Future of Russian IFV/AFVs

For the BMP... as opposed to the BMPT, the BMP needs a weapon that will allow it to defend itself from tanks, and a weapon that will allow it to engage equivelent enemy vehicles.

The BMP-1 faced US M113s and the British equivalent.
It was the limitations of the AT-3 missile the BMP-1 used that required a 73mm smoothbore gun that could penetrate an M60s front armour at any range it could hit it (up to 1,300m in the right conditions according to a chap I spoke to who operated one).
The fact the AT-3 couldn't hit anything within about 300m required a main gun able to kill tanks, which could therefore also kill APCs.

The BMP-2 had the much better AT-4/-5 launcher so rather than fitting it with a 73mm gun it got a 30mm cannon which could deal with enemy APCs and aircraft and light targets too.

It was found however that the 73mm shells were useful and complimented the 30mm cannon so the BMP-3 had both autocannon and artillery component in the form of a 30mm cannon and a 100mm cannon.

The problem now is that the 30mm cannon is becoming marginal in terms of penetrating current and near future model IFVs, so they are testing 45mm and 57mm alternatives... these weapons would have no chance against enemy armour so they will likely re-adopt ATGMs for the anti armour role.

A 76.2mm gun probably wouldn't be heavy enough to guarantee better performance than say a Kornet EM, while ammo capacity will be greatly reduced.

Quite true, but the heavily armed and armoured BMP vehicle is just the heavy brigades IFV.
The Medium Brigade will have a BMP vehicle with better armour than current BMP vehicles, while the light BMP vehicle will have less armour than current BMPs.

In many ways there will be BMP and BTRs in the medium brigades with tracked and wheeled vehicles respectively, with the BTR in the light brigade likely to be very similar in armour protection level to the current BTR-82, but likely with rear ramp door for better entry/exit.

In the heavy brigades the difference between the BTR and BMP will be armament, both will be heavily armoured and tracked, but one will be a troop transport with light weapons (perhaps 30mm/14.5mm mix with perhaps ATGMs like Kornet-EM), while the other will be an IFV with heavier armament (45/57mm gun, and missiles in one version and 100mm and 30mm in another perhaps).

Simply the 100mm HE frag shells give tank and motor rifle units direct fire power they haven't enjoyed since the ISU-152 from WWII.

Of course with new Glonass guided artillery shells with fuses only costing $1,000 each suddenly the commander of a brigade can call in very accurate long range artillery on the cheap.

You are thinking the way I am thinking TheArmenian...

The Russians are not the west or NATO, and in their experience having dual direct and indirect HE fire capability... first with the 73mm gun of the BMP-1 and then with the 100mm gun of the BMP-3 seemed to be rather sucessful, and a single 100mm shell is much more cost effective than using up all your ATGMs on point targets that need HE payloads delivered with some level of accuracy out to 5-7km at most.

Perhaps the solution is a mixed force, with half the BMP vehicles armed with 45/57mm guns with a mix of APFSDS rounds to defeat enemy IFVs and guided HE shells for aircraft and point targets at extended ranges, plus standard HE shells for most other ground targets.
The original 57mm HE shells were about 2.8kgs in weight travelling at about 1km/s. With a modern fire control system you could use ammo with completely different ballistic performance and still hit targets so a heavier but slower HE shell could be made that was much more effective in the HE role than a 30mm round, though it would not be as good as a 100mm shell, while the HVAPFSDS round would have much better anti armour performance than the 30mm shells.
The other half of the vehicles could retain a 30mm cannon and a 100mm rifled cannon, as the latters ammo is optimised for the role and would be cheap and effective.

The other alternative might be to change from 100mm rifled gun to 120mm automatic mortar, which seem to be very popular in Russian units, or perhaps a belt fed 82mm weapon based on the Vasilek. The advantage of the larger calibre would be increased range, and compatibility with existing 120mm guided rounds, but of course being a troop carrier the ammo load will be relatively limited.

They have traditionally mixed the BMP-1 and BMP-2 in service as complimentary in terms of weaponry, while they have also mixed the forces with BMPs and BTRs. The new BMPs carrying a 45mm or 57mm cannon will give them a combination of better anti armour performance, plus greater punch on target with heavier shells over the 30mm, while the guided shells will mean aerial targets and point targets at extended range can be engaged without using too much ammo.
The decision I think they have to make is, do they go with some BMPs with 45/57mm guns and some BMPs with 30/100mm weapon combinations... I would think 120mm mortars would take up too much space and 82mm automatic mortars would fire a bomb of about 3kgs which is probably too similar in performance to the 45/57mm HE shell to warrant the extra weight and space to fit it.

