Cold War Warsaw Pact Vehicle crossposts.

[ChalkLine]

I'm posting a few things I've put up elsewhere on the web. It's not that I don't like this forum but really because I spend a bunch of time on Facebook, way too much time, and my stream-of-consciousness stuff tends to end up there. Also as this is rarely all that fully thought out I tend to not cross-post it. Rae's asked me to do so so here's the first.

[ChalkLine]

What's not to love? It's a UAZ with (some) armour!

Anyway, I couldn't remember if I posted this and I've gotten too lazy to look.

The BRDM-2M was pioneered by the, uh, "BRDM-2M" but not the Russian one but rather the Polish one.

The Poles noted that even though they loved this thing it had serious flaws. They especially didn't like the way you had to enter and exit the vehicle's deck hatches. The vehicle isn't short so it's a big drop to the ground and they wanted a way to get in and out quickly, it is a scout car after all. You need to get out and scout.

So the Poles had a long hard look at it and decided they didn't need the belly-wheels. Out they went and now not only could the put actual doors just after of the forward wheels but there was room inside for two scouts as well.

The Russians looked at this and thought the Poles had totally missed the point. Until the Polish vehicles worked so well in actual combat. At that point the Russians also looked at ditching the belly-wheels and adding stuff including the doors and passenger positions. However when they switched to newer radios in the 1990s they noticed that there was now room in the turret due to the smaller systems. Rather than lavish stuff on crew comfort, Russian wars are supposed to be unpleasant, they managed to cram in a mount for the AGS-17 slaved to the main armament and now had something a bit like a M1117.

Okay, new stats:
Same speed stats except the vehicle doesn't have the same obstacle crossing ability the old one had which was remarkable. Now it's just "good".

+1 AGS-17, external mount but belt fed from internal stores. I can't tell you how much ammo it carries for this but I do know the other ammunition stowage is unchanged.
+2 passengers.

(While this might not be all that common, I would make it common though, all the Polish ones had the extra passengers during the period)

[ChalkLine]

During the 80s we thought the BMP-1 would stay as it is and would be thrown into depots before being issued to third-echelon troops. It seems the Russians, knowing they didn't have the rubles to make the BMP-3 in sufficient numbers, decided to have a hard look at the old war horse.

The big complaint among the many of the BMP-1 was that it was built with another role to the one it now occupies (although that role didn't exist when it was designed). It was only designed to stop shell fragments and rifle calibre rounds, not even having enough armour to defeat the 12.7mm on the sides. This is the vehicle in the rules.

Obviously, this had to change. I could go on about soviet battle concepts, they're quite different to what they led us to believe, but the main thing is that the soviets moved from a "well, we're going to lose men, let's make sure the objective is achieved so it doesn't turn into a slugging match where we'll lose lots of men" theory to a theory where they needed to stop attritional warfare grinding down their troops. This occurred during their Afghan commitment and went fairly unnoticed by the west.

Thus we get the first modernisation; the BMP-1 Afghanka package. This is a survivability package to minimise crew losses. It is a 6mm applique armour package that brings the sides of the vehicle up to a level where it's resistant to 12.7mm armour piercing rounds. They also developed a system where the troops could remove the ATGM from the roof (already upgraded to those used by the latest vehicles) and replace it with a carried Plamya 30mm AGL in a remote mount. If you really want the old 73mm-armed BMP in your game you should be using this one.

However after Chechnya, Afghanistan and watching the west in Iraq the Russians decided that the standard BMP-1 was going to be a rolling coffin in modern combat and embarked on a widespread upgrade to give these vehicles some effective firepower to hold western IFVs at bay.

Here we get the BMP-1M, a very different beast and probably quite a surprise to many people. They turfed out the old turret because they'd come to believe that IFVs were unavoidably going to be involved in urban combat. In its place was put a remote mount, here's the blurb:

"It is fitted with a TKB-799 "Kliver" one-man weapons station armed with a missile pod, a 30 mm 2A72 multipurpose autocannon (it can be used against both ground and air targets) and a 7.62 mm PKTM coaxial machine gun. The missile pod is mounted on the right side of the weapons station and normally holds four 9M133 Kornet (AT-14 Spriggan) or 9M133F "Kornet" ATGMs with a laser jam-resistant fire control system, but these can be removed and replaced by a pod of 9K38 Igla (SA-18 Grouse) surface-to-air missiles. It carries 300 rounds for the main gun, 2000 rounds for the machine gun and 4 ATGMs. It also has a modern computerized fire control system with a two-plane stabilizer and a 1K13-2 telescopic sight with distance measurement/thermal/laser channels and ballistic calculator with external sensors.
Computer simulations proved that the BMP-1M can outperform the American M2/M3 Bradley at firepower efficiency (the tested aspects included ATGM power, the effective range of the ATGM and the autocannon during day and night conditions and launching the ATGM while on the move). In these simulations the BMP-1M won a combat engagement with the M2 Bradley 1.3 times more often."
This beastie was available in 1998 but you can bet your bottom ruble it'd be turning up a lot earlier during the Twilight War.

