Ursus Maior
01-27-2025, 09:43 AM
Hi folks,
I just wanted to let you know that our user _ and his website http://www.pmulcahy.com/ have been on quote by GlobalSecurity.org since at least 2018. In fact, the guys over at GS have simply copied one of his vehicle descriptions of one of the more obscure Warsaw Pact vehicles in full and didn't even bother to edit out T2K specific stats.
:D
How do I know? Well, I was doing a bit of research on the Polish use of the Hungarian FUG scout car or more correctly the Czechoslovakian license-built variant OT-65A "Vydra" (Otter). The FUG was a Hungarian scout car built in order to have an indigenous product that could fill the role of the Soviet BRDM-1 or later the BRDM-2. In essence, Pact nations wanted to buy national instead of Soviet/Russian and thus some of the other Pact nations bought FUG-series cars as well, often parallel to BRDM series cars.
The FUG initially had no weapons except a pintle mounted machine-gun that the gunner/commander had to fire while exposing himself to return fire. The Hungarians later changed that design flaw while also converting the FUG into a light APC with capabilities for six dismounts and a turret similar to that of the BTR-60 or BRDM-2. This cramped APC was called PSZH and introduced in 1970.
The OT-65A was a similar concept built by Czechoslovakia. It used a smaller turret taken from the OT-62B TOPAS, itself a Czechoslovakian improvement of the BTR-50 tracked APC. The turret was armed with an UK vz. 59 GPMG and the T21 recoilless rifle (a contemporary to the early Carl Gustaf, Wiki in Czech: here (https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasnice_21)). Smaller articles on the vehicles are available here:
https://armoredwarfare.com/de/news/general/entwicklung-ot-65a
https://tank-afv.com/coldwar/Hungary/D-442-FUG.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-442_FUG
Further research led me to GlobalSecurity.org, where the last sentence read:
The Hungarian PSZH-IV (Pancilos Szallito Harcjarmu - troop transporter) (FUG66/FUG70) is a locally designed and built counterpart of the Russian BRDM-2 scout car. It is an APC version of the OT-65 FUG. The vehicle mounts a turret mounting a KPV and PKT machinegun, and there is very cramped space in the rear for 6 infantrymen. The position is so cramped that fire through the two firing ports on each side of the hull and in the rear doors are at -1, and dismounting takes an additional phase if more than four passengers are in the vehicle. The turret is one man and does not have a hatch in the roof.
That made me chuckle quite a bit, and I tried to find out where that's from. I immediately thought about the two T2K sourcebooks, namely "Soviet Vehicle Guide" or "East Europe", contain the FUG, but no such explicit info on crampedness. I then copied the quote and did a word-by-word search in Google, et voila, two hits exactly:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=%22The+position+is+so+cramped+that+fire+through+ the+two+firing+ports+on+each+side+of+the+hull+and+ in+the+rear+doors+are+at+-1%2C+and+dismounting+takes+an+additional+phase+if+ more+than+four+passengers+are+in+the+vehicle.%22
Or more directly:
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/ot-65.htm and
http://pmulcahy.com/wheeled_apcs/hungarian_wheeled_apcs.htm
And we all know pmulcahy would never infringe in this way and GlobalSecurity likely never intended to give us T2K stats. :D ;)
So much for curious news today.
I just wanted to let you know that our user _ and his website http://www.pmulcahy.com/ have been on quote by GlobalSecurity.org since at least 2018. In fact, the guys over at GS have simply copied one of his vehicle descriptions of one of the more obscure Warsaw Pact vehicles in full and didn't even bother to edit out T2K specific stats.
:D
How do I know? Well, I was doing a bit of research on the Polish use of the Hungarian FUG scout car or more correctly the Czechoslovakian license-built variant OT-65A "Vydra" (Otter). The FUG was a Hungarian scout car built in order to have an indigenous product that could fill the role of the Soviet BRDM-1 or later the BRDM-2. In essence, Pact nations wanted to buy national instead of Soviet/Russian and thus some of the other Pact nations bought FUG-series cars as well, often parallel to BRDM series cars.
The FUG initially had no weapons except a pintle mounted machine-gun that the gunner/commander had to fire while exposing himself to return fire. The Hungarians later changed that design flaw while also converting the FUG into a light APC with capabilities for six dismounts and a turret similar to that of the BTR-60 or BRDM-2. This cramped APC was called PSZH and introduced in 1970.
The OT-65A was a similar concept built by Czechoslovakia. It used a smaller turret taken from the OT-62B TOPAS, itself a Czechoslovakian improvement of the BTR-50 tracked APC. The turret was armed with an UK vz. 59 GPMG and the T21 recoilless rifle (a contemporary to the early Carl Gustaf, Wiki in Czech: here (https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasnice_21)). Smaller articles on the vehicles are available here:
https://armoredwarfare.com/de/news/general/entwicklung-ot-65a
https://tank-afv.com/coldwar/Hungary/D-442-FUG.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-442_FUG
Further research led me to GlobalSecurity.org, where the last sentence read:
The Hungarian PSZH-IV (Pancilos Szallito Harcjarmu - troop transporter) (FUG66/FUG70) is a locally designed and built counterpart of the Russian BRDM-2 scout car. It is an APC version of the OT-65 FUG. The vehicle mounts a turret mounting a KPV and PKT machinegun, and there is very cramped space in the rear for 6 infantrymen. The position is so cramped that fire through the two firing ports on each side of the hull and in the rear doors are at -1, and dismounting takes an additional phase if more than four passengers are in the vehicle. The turret is one man and does not have a hatch in the roof.
That made me chuckle quite a bit, and I tried to find out where that's from. I immediately thought about the two T2K sourcebooks, namely "Soviet Vehicle Guide" or "East Europe", contain the FUG, but no such explicit info on crampedness. I then copied the quote and did a word-by-word search in Google, et voila, two hits exactly:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=%22The+position+is+so+cramped+that+fire+through+ the+two+firing+ports+on+each+side+of+the+hull+and+ in+the+rear+doors+are+at+-1%2C+and+dismounting+takes+an+additional+phase+if+ more+than+four+passengers+are+in+the+vehicle.%22
Or more directly:
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/ot-65.htm and
http://pmulcahy.com/wheeled_apcs/hungarian_wheeled_apcs.htm
And we all know pmulcahy would never infringe in this way and GlobalSecurity likely never intended to give us T2K stats. :D ;)
So much for curious news today.