The different brigades will have different roles and priorities...

A BMP in a heavy brigade might get away with having fewer troops on board, because the BTR-T in the brigade could have a light armament of perhaps a 30mm cannon and 8 external Kornet EM missiles ready to fire with a BMO like chassis on the Armata base with the engine at the front and a large rear area for 6-8 soldiers, while the BMP in the heavy brigade might have a reduced group of 3-4 soldiers with the significant armament of either a 45/57mm gun or 30/100mm guns. Or the BTR vehicles might be limited to external machine gun mounts to maximise troop capacity, while the BMP model will retain the armament of the BMP-3M.

In the lighter units the BMP-3M armament might be too heavy so a revised lighter armament could be applied.

In the medium brigades the wheeled and tracked vehicles will have different payload options allowing new weapon configurations.

They might compensate for the reduction in fire power with the introduction of the BMPT like vehicle for each Brigade (L/M/H).

Ever since WWII the Soviets found direct HE fire power to be very useful in combat, so there is significant use for vehicles with large calibre weapons... the question will be are they going to attach vehicles like the Hosta with a 120mm gun/mortar and Vena to brigades, or can they use MSTAs with GLONASS guided shells more efficiently with the improved C4IR to replace front line HE with accurate all weather HE from further back.

In case the 30mm gun is no longer adequate, how about the 37mm? With a modern round, it should have enough punch to molest any current or future IFV.

I think that is the purpose behind the 45/57mm calibre, as an attempt to replace the 30mm with something with much better armour penetration and future growth potential, while at the same time a significant fraction of the HE power of the 100mm shells.

The problem is that the 100mm shells are optimised for the role so the 57mm shells might actually be bigger than the 100mm shells for the 2A70 gun, while their HE performance is less.

I think the reduced power 57mm HE shells will still be effective because of the accuracy of the guided shells will make up for their reduced payload and they could probably be useful out to 8-10km range with laser guidance.
The fact that they are SALH means other platforms can lase the target so the firing platform does not need line of sight to the target to engage. A UAV could mark targets for instance.

100mm is too slow rate of fire for anti infantry role, and becomes very heavy.

I disagree. There is little need for a high rate of fire 100mm gun as the power of the round is the key, not its rate of fire. If you see a small group of soldiers moving over open ground you don't want to fire 10 x 100mm shells, you want to place one shell within the ground and air burst it at about 2m height... the fragmentation pattern should deal with the whole group at once. With a 30mm cannon on the other hand a burst of 5-10 shells with HE Frag projectiles might be needed to ensure lethality with the smaller HE charges.

75mm is much better for bmpt role and if they can solve submunitions issue it wouldnt need that many shells anyway for AA role. 75mm gyided HEAT can penetrate 500mm of armour.for else there is kornets.

AFAIK guided tube fired 75mm calibre missiles don't exist, they don't have any for their 82mm mortars either. So that would need to be developed.

As you can see from this photo:



The shell case for the 100mm round is only a few calibres long and it is a very compact ammo design of only medium pressure.

Also armor placement concept is wrong, and 5 man crew is too much ,better 2-3.

Armour placement seems fine to me... three crew in the front hull behind relatively thick armour and the turret crew all below the turret ring line, so they benefit from the protection of the front hull armour too.

The requirement for the 5 man crew is for two operators of the bow MGs. I think it makes sense to have two independent MGs that can fire at targets independently from the turret as it means more targets can be engaged at once.

I do think proper independent turrets are needed with much wider fields of fire rather than simpler cheaper bow positions.

Having two types of IFVs, one with the current 100mm/30mm BMP-3 setup,and the other with a 57mm gun like GarryB is suggesting is far from a perfect solution as it stretches logistics further: You now have 3 calibers (100mm, 30mm and 57mm)and you have two training programs for somewhat different vehicles.

They are going to have light, medium, and heavy brigades, which means at least 4 different vehicle chassis as a basis.
They have had 4 different weapon options for APCs in the past all operating together without problems (ie 73mm on BMP-1, 30mm on BMP-2, 100/30mm on BMP-3, and 14.5mm or 30mm on BTR).