[ChalkLine]

Use in combat in the Twilight 2000 setting

You'll note that I have not referred to this vehicle as either a Light Tank or a Reconnaissance Vehicle. This is although it has often been used in these roles where it predictably performed extremely badly it was not envisioned for these roles when it was designed. The USSR experimented with it for these and rather unscrupulously marketed it as them but it's not either. In fact what its actual role is for is quite different.
Let me explain. The PT-76 gets a bad rap in T2K and Cold War gaming because it's huge, thin-skinned, under-powered and has a very bad turret/crewing design choice. The usual assumption is that the soviet union screwed up with it but kept it on because the chassis was useful.

What it's actual role is for is extremely narrow. It's a boat that can climb over sandbars and provide fire support to troops assaulting rivers and beaches, places where the soviets took extreme casualties in The Great Patriotic War. When you examine the following aspects it starts to make sense;

- Actual zero gun depression.
- Very large hull but a tiny turret.
- A gun with a medium calibre but ammunition the soviet union had already discontinued using.
- Very thin armour, so thin it can only stop rifle ammunition and shell fragments.
- All systems placed below the turret ring.
- Limited vision blocks. Less rather than more than their MBTs, an odd choice for a scout vehicle.
- Very large, strange, two man hatch with a superimposed commander's hatch.

Looking at these things you start to see why the soviets made their trade-offs in design.
The gun has -0º depression because it's meant to shoot from the water level upwards. [Edit: The hull was modified in 1957 to allow the gun to get a -4º gun depression. I suspect that the buyers were unimpressed] The D-56T tank gun (it's actually a unique gun, not a conversion as some sources say) uses a comparatively large calibre round because they contain more HE filler. If it was to use a 'tankerised' S-60 57mm autocannon it couldn't store the amount of ammo it would need to put down the same amount of HE and the 85mm D-44 gun would have meant a vast 20 tonne amphibious hull. The hull is meant to be submerged where it's safer (HEAT rounds of the time detonated when they hit the water and no light tank armour would stop the 90mm guns then in use) so the turret is tiny to limit its target profile - and thus the hull size is less important. A large hull is vital for a swimming tank and this also mandates thin armour because weight has to be kept down. The radio and so on was placed low, below the waterline where they were safe. As it was in effect a self-propelled gun it didn't need much vision equipment, far less than even much earlier reconnaissance tanks and even less that the contemporaneous T-55. The big hatch was designed so that the turret crew could escape wearing breathing gear or life vests.

So, the PT-76 wasn't a light tank/reconnaissance vehicle and when used in these roles it failed abysmally. It couldn't fight other tanks and it couldn't see anything to be any use. The BMP, BRDM and similar vehicles filled that role instead where they perform(ed) well. When the PT-76 fought actual light tanks such as the M41 Walker Bulldog it generally was destroyed before it could get a shot off or was even aware of the enemy. In fact the soviets only put stabilisation on the gun when it was shown that it had trouble hitting beach targets in any sort of swell.
Right, enough of the essay on what it is.

Where would you see this thing?
Well, unless it's pressed into service as a gun tank like so many specialist vehicles often are with "mixed results" (ie: a death trap) it is strictly a fire support vehicle. It's best function is if you imagine it as a direct fire artillery piece with the pathetic armour and vision that entails. By the time the Twilight War starts it's strictly used by naval infantry and only they have stockpiles of its rare ammunition so it's only where they are. Each vehicle should have a section/squad of troops that accompany it as it's relatively blind and they keep infantry and their nasty RPGs away from it. If any sort of armour is in the vicinity these things immediately retire, they have no business even fighting M2 Bradleys or even lighter reconnaissance vehicles. It can be considered to have no effective armour.

