ChalkLine's Desiderata

[ChalkLine]

Updating the BTR-40 and the BTR-152.

The soviets seemed to have this obsessive aversion to throwing anything away.
It’s well known that right up to the dissolution the USSR and the rest of the Warsaw Pact hoarded oodles of 1950s equipment due to their belief that if the west started a war it would be a strategic war, and the only way to outlast the west was to have stockpiles of marginally useful gear that would still act as a decent force multiplier in a late war scenario. As such they doggedly hung on to crap like T-34s which really just took up storage space. However, in the Twilight War this logistical strategy would probably have paid off to some degree.
Also, those Lo-Tek objects made good sales to foreign clients as they tended to rugged simplicity bordering on the primitive.
However, as everyone knows if you create a whole organisation to do something that organisation will usually expend a lot of time and effort to both justify its existence and to try and enlarge its budget. It seems this depot organisation was no different. Copious plans were created on how to implement the old junk into the by now very different army. I found this interesting on how they saw the BTR-40 and the BTR-152.

These two complimentary vehicles were simply armoured trucks. Open roofed, all wheel drive the BTR-40 was an armoured GAZ-63 4x4 truck and the BTR-152 was an armoured ZIL-157 truck. Not even the Soviet Union hung onto those prehistoric bangers so if the ancient BTRs did get taken out of storage they’d have had very little in the way of spares support, making them useless.

It appears in typical Soviet bloody-mindedness this had been a consideration in truck design. It makes you wonder what a guy putting together a new truck thought when he read through the regs that demanded any future truck chassis must fit under those ancient APCs.
However, it seems to be the case. The BTR-40 will fit over the modern GAZ-3309 and the BTR-152 fits over the ZIL-131.
Modern Russian truck designers must be a far happier breed.
So, what does this mean?
Well, it depends on your campaign and how much you want to bother with this stuff. But here’s my stats for an out-of-the-depot BTR-40M and a BTR-152VM

BTR-40 (Original Vehicle)
Mass 5.3 tonnes
Crew 2 + 8 passengers (2+6 for the roofed BTR-40V)
Armour 6-8 mm
Main armament 7.62 SGMB MMG (1,250 rounds (total)) (optional)
Secondary armament 2×7.62 SGMB MMG (1,250 rounds (total)) (optional)
Engine 6-cylinder GAZ-40
80 hp (60 kW) at 3,400 rpm
Power/weight 15.1 hp/tonne (11.3 kW/tonne)
Suspension 4x4 wheel, leaf spring
Ground clearance 400 mm
Fuel capacity 122 L
Operational range 430 km (road) 385 km (cross country)
Maximum speed 80 km/h

BTR-40M (Twilight 2000 Vehicle)
Mass 4.0 tonnes (1.3 tonnes lighter)
Crew 2 + 8 passengers (2+6 for the roofed BTR-40V)
Armour 6-8 mm
Main armament 7.62mm PKM GPMG (1,250 rounds (total)) (optional)
Secondary armament 2×7.62mm PKM GPMG (1,250 rounds (total)) (optional)
Engine V8 gasoline (carburetor) ZIL-130
150 hp (111.8 kW) at 3,400 rpm
Power/weight 37.5 hp/tonne (27.9 kW/tonne)
Suspension 4x4 wheel, semi-elliptical springs
Ground clearance 400 mm
Fuel capacity 2x173.1 L
Operational range 1000 km (road) 800 km (cross country)
Maximum speed 95 km/h
And like the new BTR-152VM it gets power steering.

BTR-152V (Original Vehicle)
Mass 10.2 tonnes
Armour welded steel 15 mm front, 9 mm sides and rear, 10 mm roof(if present), 4 mm bottom
Main armament 7.62mm SGMB MMG (1,250 rounds) or 12.7mm DShK 1938/46 HMG (500 rounds)
Secondary armament 2×7.62mm SGMB MMG (1,250–1,750 rounds) on side pintle mounts (optional)
Engine ZIL-137K 6-cylinder in-line petrol, 107 hp (80 kW)
Power/weight 10.8 hp/tonne (8.1 kW/tonne)
Suspension wheeled 6×6 leaf spring
Ground clearance 300 mm
Fuel capacity 300 L
Operational range 650 km
Maximum speed 65 km/h

BTR-152VM (Twilight 2000 Vehicle)
Mass 9.91 tonnes
Armour welded steel 15 mm front, 9 mm sides and rear, 10 mm roof(if present), 4 mm bottom
Main armament 7.62mm PKM GPMG (1,250 rounds) or 12.7mm NSV HMG (500 rounds)
Secondary armament 2×7.62mm PKM GPMG (1,250–1,750 rounds) on side pintle mounts (optional)
Engine ZIL-137K 6-cylinder in-line petrol, 123 hp (92 kW)
Power/weight 12.4 hp/tonne (9.3 kW/tonne)
Suspension wheeled 6×6 leaf spring
Ground clearance 300 mm
Fuel capacity 105 L x2
Operational range 795 km
Maximum speed 80 km/h

Note that as far as I know none of these conversions have ever been done so this is all rough calculation on the difference between the base trucks and the modern trucks.
These things of course are pretty much useless as APCs but they make very good trucks for hauling crap, being a tad more survivable than base truck and giving protection to the cargo unlike up-armoured modern cargo haulers. Slat armour and applique armour are possible but probably useless, especially for the BTR-40 which doesn’t have the base armour to survive an even diffused jet from a tiny HEAT warhead. You pay for this by they being an utter bear to load, unload and secure your gear.