The greatly increased communication and battle management capabilities of the future Russian armour forces should enable it to use support forces including artillery and air support much more efficiently in the future. They will certainly have a lot more 120mm mortar vehicles with them.

The Russians are not trying to multiply platforms these days: quite the opposite, they want to streamline the types. BMP-3 was the perfect solution: one vehicle that does everything (IFV and artillery support). Why not just incrementally improve it in terms of firepower, rate of fire, protection etc?

The evolution of the armament of the BMP-3 is based on its need to be able to engage its foreign equivalents (ie IFVs), and enemy tanks. The 30mm cannon is now marginal on existing western IFVs and will not be effective against future heavier IFVs. The 100mm missile was always marginal against enemy tanks but had good range.

The testing of 45/57mm guns for the BMP-4 is for use against enemy IFVs. If the next US IFV is tank chassis based then they might revert back to the 30/100mm combo for most targets and some sort of diving top attack version of the 100mm missiles.

The purpose of this thread is to discuss future options for Russian IFV/BMPT vehicles.

Remember there are current two types at the moment... the BMP and BTR, with the former being tracked, heavily armed, and reasonably sophisticated and the latter wheeled, minimally armed, with a larger troop capacity and relatively cheap to buy and operate.

The future Russian IFVs however will include light (Typhoon) wheeled vehicles (light and amphibious), medium (Kangaroo and Kurganets-25) wheeled and tracked respectively 25 ton class amphibious vehicles, and heavy (armata) tracked heavy vehicles.

The Kurganets-25 is the vehicle most like the current BMPs and the Kangaroo will be the vehicle most like the current BTR, except the BMP-3 is 18 tons, the BTR-80 is about 14 tons and these new vehicles are 25 tons.

The light (Typhoon) will likely be lighter than the BTR-82 but also smaller too, while the Armata version will be base on a tank chassis with tank level protection.

This is moved from another thread:

I disagree with that Garry, the Russians don't follow the trend in IFVs, they set the trend.

I did not mean they followed the trends of the west.

The BMP-1 was intended to be able to defend itself from enemy tanks, this required an ATGM (which the Soviets deployed in enormous numbers and much more rapidly than the west did), but the standard ATGM of the day had a 300m dead zone where it could not engage targets while the guidance system tried to gather in the missile ready to control it.
This required the 73mm gun, which could also deal with enemy troop carriers.
On the BMP-2 the improved missiles (AT-4 and AT-5) could engage targets as close as 75m so that freed the main gun armament... they could use anything they wanted.
Many in the west know little about the process in the Soviet Union to build weapons and systems and vehicles, they see the end result and just assume the makers were handed a sheet listing requirements and that maker just built it.
The reality is that they had plenty of competition and tests... there were lots of different designs competing to be the BMP and they included different choices and layouts of wheels, tracks, cannon, etc etc.
There were vehicles with all wheels, vehicles with wheels at the front and back and tracks in the middle, there were vehicles with full length tracks but with wheels as well so cross country it ran on tracks while on roads a set of wheels were lowered and it ran on wheels.
There were versions with engines at the front and engines at the rear, there were vehicles armed with 30mm cannon and vehicles with a 73mm low velocity gun.

All tracks were chosen because they were simple and gave the best mobility.
The 73mm gun was chosen because of the ATGM limitation I mentioned.

When the BMP-2 was being developed, it was intended to improve on the BMP-1, so a larger two man turret was fitted as it gave the commander a much better all round view than the position beside the front mounted engine behind the driver in the BMP-1.
One of the first models for the Bradley had the same layout as the BMP-1, but was changed before production after they saw the BMP-2 so the US certainly copied the Russians.
The new missile meant they could use a 30mm cannon which was more useful against a wider range of targets and threats like helos and other light armoured vehicles.

The BMP-3 was so different from western equivalents because it was NOT a case of Russia copying a western trend, but looking at its own experiences in combat with the BMP-1 and BMP-2. They realised that rather than being a good replacement for the 73mm gun that the two different types of weapon actually complimented each other... sometimes a high velocity cannon was the ideal weapon for the problem, whereas in other cases they needed a bit more HE to do the job, in which case the 73mm weapon was superior.