Is it any use?
Well, yes and no.
For the fighting that goes on in the Twilight War it is very good in that it can get across the demolished infrastructure. It doesn't need a bridge and this should not be underestimated as to how important that is. A good example is WW2 IJA tanks that were light to the point of uselessness in opposition to anything with a gun but they could get places where anything with a gun couldn't, meaning they were often very handy indeed. The PT-76 can appear in a lakes district or riverine area and rain down HE from outside of HMG or RPG distance. A careful enemy can utilise one to manouevre into a spot to whack a strongpoint with an HE round or two and then get it out before it's wrecked.
Otherwise it's only good for carting stuff around.
Consider this when considering it for an AFV; the commander's sight is not slaved to the gunsight. This means the commander/gunner has to use two sights, one to acquire a target and then one to engage it. As these sights might be pointing in different directions and the gunner's sight is of a narrow focus there might be a lot of hunting around to engage a moving vehicle that will likely result in the vehicle's destruction. The crews know this all too well.

[Raellus]

Thanks for cross-posting these here, Chalk. When I was a kid first getting into T2k, I wouldn't give Soviet/WTO-made vehicles a second look. My thinking has changed quite a bit since then. Although I'd still take most NATO AFVs over their Soviet/WTO equivalents, I no longer turn up my nose at all ComBloc gear. I've grown quite fond of the former DDR BTR-80 in the PbP I play in, for example.

Some of the mods in the entries you posted make the vehicles to which they've been added more attractive options.

I think Soviet AFVs would suffer disproportionate losses early in the war, when NATO's technological edge was still sharp, but later in the war, I think the relative simplicity and durability of Soviet vehicles would give them a slight advantage over the high tech-dependent NATO vehicles.

-

[ChalkLine]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Thanks for cross-posting these here, Chalk. When I was a kid first getting into T2k, I wouldn't give Soviet/WTO-made vehicles a second look. My thinking has changed quite a bit since then. Although I'd still take most NATO AFVs over their Soviet/WTO equivalents, I no longer turn up my nose at all ComBloc gear. I've grown quite fond of the former DDR BTR-80 in the PbP I play in, for example.

Some of the mods in the entries you posted make the vehicles to which they've been added more attractive options.

I think Soviet AFVs would suffer disproportionate losses early in the war, when NATO's technological edge was still sharp, but later in the war, I think the relative simplicity and durability of Soviet vehicles would give them a slight advantage over the high tech-dependent NATO vehicles.

-

I did one on the T-54/55 upgrade package as well but now I can't find it. If i see it I'll post it.

[micromachine]

The PT-76 uses the same ammo as the T34-76mm, SU-76, and ZiS-3 anitank gun. I don't believe that ammo will be that hard to find for it, however, it would be of suspect quality at best, unless it is of new manufacture. Even the IDF reused the ones that they captured. The standard ammo loadout points to the role (24-He/Frag, 8 Heat, 4 Ap-t, and 4 Ap-t sabot), that of fire support.
Remember that tanks are a luxury, and anything with an gun and superior mobility (it floats) will count for something, especially in Eastern and Western Europe.
I can see a crafty tank commander adding an extra mg to the the turret for local defence/light aa and extra track links/armor side skirts to give some form of extra armour.
Spare parts and the like should be fairly easy to source as the chassis formed the basis of many vehicles of the Eastern Bloc, such as the Frog-7, Zsu-23-4, Btr-50, and others.
Not a vehicle to build a party around, but a "pick and flick" to use until it has been destroyed, catastrophically damaged or bartered for something with more value or utility.

[ChalkLine]

ZSU-23-4M2 "Afghan" version.

What, it gets worse?!

The deadly "Zoo" or "Shilka" evolved over its ongoing lifetime and the ZSU-23-4 in the books is not necessarily the ones your PCs will meet on the battlefield.

During the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979-1989 the Soviets developed the M2 kit for their Shilkas. This was the following and converted the weapon from the anti-air role to the ground support role:

- Removed the Gun Dish J Band anti-air radar
- Installed enlarged ammunition bays doubling ammunition capacity from 2,000 to 4,000 rounds.
- Installed the TPNZ-49 tank night scope.
- Installed the PSNR-5 man-portable ground surveillance radar.
- Ammunition was a mixed belt of BZT API and OBZT HE-T ammunition to destroy by blast and penetration.


Now, it's important to note that these modification kits exist in the Twilight 2000 era. It just a job of dropping the beast back to a workshop and having them fitted. When the aircraft disappear this is going to happen.

However, what you can use against Afghan rebels and what you can use against NATO regulars are not the same thing. NATO troops can reach out and kill things at night time and the Shilka can only accurately hit targets at around 1,500m in the ground support role. It's going to need some sort of mix of Applique armour, ERA and bar armour.

I can't tell if the Shilkas in the book had the old, unmodified engine that was slow in the book and all the upgrades the vehicles had by the Twilight 2000 era M3 vehicle.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

Now, it's important to note that these modification kits exist in the Twilight 2000 era. It just a job of dropping the beast back to a workshop and having them fitted. When the aircraft disappear this is going to happen.

