BTR-80/82A and variants: News

d_taddei2 wrote:BTR-82A with dual 23mm cannons. Seems to have some small radar. Not much info. Apart from it can use programmable 23mm airburst ammo that has recently been developed.

Why didnt
anyone
think of this earlier

Approved

Because the massive use of FPV drones wasn´t a thing only a few years ago. For the usual suspects the Army had Tunguska.

Hole wrote:Because the massive use of FPV drones wasn´t a thing only a few years ago. For the usual suspects the Army had Tunguska.

It would be a beast in the anti-infantry role too, not only against drones

They did have a version without the radar and optics with a single twin barrel 23mm cannon but that would be the low velocity 23 x 115mm rounds.

This is clearly the 23 x 152mm high velocity rounds used on the Shilka... as seen by the water cooling pipes.

Why didn't they have it before?

Well probably didn't make a huge amount of sense without 23mm calibre airburst ammo being used to make it rather more effective against small light targets.

Interesting that the two 23mm calibres (23x152mm high velocity air defence calibre for Shilka and ZU-23 mounts, and the 23 x 115mm round for the guns carried by aircraft like the Hind and MiG-23 and MiG-21) use the same projectiles so the round should be able to be used from a Hind or an Il-76 or Tu-22M3.

I´m more interested in the "all-seeing eye" above the commanders place. 

That's still amazing why do they use 23mm not 30mm airburst ammo, bullet mass is 190g for 23/ 380~400g for 30mm why not 30mm from Pamtsir /Tunguska?

If they can make a command detonation fuse small enough for 23mm calibre rounds then those rounds would probably be cheaper and their effective range is 2-3km or so, which is about the greatest distance you are likely to see a tiny drone anyway.

I would suspect the 23 x 152mm shells with command detonation shells will be slightly cheaper than the 30 x 165mm command detonation shells, but I also think both will be put into mass production and widely used.

Ironically the Pantsir on land went from two single barrel 30mm 2A72 cannon to the two twin barrel 30mm 2A38M cannon of the Tunguska to increase the rate of fire for smaller targets like cruise missiles, but with air burst shells the massive rate of fire of the twin barrel 30mm guns would no longer be needed and short 4-5 round bursts from one gun would probably be enough for a lot of targets because of the number of splinters they would create at the intercept point.

With airburst shells they might go back to the single barrel guns for dedicated anti drone platforms.

Of course the main air defence gun vehicle moving forward will the the 2S38 with air burst 57mm cannon shells which will be devastating.

As mentioned these 23mm cannon will be devastating against ground targets too, it is a rather high velocity AA gun but could deliver HE rounds out to substantial distances.

The water cooling pipes above and below the cannon barrel indicate it is the single barrel cannon from the Shilka... would be interesting to know how much ammo that vehicle can carry... as a dedicated anti drone vehicle it might have some Verba and Igla-S gripstocks and a few of those drone jamming guns with troops to use them, but in a ground support role it might just carry belts of 23mm ammo.

I´m more interested in the "all-seeing eye" above the commanders place.

For looking for high flying drones dropping grenades or suicide attacks from any angle perhaps?

Laser Warning Receiver? 

The mild steel in the wheel arch was a factor in Afghanistan in the 1980s but I am pretty sure they addressed that problem fairly early on.

The level of protection should not be too high simply because this is the lighter cheaper wheeled model... if you want a heavily protected wheeled vehicle for this turret and this role then the Boomerang family and the Typhoon family are obvious choices.

You think they could come up with a new designation after developing a new hull. 

The-thing-next-door wrote:What is the point of this new vehicle?

It is inexpensive, on pair with mass produced BTR-2.
Better protected, easier to make, with better troops safety measures, a backdoor replacing side ones, and finally quits the archaic front windows concept.
It is a sort of combination of BTR-90 with newer concepts. Logical evolution I would say.
Russkie land forces are to increase seriously, they need tons of proven and inexpensive hardware for mass of forces to support the elite core armed with high tech and expensive toys.