Based on this experience (which was unique because western forces didn't use a large calibre weapon on their IFVs) they kept the 30mm cannon and improved the 73mm gun with a dedicated 100mm gun designed specifically for the role.

One of the options for the BMP-2 was a lengthened higher velocity 73mm weapon with longer range and a wider range of ammo types, but it was decided the 30mm cannon would be more versatile in that it could (then) take on any light armour short of a tank, as well as low flying aircraft etc.

Right now however Russia continues to set trends with its new plans for heavy APCs, medium APCs, and light APCs. Now if the west follows suit... or even if they don't adopt that structure exactly, but keep increasing the protection of their IFVs and APCs then a new "anti IFV" calibre is needed because the 30mm is becoming too light for the purpose of anti light armour.

IMHO, what the West has or is preparing is not as much important for them as what they think what their own battlefield requirements will be.

What the west is working on has a direct influence on what they need.
It is not a case of a p!$$ing contest where the BMP-4 needs a bigger gun than any fitted to any western vehicle.
It is a case that IFVs are getting better and better armour, so changing to a larger calibre will enable your forces to either defeat his vehicles at extended ranges or the enemy will be force to make their IFVs even heavier and more expensive.

If the 45mm gun has similar guided shells to the 57mm gun then it has the added advantage of extended range anti aircraft potential as well.
The Russians had problems dealing with Georgian UAVs because they flew above the effective 2,500m ceiling of the ZU-23, and were too small to get a good lock with MANPADS, the only ground system they had in place that could deal with them was the SA-11 which I think you will agree is a bit of over kill.
A better solution would have been a TOR or Pantsir-S1 battery, but even better would be a BMP-4 with laser guided 57mm cannon shells able to hit small targets up to about 5,000m or so in altitude and 6-8,000m in range with a single shot.

Having a 30mm APFSDS round that can only penetrate a Bradley from the side is one thing.
Having a 57mm APHE round that can not only penetrate that same Bradley from the front, but also detonate a charge inside and do an enormous amount of internal damage is another.

Anyways, the future Russian IFV is an intereting subject worth discussing further. But this is not the right thread and it is in the wrong section, this thread has been completely taken off-track. Perhaps you want to start a whole new thread in the correct section, I will be more than happy to contribute to the discussions.

Good point, I have created this new thread with a vague title to allow such a discussion...

Anyways, the future Russian IFV is an intereting subject worth discussing further. But this is not the right thread and it is in the wrong section, this thread has been completely taken off-track. Perhaps you want to start a whole new thread in the correct section, I will be more than happy to contribute to the discussions.

Very true, my reply is here:


http://russiadefence.forumotion.com/t1613-future-of-russian-ifv-bmpt#13430

Back on topic, does anyone know how they will fit these BMPTs into their forces?

Are they actually using them to support tanks...

Because according to the design they are supposed to be able to operate with tanks and hit targets tanks can't reach, but if that is the case then could it not be argued that if they can hit targets tanks can't hit... say in built up areas, then doesn't it make more sense to send the BMPTs in INSTEAD of tanks rather than to support them?

Good summarising Medo:

We could assume, Russia will be oriented in defending their motherland and not in expeditions in foreign countries anywhere in the globe as the West. The other important factor is Russian geography with all its components. They also know, Russia could not have multi million army as in times of Soviet Union, because Russia have only half of that population. They are in process of changing, but I'm not sure if they rich the final structure of their military. Final military structure will be basement for norms, which new vehicles will have to rich.

I agree with all that, but would add that because Russia has a relatively small population for a large country and its military forces will be relatively small in regard to the area it needs to protect, that mobility, both in terms of strategic mobility... in other words putting a couple of light and/or medium brigades in aircraft and flying them across the country at short notice will be a major requirement, and moving around within the theatre of operations will be very important too... so while these forces will be defensive they will actually also be suitable for world deployment and global domination... (An added perk rather than an initial design consideration.)

To your suggestions:

We could be sure for few norms:

- to operate in harsh climatic conditions.
- to have good cross country capabilities
- at least part of them must have swimming capabilities.

I would add that all vehicles will need to be able to cross water obstacles... those that don't swim will need to be able to snorkel.
All will need to be able to be put in an aircraft and flown 5,000km to a deployment area... at the very least the light brigades should have the option to be para dropped, but being landed at an airfield will suffice for most of them.
Which means they need to greatly expand their air lift capability too.