However, what you can use against Afghan rebels and what you can use against NATO regulars are not the same thing. NATO troops can reach out and kill things at night time and the Shilka can only accurately hit targets at around 1,500m in the ground support role. It's going to need some sort of mix of Applique armour, ERA and bar armour.

Thanks for sharing this variant. I was aware of the Shilka's fearsome reputation operating against ground targets, but did not know there was a version specifically modded for such a role.

By the time there are no more operational combat aircraft, there would probably be very few ATGMs around as well, meaning that as long as the Shilka could stay out of effective LAW range, it wouldn't necessarily need to be up-armored in order to remain effective against infantry and unarmored ground targets.

Also, I wonder if its ROF is high enough to shoot down an incoming ATGM? (I doubt its radar could detect a missile in low-level flight, but if the crew spots the firing signature...)

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Also, I wonder if its ROF is high enough to shoot down an incoming ATGM? (I doubt its radar could detect a missile in low-level flight, but if the crew spots the firing signature...)

Generally you brass up the launch area in the hope of putting off the firer who may still be guiding the missile. Much better chance of success than shooting the missile down.
Of course this is also why some missiles have the controls on a cable which could be up to fifty metres from the launcher itself. The launcher cops the incoming lead while the operator just keeps tracking all the way to the unfortunate target.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Generally you brass up the launch area in the hope of putting off the firer who may still be guiding the missile. Much better chance of success than shooting the missile down.
Of course this is also why some missiles have the controls on a cable which could be up to fifty metres from the launcher itself. The launcher cops the incoming lead while the operator just keeps tracking all the way to the unfortunate target.

Right, I just wonder if the ZU-23-4 can put enough led downrange to actually hit an incoming missile. Targeting the ATGM operator is, of course, a better option with a higher probability of success.

AFAIK, the NATO, infantry-operated wire-guided ATGMs that would have been most common in a mid-to-late 1990s war were units where the sight/control unit was attached to the launcher tube (TOW, Milan). Older designs like the Sagger and Vigilante kept launchers separate from their sight/control units. I wonder why designers/engineers moved away from that design philosophy and towards integrated/combo units when, as you pointed out, the latter makes the operator much more vulnerable to detection and counter-fire. It seems so obviously better to separate the units so that the operator isn't revealed when the missile launches.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Right, I just wonder if the ZU-23-4 can put enough led downrange to actually hit an incoming missile. Targeting the ATGM operator is, of course, a better option with a higher probability of success.

Anything's possible, but I wouldn't bet my life on it without dedicated radar and guidance systems.

Also worth noting it's generally western doctrine to operate AT missiles in pairs. The target usually can only shoot at one of the launchers so the other should get the hit. Mind you my personal knowledge of that is more with unguided weapons (M72, 84mm Carl Gustav, etc) than missiles such as Milan, TOW and so on.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

And I seem to recall that if they can't shoot AT weapons in pairs, the doctrine stressed layering of multiple AT weapons so that they overlap inn range - so you might get someone with the 84mm Charlie G locating & firing on a target and the Milan team is told to go for the same target.

[pansarskott]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I wonder why designers/engineers moved away from that design philosophy and towards integrated/combo units

My guess: It's easier to train someone to use it and the hit probability is higher.

1st gen: fly a rocket using a joystick towards the target. More difficult if the launcher is offset from the line between operator and target. Even more complicated when the target is moving and you have to estimate distances and how hard to turn the missile.

2nd gen: keep the crosshairs on the target until the missile hits. The launcher will send commands to the missile to keep it on track (the missile has a beacon that the launcher "sees")

And now there are missiles like Javelin to take care of the problem of staying exposed guiding the missile.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Also worth noting it's generally western doctrine to operate AT missiles in pairs. The target usually can only shoot at one of the launchers so the other should get the hit.

That definitely increases the odds of a hit/kill, but it would be small consolation for the crew that the enemy decides to blast with counter-fire.

Originally Posted by pansarskott

1st gen: fly a rocket using a joystick towards the target. More difficult if the launcher is offset from the line between operator and target. Even more complicated when the target is moving and you have to estimate distances and how hard to turn the missile.

That's a good point.

Originally Posted by pansarskott

2nd gen: keep the crosshairs on the target until the missile hits. The launcher will send commands to the missile to keep it on track (the missile has a beacon that the launcher "sees")

Right, but I imagine that this system would work just as well with an offset launcher than with an all-in-one unit.

Originally Posted by pansarskott

And now there are missiles like Javelin to take care of the problem of staying exposed guiding the missile.

Indeed. I reckon armies would run out of those current gen fire-and-forget ATGMs soonest, leaving older wire-guided models (until those run out).

