T-72 ΜΒΤ modernisation and variants

The IS-2 also had a fixed forward firing DT in the hull to the right of the driver.

Russia has no shortage of barrels. Someone thinks it can help to have an MG there.
If the driver sees some enemies coming and fires in there direction they will seek cover.
Maybe it will give the tank the two or three seconds needed to take cover himself or for
the turret to turn into the right direction.

I have always wondered what purpose those side mounted machineguns served. My theory has been that they are to scare infantry.

If it is fixed then I would suspect the driver has an aiming reticule in his optics and should be able to aim the gun by pointing the vehicle at targets.

With a bit of elevation it would be quite useful for a driver who sees a threat in front of him as long as the steering is reasonably responsive.

It wont be a long range sniper system, but in an urban area being able to fire immediately at something that appears in front of you might be considered useful.

Most tanks have machine guns for the commander and the gunner has the coaxial machine gun... on tanks without autoloaders the loader often operates the air defence machine gun on the roof... why not give the driver a gun?

For BMP-3s, AGS that are sticking in the front have some 45 deg arc of fire each, so combined those cover a whole front sphere of the BMP. That makes some sense, as a suppression weapon against closing infantry.

The mounts on the BMP-3 also have dedicated gunners to aim and use them, but some tanks had fixed forward firing machine guns mounted in the hull for the driver to operate.... I seem to remember the first model T-54s had hull mounted machine guns, while several heavy tanks had them as well...

It doesn't seems to be aimed bro.

Would be aimed by the driver, presumably with a crosshair in his forward pointing optic...

When driving in my car on country roads occasionally you see a rabbit or possum trying to run across the road and I would say having a crosshair on the windscreen and a machine gun to shoot them would be much safer than chasing them out into fields....

It is something that might weigh 200kgs with ammo and if it doesn't work... take it off in the field... no big deal...

But if you spot enemy being able to fire at them immediately is probably useful... which is why on the T-90AM the panoramic commanders sight has a Kord HMG attached to it...

Why not the same for the driver?

Or maybe they are just taking the piss... hoping someone would notice...

There's a reason why fixed mgs were removed from tanks decades ago. Silly waste of time.

But often old silly ideas were not silly... they just needed technology to make them useful...

There are modern western BMPs that have a main turret with backup RWS turrets with machine guns for support that can be aimed independently.... the BMP-3 has them as does the BMD 2,3, and 4 I seem to remember, and also the terminator.

Technically the remote HMG mounts on new artillery vehicles would count as well with their RWS like Coalition and that 82mm mortar equipped four wheel vehicle.

Remember fighter aircraft often have fixed weapons and helicopters some times have fixed weapons for pilot use against ground targets... or air targets, but obviously in the case of the fighters the aircraft are manouverable.

I would actually think a grenade launcher would be more useful... especially if it had a dual belt feed mechanism so you could fire HE frag grenades or perhaps smoke grenades, but obviously a low velocity weapon like a grenade launcher would need significant elevation capacity to be useful.

Will be actually interesting to see if these vehicles make it to the field or if someone in a factory was taking the piss.

It might be a request from tank drivers to test in the field.

As I said, apart from adding a fixed crosshair in the forward driver optic and adding a trigger cable which would be attached to a steering column you wouldn't need to do very much else... worse case scenario fill it with tracer ammo so the driver to highlight directions or targets to the commander quickly.

It doesn't look like it would strengthen the front hull. Who even aims and controls this? Russia uses tanks either in maneuver warfare (roll up close, hit the trenches and roll back) or from far way using superior optics.

I am not sure why this was asked, but would love to hear real-life stories

On the Orc conflict thread Cyberspec speculates that it is being implimented based on feedback from the conflict... which would suggest it might be a limited sample for testing in theatre, but this is serial line... I would think they would put together something in the field for testing and if successful then it would be installed at serial production level like the photo shows.

Lets see how many new vehicles have them... or if any do... someone at the factory might have just been playing with western intel....

Can't say I have seen any tanks in theatre with hull mounted machine guns, but then I haven't really been looking...

I don't think its a fixed gun. The BMPT has a similar sponson mount for the grenade launcher where the gun swivels on a pivot inside the armored box:

You aim it like you would a light gun shooter in an arcade: reticle moves on the fixed screen instead of remaining the center while the camera moves. New Russian tanks even have a small monitor for the driver used to display the output of the driving thermals that you can also use for the fire control of the gun.

If they want to ad an RWS they should first add one on top of the turret.

ALAMO wrote:You can clearly see that in both cases it has some space for aiming.

This box on the 72s mod doesn't have this possibility, maybe some little move up/down ...

Without the rubber cover it looks like this:

If they want to ad an RWS they should first add one on top of the turret.

There are only two in the turret and the gunner has the coaxial MG and the commander has the Kord HMG so it is only the driver that does not have a weapon he can use from inside the vehicle.

A machinegun for the driver wont be used against targets 1.5km away... rather more likely to be used like an assault rifle out to 300-400m or so so elevation would not need to be enormous and he can turn the hull so only a few degrees of wiggle room would be needed.

Some sort of computer generated crosshair would be useful as it would allow a ballistics computer to be incorporated to make it more effective.

One of the earlier model BMPT prototypes had a waist level gun position between the turret and the engine...

Would be nice if upgrades focused more on situational awareness. The t-72 doesn't need more firepower.

The claim that the T-72B3M model 2017 has increased reverse speed is a misinterpretation. All russian sources say that the T-72B3M model 2017 recieved an AUTOMATIC transmission, which allows, faster CHANGING INTO REVERSE GEAR(Russian: установке автоматической коробки передач, позволяющей быстрее давать задний ход), but not increased reverse speed. The only way to increase reverse speed is by adding an extra gear or adding a reductor. The T-84 has a reductor, and the russian BMD-4 also does, but no russian tank ever had one(except maybe armata , but theres 0 info on it).


So no, the T-72B3M and T-90M reverse speed is still a useless 4km/h.

If you think Im wrong, the way to disprove this is by:
1. Shwoing documentation that the T-72B3M has an extra reverse gear added
2. Show footage of a T-72B3M or T-90M moving in reverse visibly faster than human walking speed.

Sources:

https://zvezdaweekly.ru/news/2020121121-mVYgz.html

https://nvo.ng.ru/nvo/2020-12-04/1_1120_t72.html

Limb, don't lie to forum members because everything you write is not true !
Where in the two links you give as an example does it say that Russian tanks can go backwards at a maximum speed of 4 km/h ?