The 4 zone structure means each region will have enough resources to manage most situations, though being able to fly in extra forces at a moments notice would be very useful, and as a perk should enable Russian forces to intervene beyond her borders when it is in her interests to do so.

Note the heaviest vehicle in the Armata series weighs 65 tons, but if it is the artillery vehicle known as Coalition I don't see how they could get that sized turret in an aircraft...

Light Brigades: Tigr or Volk or something in that line
Medium Brigades: BTR-82 or wheeled replacement of similar size/weight
Heavy Brigades: Replacement of BMP-3 (possibly on Armata platform)

I would be happy to be proven wrong.

The military has been talking about this for a while... the vehicle families started out as theory because it is all theory based. In other words UVZ didn't come up with Armata, they were busy making the T-95 when the Russian military came up and cancelled it and said they want to reform their military structure into brigades that include three different types of brigades each for different uses and based on different chassis families.

The Heavy brigade will be based on the Armata chasis, which will have two forms... engine at the front and engine at the back. Engine at the back is for the Tank and probably 152mm artillery vehicle, while the engine at the front chassis will be used for the Armata APC/IFV and other vehicles that suit rear ramp entry/exit.

The Medium brigades will have two vehicles, one wheeled called Boomerang, and one tracked called Kurganets-25. Both will be 25 ton vehicles with amphibious capability with rear ramps for exit and entry (the wheeled vehicle might also have side doors as well).

The light vehicle is called Typhoon (though I have called it boomerang... actually I think Kangaroo has been called boomerang as well) and it comes in 4 and 6 wheeled versions.

The point is that in each brigade all the vehicles will be based on one chassis so the levels of protection are the same within the unit and the engines and spares and logistics train will be simplified.

The Armata has a new engine that will have power ratings from 1,300hp up to about 2,200hp for different roles on different versions... and they will probably develop other "family" engines for the other two brigades.

They already have electronic suites, so the BMP in the heavy brigade will be based on the Armata chassis, while the wheeled Typhoon BMP will have the same electronics suite. The gun platform vehicle in the Light Brigade might be something like Sprut, but it will have the same electronics suite as the Armata tank version and will be based on the Typhoon chassis... probably one of the 6 wheeled versions.

These new vehicles are from scratch designs that we will likely not see till 2015 when they start entering production and service.
Until then you are quite right that the Volk and Tigr-M will be used in the light brigades, the BTR-82 will be the medium brigade and the BMP-3M will also be in the medium brigade, while the heavy brigade will have a BMP with tank level armour, which at the moment would be the BTR-T but whether they actually buy or convert any T-72 chassis, or just use BMPs till the Armata is ready is another question.

They are certainly buying Volk and Tigr-M and BTR-82, but whether they actually want to spend money on BMP-3Ms and BTR-Ts is another matter... I rather doubt it... just like they will likely not spend a huge amount on T-90AMs when the new T-99 Armata tanks will enter production (hopefully) in 3-4 years time.

Volk and Tigr-M are useful little vehicles that replace unarmoured vehicles, while the BTR-82 is a significant step up from the BTR-80 and older vehicles, while being relatively cheap to buy and operate so they will be built and put in service.

For the other stuff they have plenty of old stuff to upgrade in the mean time and then discard when the new stuff is ready.

However I don't see the small shell (less than 3 kg) being very effective against troops. Greater rate of fire will hardly compensate for lack of punch, making this choice of weapon more limited in scope.

A 3kg shell of HCHE or high capacity high explosive is the equivalent of about 20 40mm grenades and as it is a direct fire weapon it has much better accuracy.

Th ZSU-57-2 was a devastating weapon when used in the ground role.

Let me put it this way... with a new HE shell fired from a modern gun where velocity is not so important (with a digital fire control system you can have a HE shell that is heavy and slow, and an armour piercing shell that is lighter and much faster because the system can aim at a different point for each shot. For an automatic anti aircraft 57mm gun you needed to make both rounds shoot to the same point of aim at different ranges so the AP round couldn't go as fast as you could make it go otherwise it would have a different trajectory to you HE round so you could either aim to hit with the AP round or the HE round but not both.
It means you can make your HE shell much heavier (and more effective) and much slower (which does not reduce performance but reduces recoil), while your APHE can be much faster and more effective, and your HVAPFSDS round can be even faster still.
(one problem with AP kinetic rounds is a lack of lethality... they punch a hole but if it doesn't hit fuel or ammo or bodies it might not stop the target... an APHE ensures max destructive effect, but needs to be rather more powerful to penetrate... ie a 30mm APDS round might penetrate the armour but you need a larger more powerful round (45/57mm) to penetrate the armour with an APHE round.)