Let.see what protection we have here for this new basterd....12.7mm AP uper side, lover side only from 5.45 ap round, so they protect uper body of soldiers with bigger and batter protection, head too, but lover parts (legs) have protection for only 5.45 aP (Who needs legs for **** sake Shocked), they put aditional armor for mine protection on flor, that is ok...but come on Russians why you don not put same armor protection on lover side walls behind wheels?!

The western equivalent of the BTR is a truck... with Zero armour protection, no amphibious capacity and no organic fire power... this is a light troop transport not supposed to go right up to the front line.

It is in the process of being replaced by Boomerang.

The original BTR-82 is bullet proof for most normal small arms fire, which is better than any western truck equivalent.

Well first of all if you put 2-3mm of armor to protect lover part of hull, to increase armor protection, who is needed in this case more than anything you will do that. Yes you will increase weight of vehicle, but instead od 300HP engine you put 360/400HP engine and you will get you mobility and more protection.

The current BTR-82s have better armour than that.

I do not like soviet philosophy at all, putting you soldiers to sit down on rooftop of Armored vehicle to react quickly as you said its stupid..

The western philosophy was for their soldiers to walk or be carried in unarmoured trucks with no armament and no amphibious capacity.

We see what happens to VDV boys who was ambushed on their BMDs..

BMDs can't have extra armour... they are airdropped... soldiers sitting on a vehicle made that choice based on the threat of enemy artillery and fire power and snipers and the threat of land mines.

Western troops have to make the same choices and will often sit on top of vehicles when the threat of mines and IEDs is higher than the threat of enemy fire.

This tactick was used because this vehicles was crapy designed with crappy room in it...so they sitting on rooftops because of that...

Russian anti armour mines seem to have no trouble dealing with all that extra super armour western vehicles pretend to have.

They need to stop using that old philosophy and start making new modern vehicles becasue life of soldiers is more ecxpencive than any vehicle they made it...

Yes, the west has all these brand new vehicle types with much improved armours designed in families so armour will be massively increased across the board in terms of vehicles in armoured forces, and poor old Russia stuck with their 1980s and 1970s shit... oops no, it is Russia that has the new armour and add on armour for their new vehicles.

This new 23mm gun armed BTR is a rear area vehicle that would operate with logistics convoys to deal with suicide drones and probably also ATGM teams and sabotage groups... it would likely not carry troops... it would just carry lots of ammo.

The link above has a nice amount of images of the different variants of this new variant...FWIW the claim is all-round 12.7mm protection, not just "the torso", which I think is plausible given the weight at 20 t and the slanted lower part of the cabin, which does seem to reflect the slant on the outside rather well. The main weird thing is that the engine only has 330 HP, which is rather low for 20 t. Some choice images to demonstrate my point about all-round protection (the above link has more):

The original BTR-60PB (with the turret mounted VHMG) was about 14 tons and had two 90 hp engines giving about 180 hp in total, and the US soldier who tested the vehicle described it as being the ultimate RV that could almost go anywhere and just bounced cross country. Adding 6 tons and 140 horsepower should be just fine.

You think they could come up with a new designation after developing a new hull.

I have to agree, the shifting of the engine and giving it proper rear doors is a definite improvement... but then their BMP-1, and BMP-2 troop transports also had front mounted engines and rear troop doors.

What is the point of this new vehicle?

Cheaper lighter vehicle where a heavy new vehicles like Typhoon or Boomerang is not needed.

Bumerang is too expensive to field it in numbers.

It is Armata that would be too expensive to field in large numbers, and Kurganets too, because tracked vehicles are rather more expensive operationally than wheeled vehicles.

Boomerang and Typhoon will be the numbers vehicles.

Better protected, easier to make, with better troops safety measures, a backdoor replacing side ones, and finally quits the archaic front windows concept.

It has transitioned more towards an APC rather than the armoured truck it used to be like the BTR-40 and BTR-152.

Remember not everything designed is for Russian service. It could be for export. Or maybe for border guards, russ-guard, cossacks battalions, volunteer regiments. It's better to have multiple options to suit all budgets and threats

The-thing-next-door wrote:What is the point of this new vehicle?