82 from a arms event with had a konkurs attached but I think this had to be fired with the gunner exposed but I can't be certain although possible it could have been fired within the safety of the vehicle. Although I haven't seen Russian versions like this.
And yes it's a wheeled APC foremost the gun is to provide light fire support and the 30mm gun will make a mess of other APC of same type of class and it will destroy buildings piece by piece. I've seen what a .50cal can do to brick walls and let's say you don't want to be on the other side. There is of course an option where you could mount a 57mm gun which would be more devastating. my only gripe with the Algerian version on the BTR-60 was they removed all guns and just put kornet where I think they should have left the 7.62mm gun on it for some kind of defence against 4x4 and infantry. The BTR 60 was done as a dedicated ATGW platform. Russians use BRDM-2 with konkurs as a wheeled armoured ATGW platform which in effect could accompany BTR-82.
Just to note Algeria also mounted kornet on BTR-60 originally but as stated as a ATGW platform. They also have it mounted on BRDM-2 and small number on tigr-M. The tigr-M will likely be used for recce and sniping of enemy tanks. The BRDM-2 will likely either do the same or work alongside other armoured units like their Nimr. They I believe are producing a large number of german Fuchs/BTR-82/80 so it's likely that either the BTR-60 kornet variant will accompany them or work as an independent ATGW tank hunters but I suspect that it could be the former. You may ask why wouldn't they just put kornet on Fuchs there could be numerous reasons maybe in the agreement with Germany that nothing could be altered or added without permission or its possible that Russia had already offered help with addin kornet to BTR, or maybe they(algerian) engineers found it easier to do. Or they decided that it was a good way to use the BTR seeing as the introduction of the Fuchs was going to make them redundant from APC role as the army will now solely operate Fuchs in that role. Although we might see kornet on them at a later date who knows. And you might even find them mounting them on their OT-64 SKOT as a dedicated ATGW platform

I've read quite a few articles on the AU-220M Baikal RCWS turret 57mm gun. And bmp-3 and BTR-80 come up quite a lot in them and also mentions of other countries interested in such turret to mount on their own vehicles. The Emirates engima and Kazakhstans mbombe 8 version are looking to mount ithe on those vehicles. I think it's a good test bed for the gun for the up and coming new vehicles but a good offer to export customers and future sales of 57mm ammo. I can't think of any AFV that couldn't be destroyed by such and they have also developed armour piercing rounds so no chance for enemy AFV this is a much cheaper option that using ATGW this would allow them to keep missiles for tank threat if needed. A bmp-3/btr-80 armed with such a turret with a couple of kornet on the side Would be pretty deadly. The west seem content on 30mm but even that isn't becoming decreasingly effective with newer vehicles. 

flamming_python wrote:

d_taddei2 wrote:I've read quite a few articles on the AU-220M Baikal RCWS turret 57mm gun. And bmp-3 and BTR-80 come up quite a lot in them and also mentions of other countries interested in such turret to mount on their own vehicles. The Emirates engima and Kazakhstans mbombe 8 version are looking to mount ithe on those vehicles. I think it's a good test bed for the gun for the up and coming new vehicles but a good offer to export customers and future sales of 57mm ammo. I can't think of any AFV that couldn't be destroyed by such and they have also developed armour piercing rounds so no chance for enemy AFV this is a much cheaper option that using ATGW this would allow them to keep missiles for tank threat if needed. A bmp-3/btr-80 armed with such a turret with a couple of kornet on the side Would be pretty deadly. The west seem content on 30mm but even that isn't becoming decreasingly effective with newer vehicles. 

NATO 30mm cannons it should be said are high-pressure/velocity, it has better armour-pentration capabilties than the typical 30mm guns that Russia/USSR produced. Therefore the need for Russia to procure newer autocannon models is more urgent.

Meh most new medium-weight IFV's are immune (in the frontal arc) to 30mm rounds across the board, that includes both Ru/USSR and NATO alike. The Bofors 40mm 3P/CTAS that's in NATO armory's are vastly superior to the 30x173mm NATO Round, and can fit in the same niche as the 57mm Federation round:

There's a certain delicious irony in seeing 40mm/57mm starting to be brought back in as short range AA after so many years of missiles being the only accepted 'quality' option.

Over 40 BTR-82A APCs join combined arms army of Western Military District in Bryansk region

http://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12209746@egNews

hoom wrote:There's a certain delicious irony in seeing 40mm/57mm starting to be brought back in as short range AA after so many years of missiles being the only accepted 'quality' option.

technology improves, better rounds, controlled explosions make this short range el cheapo alternative

BTW now ramjet guided artillery 152/155mmm is still artillery or a rocket projectile?

He refers to a new artillery round that uses a ramjet to increase range. Technically its some sort of rocket.

Hole wrote:He refers to a new artillery round that uses a ramjet to increase range. Technically its some sort of rocket.

I'd imagine it will work similar to rocket assistance rounds. so still classed as artillery just my take on it

GarryB wrote:Gun and tube artillery will remain separate... old gun artillery included rocket assisted and base bleed rounds but was never confused with rocket artillery...

In article about Russian ramjet projectile they wrote AFAIR about Soviets testing ramjets to BM missiles. Technically both would be ram propelled, only initial phase is what differs

Hole wrote:He refers to a new artillery round that uses a ramjet to increase range. Technically its some sort of rocket.

exactly my point

GarryB wrote:
The fundamental problem with your argument is that a jet is not a rocket and a rocket is not a jet.

most of guided ammo is rocked propelled. Those with ramjets are neither artillery nor rockets. So your arguments are problematic too