A 3kg warhead or even 4kg warhead could be possible... and remember 3kgs is the weight of the standard Russian 82mm mortar shell and that is quite effective against infantry isn't it?

I certainly agree that the 100mm shell of the BMP-3 is certainly more potent with more HE and more metal mass for splinters, but the information I have is projectile weight is 15kgs while the explosive content is 1.7kgs.

Pretty much just a bursting charge for a fragmentation shell.

My info for the naval 57mm shell is a 2.8kg projectile with a 150 gramme bursting charge, but they are updating the ammo design for the new 57mm gun so it will likely have different characteristics.

The current 100mm of a BMP-3 on the other hand can deal with any future IFV now. It is also real world artillery against infantry. Why change it?

Because the 30mm is no longer powerful enough to do its job of penetrating enemy "light" vehicles, and there are two alternatives... going really big in the 90-100mm high velocity guns that make it less of a BMP and more of a light tank with troops, or going with a smaller increase in calibre as a medium between the two existing weapons.

The 57mm rounds are not small compact shells and there would not be enough room on board a BMP like vehicle for a 57mm and a 100mm gun and their ammo.

I would think a combination of a 45/57mm gun with a 14.5mm gun coaxially mounted for one vehicle and the 30/100mm gun combination in another vehicle would be a good solution in the short term.

The 14.5mm gun is very similar to a western 20mm cannon which would be able to engage a wide range of soft targets on the battlefield at low cost, while harder targets or targets further away or aerial targets could be engaged with the 45/57mm weapon.

The 30/100mm combination is already proven to be useful and can continue to be fielded.

The improved communication and control with the new C4IR system I think will lead to them finding that their 120mm mortar equipped vehicles will be used rather more in the future and in many ways might replace the 100mm guns in that role.

With 152mm plus calibre weapons getting Glonass guided shells I would think a few 240mm mortar batteries might become useful too... a 19km range 240mm shell weighing 130kgs within 10m of the target would be quite devastating.

Its design parameters include the ability to hit aerial targets like UAVs, but the visibility and modern fire control system would likely make it an ideal convoy support vehicle.

With a crew of 5 it is even possible to delegate perhaps the two bow gunners to open their hatches and release hand held UAVs and to then close their hatches and fly their UAVs up to look over a hill or around a corner or over some trees for targets or threats.

The benefits of this information would outweigh the minor temporary reduction in fire power.

I still have my reservations about the sheer number of types of APCs and IFVs you believe may be fielded after 2015. Even the USSR did not have that many types. IMHO, there might be some consolidation somewhere just because of finances.

I agree the process will not be instant, but the theory is that each brigade has one chassis type so that all its vehicles share the same mobility and same parts, and similar levels of protection.

Each Heavy brigade for example will need a lot of Armata chassis, and I think their plan for 2000 operational tanks and 4-5000 tanks in reserve will result in a force... initially of T-80s and T-90s and late model T-72s as the 2,000 operational tanks with the 4-5,000 reserve tanks mostly being upgraded T-72s. This means most of the other vehicles in support of those vehicles could be T-90 or T-72 based like the MSTA, the BTR-T, the BREM, etc etc.
As Armata enters production they will make tanks, BMPs, artillery, air defence vehicles, armoured recovery vehicles etc etc based on the Armata chassis and when a complete brigade of vehicles is ready it will replace an old unit whose tanks can be scrapped if worn out or sent to the reserve and the oldest and most worn out vehicles there can be withdrawn or donated/sold.

In the medium brigades they can use BMP-3s and BMP-2s and BMP-1s and BTR-80s and BTR-82s, but it is faster to produce lighter vehicles so I can see the light and medium brigades being upgraded faster. The BMPs will be replaced with the 25 ton Kurganets-25 and the BTRs will be replaced with the Kangaroo or Boomerang or whatever the wheeled replacement is called.

