Monday, August 1, 2016

Russia Hopes That Its New Fleet Of Combat Vehicles Will Control The Battlefield

Sputnik

Sebastien Roblin, National Interest: Russia Hopes Its New Super Combat Vehicle Will Rule the Battlefield

Meet the Kurganets-25.

Russia’s new T-14 Armata was unveiled in 2015 to much fanfare in Russia and hand-wringing in the Western world. Much less attention has been paid to the new family of vehicles unveiled alongside it, the Kurganets-25. Compared to the T-14, the Kurganets’s features may seem more pedestrian: it represents Russia’s effort to upgrade its vast fleet of BMP infantry fighting vehicles to the level of protection offered by the American M2 Bradley or British Warrior. However, it does come with a new feature that its Western counterparts still lack.

When Russia unveiled the BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle in a Moscow parade in 1967, it revolutionized mechanized warfare. Until then, armored personnel carriers were conceived of simply as battle taxis armed at best with a heavy machinegun. The BMP-1 came with a short-range antitank gun and a long-range missile launcher—the little beasts could in theory take out main battle tanks! The consensus was the Soviet Union had stolen a technological march on the West, which began busily developing so-called Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs) of its own.

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WNU Editor: Will these combat vehicles control the battlefield .... maybe ... maybe not. Not much is still known about these new combat vehicles. I give it a few more years before a judgement can be delivered on how effective these weapon platforms are.

3 comments:

fazman said...

If there T72 and Mig 29 combat records are anything to go by l wouldnt lose any sleep as a nato planner.
There are Iraqi and Serbians still checking the mail for tefund cheques.

TWN said...

There is not a AFV that can dominate, they all can or will be taken out, the success the Allies had over the Germans was due to the volume of AFV's the Tiger,the Tiger 2 and the Panther were defeated by the lesser T34's and Sherman's tanks by volume not quality, the Allied Tanks were simple and reliable easy to repair and they had 1000's of them. In recent times the 1973 Arab Israeli War and the 2006 Israeli invasion Lebanon, the AFV's lost by the US in Iraq and the current Syrian conflict should have been a clue. Where AT Weapons are available, used by men that know what they are doing, the day of dominating the FEBA with Armour is well past.This only shows that the So Called Leaders in Russia are as delusional as the So Called Leaders in the West.

RRH said...

Send some to Syria; that would be a test.

As for 72s etc. The improved models of these machines feature greater protection, fire control, optics, drive trains etc. Even the older models continue to fight in a testament to their simplicity, durability, and lethality. Yes, they have weaknesses, but a tank, even a late model t 55, 62, 72, is still a tank and it is threat enough to respond to with modern anti tank weapons.