[pansarskott]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Right, but I imagine that this system would work just as well with an offset launcher than with an all-in-one unit.

Some technical difficulties with syncing launcher and missile, but that can probably be solved. But then we're increasing complexity and cost and might as well go for fire-and-forget missiles.
Just looking a bit and read about the French missile MMP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Moyenne_Portée) which has Lock On After Launch. But that's not Twilight:2000's tech level.

Wire-guided missiles has a feature that fire-and-forget does not have: the ability to switch targets mid-flight (with some limitations depending on the turn radius of the missile). However, the usefulness can be debated.

But the 10 seconds it would take from firing with massive backblast until the missile hits 2000 meters away would feel like an eternity. I trained on the Swedish RBS-56 BILL missile ages ago.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Raellus

That definitely increases the odds of a hit/kill, but it would be small consolation for the crew that the enemy decides to blast with counter-fire.

That 50/50 chance of NOT being the recipient of lots of incoming lead and HE is a massive morale booster though!

[Hybris]

I would love for my Cubans to drive around in these and make my players life living hell.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Hybris

I would love for my Cubans to drive around in these and make my players life living hell.

Aw, c'mon, you can't just post pictures and not tell us what they are or what the picture's source is!

[Hybris]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Aw, c'mon, you can't just post pictures and not tell us what they are or what the picture's source is!

Hey you tortured me for many years with your work on a slow internet connection back in 1999 and i have to use a old inkjet printer that i used the nights while on guard duty , This is long overdue Btw i got a flashback while on exercise in Romania 2019, the connection was as slow

[Hybris]

[ATTACH]Attachment 4433[/ATTACH]I was thinking about the IDF Achzarit the israelis used/uses and was thinking if the cubans could have done something similar in order to enhance the protection of their old apcs.

Its called BTR 100 and is using a T55 turret ( so i guess the chassis could be used as apc like for the IDF, the twin zou-57-2 could be 57mm BTR-60/57-2 / BTR-60 Duplex

I also found this.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/milit...quipment-1.htm

and this:

BTR-115 - BTR-60 115mm T-62 turret


"The so-called BTR-115 is a BTR chassis, to which the T-62 turret has been mounted. Army General Raul Castro Ruz visited three industrial military companies in Havana, as part of a journey that he had undertaken for some days in the country and that took him previously to Camagüey, Santiago de Cuba and Mayabeque. On 19 February 2018 the Cuban President went to the Emilio Bárcenas Pier Industrial Military Company, in which armored vehicles for the Revolutionary Armed Forces and other means of transport are repaired and modernized. There the Army General was made aware of the fulfillment of the economic indicators of the company, which has more than 1,700 workers and has among its main production lines the repair, maintenance and modernization of bulldozers, cranes and tractors; Maz, Kamaz and Kraz trucks, among others.

He saw the new generation "institutional" version of the Cuban Army BTR-60, the biggest change compared to the old variant is that it carries a new, larger-sized cannon with a fume extractor near the middle of the barrel. It is not difficult to realize that this type of cannon is the U-5TS (also known as 2A20) of 115 mm size equipped with the main T-62 battle tanks, which the Cuban Army also has a lot.

The new vehicle fitted with an upgraded turret of the T-62 main battle tank and called the BTR-116. According to the current information, were produced approximately 10 new wheeled fire support vehicles. The BTR-116 has a modified hull and it is a radical and deep modernization of the BTR-60 APC. This fire support vehicle is effective against all APCs, IFVs, fortifications, and infantry. It can also engage medium tanks. Gun is loaded manually. No further details on the BTR-116’s specifications have been adduced.

The integration of 115mm guns on the BTR-60 will certainly help this armored vehicle with a much better capacity than the current, capable of destroying the enemy's advanced tanks as well as providing a high level of firepower reinforcement for infantry. The cannon is much more powerful, 115mm and smooth bore, superior to 105mm western guns. In the few photos that are, it is seen that the turret goes back more than the 100mm of the BTR-100. But the barrel looks shorter. It is speculated that the latter may be due to the fact that the barrel power is too much for the vehicle, and that the Cubans would use it as the BMP-3 cannon. That is, discarding the use of APFSDS projectiles. Possibly it would use only the FRAG-HE, for fire support. And as an antitank weapon, it could trust the Bastion missile, launched by the cannon.

Although the capacity has not been tested through actual combat, Cuba's practice is really a creative solution, and it may be worthwhile for the Vietnam People's Army to study and study to be able to deploy when exporting. currently requires urban combat in the new situation."

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Unfortunately the attachment doesn't seem to work