The light brigades will have BRDMs and BTR-82s and similar vehicles but will be replaced by one chassis called Typhoon.

The medium brigade "tank" would be the Sprut, but I rather suspect that they will only use Sprut for airborne forces for now and wait for the Kurganets-25, which will have better armour and optics and systems and a "tank" version will have a 125mm gun and a "tank" electronics suite. Hard to say whether they will make one or two versions as the Kangaroo or Boomerang might have a heavy gunned version too. If they adopt a 57/45mm gun for the new BMPs at all three levels it is possible the wheeled medium brigade "tank" vehicle and the wheeled light "tank" vehicle might have that weapon instead of a full power 125mm gun.

Speed will be important for these lighter vehicles but fire power will be important too.

Your arguments for the 57mm are convincing. How do you think an appropriate anti-tank round will perform against 21st century tanks? I doubt it will be able penetrate from the frontal arc. What do you think about shooting on the sides/rear? or should they rely solely on an outside mounted ATGM?

Technically they have always relied on missiles for anti tank performance, with the 73mm gun of the BMP-1 an emergency choice because of the close range gap in the AT-3 Saggers engagement envelope. Once the AT-4/-5 launcher had been retrofitted to the BMP-1 that gap was closed and the 73mm gun was simply used for its HE power... which wasn't totally amazing as its ammo was based on ammo for the SPG-9 recoilless rifle... externally it looked very similar to an RPG-7 rocket.
The 100mm rifled gun of the BMP-3 is significantly more effective and powerful, but even when firing guided missiles its effect on frontal armour of MBTs is marginal.

Of course the anti tank capacity of the BMP series is largely for self defence... BMP commanders should never go looking for enemy tanks.

I think Russians are realists and that they know they will not be able to airlift more than existing 4 VDV divisions and that other units will have to move around on roads and railroads. I'm sure this is one of the reasons, why Russia intensively build modern autoroads between European part of country and Far East and actually double trans-siberian railroad with BAM and other lines. Tracked vehicles will strategically move inside Russia by railroad, wheeled vehicles will drive on roads.

Personally I would like to see the VDV get their own aircraft as their deployment requirements mean they need to be able to be dropped pretty much anywhere, including the middle of no where.

For moving forces between military districts then air transport makes sense, and moves to put the An-124 back into production and to produce Il-476s, AND to buy An-70s suggests to me that they want to be able to move brigades between military districts by air.

As you point out however improvements in roads and rail infrastructure is also very important as it offers options and within military districts certainly heavy brigades will be better moved on rail than air, but light and medium forces will obviously have the best mobility.

One would assume that each military district will have allocated the forces needed to deal with any problems that might come up in their region, but there will be some situations where more force are needed. In those extreme cases forces from outside that district will need to be moved in, and likely moved in quickly. Each district will have its own VDV forces most likely, and being elite and quick to move other VDV forces from other districts might be moved in to support them, but the whole point of the restructure is to get rid of the low readiness units that would take a month or more to mobilise and be equipped with all high readiness forces that are able to react at short notice and to move to where they are needed quickly.

For 90% of issues the 4 military districts will have enough resources and men to deal with the problem. The ability to move resources around for that other 10% of the time and for mobility within the district means the forces will need mobility and speed... both strategic and theatre... mostly for medium and light brigades of course.

Vodnik, or Tigr-M, or Volk, or even the BPM-97 are certainly options right now, and in the future a short model Typhoon could possibly do the job as well.

Soviet practise was to include BMP-2s and Tanks in their recon units in case they got too close to the enemy, so it could pretty much include anything...

Imagine two Tigr-Ms driving along a track just below the ridge of a hill... one Tigr-M turns off track and moves to the top to get a clear view at the plain beyond and notes a number of enemy vehicles in a convoy about 6km away and it withdraws back till only an optronic mast is visible. The second Tigr-M turns off the track and moves to the ridge and two quad launchers for Kornet-EM missiles elevate and launch two missiles etc etc...

Or they mark the position and direction of the convoy as it approaches a bridge... just as the first vehicle reaches the end of the bridge it is hit by a Kornet-EM from 7km away, and then the top attack submunitions start falling from a Tornado battery 90km away with their aim point centred on the far side of the bridge.

A flight of Mi-28Ns are on their way to clean up any survivors and two flights of Su-35s are operating in the airspace giving top cover for the ground forces.