What was and what they came to
On footage of military newsreels, "thirty-fours" rush, rosy submachine gunners thickly sit on the armor. In the most terrible heat and the most severe frost, Soviet soldiers went into battle, pressing their shoulders against the massive tank turret, despising the idea that at any second a stray German bullet would "knock" them off the armor under the tracks of a madly racing car.
It was not possible to cover the Soviet soldiers with armor - the extremely loaded industry did not have reserves for the production of armored personnel carriers. There was not even any concept of using such machines. Lend-lease deliveries could not correct the situation: for example, out of 1200 American half-track armored personnel carriers (M3, M5, M9), transferred in 1942, only 118 vehicles were delivered to mechanized units, the rest were used as artillery tractors. And so our soldiers rode on their armor all the way to Berlin.
The Cold War set new standards: to break through to the English Channel through a flooded * and burned by nuclear fire Europe, armored personnel carriers were created - the tracked BTR-50P and later the wheeled BTR-60. Formidable vehicles, not inferior in cross-country ability to tanks, could overcome water obstacles by swimming, and reliably protected the crew from the damaging factors of nuclear weapons.
In 1966, the USSR once again surprised the world by creating a fundamentally new model of armored vehicles. The light tank was transformed into an infantry fighting vehicle - an extremely mobile amphibious armored vehicle for transporting personnel to the front line and conducting combat operations together with tanks.
Frames of television chronicles. Caucasus. Our days. Another counter-terrorist operation - armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles are rushing along the broken highway, rosy riot policemen are sitting on their armor. But, excuse me, what the hell? Why are the soldiers afraid to go down to the fighting compartment of our armored vehicles, preferring to serve as targets for snipers?
The paratroopers equally distrust neither the older BTR-70, nor the more recent BTR-80, nor even the modern BMP-3. The reason is simple and obvious - domestic armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, in fact, are not armored vehicles. They can be classified as anything - fire support vehicles, tracked vehicles of high cross-country ability, wonderful tractors or swimming facilities. But they do not fulfill their Main Purpose and cannot fulfill it in principle. It makes no sense to expect high protection from a large combat vehicle weighing only 10-15 tons.
The 7-millimeter sides of the BTR-80 armored personnel carrier have difficulty holding shots even from small arms. The DShK machine gun is guaranteed to penetrate such "armor" from a distance of half a kilometer. A similar result awaits the BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle: the frontal armor as much as 16 mm thick, installed at a rational angle, will not protect the crew in the event of a mine explosion or a shot from an RPG - quite “everyday” troubles in modern conflicts.
Soldiers prefer to sit astride the armor, hoping that a foolish bullet will whistle past them, than to be guaranteed killed in the fighting compartment in the event of a car blowing up on the most primitive explosive device.
The creators of the BMP-3 stubbornly insist on the correctness of their approach and pay attention to the powerful armament of the vehicle: a combat module with a 100 mm semi-automatic gun and a 30 mm automatic cannon paired with it is a seemingly formidable force.
Alas, the extremely weak booking negates the other advantages of the BMP-3. Films with paratroopers riding on armor serve as a silent reproach to the designers - why all the efforts if the soldiers are afraid to sit inside? Isn't it easier then to cut off the roof and weld more armor plates on the sides and bottom?
Before the first meeting with the RPG
To avoid accusations of bias and unpatriotic sentiments, I propose to take a look at foreign armored vehicles intended for the transportation of personnel. There are similar problems: the main American M113 armored personnel carrier, sold around the world in a circulation of 85 thousand vehicles, had a side thickness of 40 mm of aluminum armor - in the 60s this seemed sufficient to protect the crew from small arms bullets and artillery shell fragments. But with the evolution of anti-tank weapons and methods of fighting armored vehicles, the American ji-ai are in no hurry to sit inside their armored personnel carriers - a hot cumulative jet tears apart the armor of the M113 like a can opener a tin can, turning those sitting inside into a burnt vinaigrette. No less detrimental to the well-being of the crew of an American armored personnel carrier is affected by a mine explosion: everyone sitting inside, at best, will get off with a serious concussion.
A simple question arises: why do we need such "armored vehicles" at all if they do not protect the crew even from the most primitive means of destruction? After all, a shot from an RPG or a burst from a large-caliber DShK is the simplest thing to deal with in modern combat. But what about, for example, an anti-tank missile system or an improvised land mine lying on the sidelines of a couple of 152 mm fragmentation shells? - Practice shows that such things are much more common than the creators of armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles planned.
A shell of 16 mm steel, as well as of 44 mm of aluminum armor, is powerless here. A radically different solution is required for reliable protection of the crew.
An infantry fighting vehicle is no ordinary light tank. Inside it, by definition, there should be a large number of personnel. And if a tank's crew of three or four tankers requires protection similar to 500-1000 mm of homogeneous steel armor, then what was the fault of 10 BMP crewmen, who were asked to go into the thick of it under the cover of its “cardboard” walls?
Recently, in foreign tank building, there has been a clear tendency to increase the security of combat vehicles. Designers mercilessly cross out any secondary options from the list: heavy weapons, air transportability, positive buoyancy - such moments are most often ignored. The main thing is to provide reliable protection for the combat vehicle. Indeed, why would an infantry fighting vehicle need any swimming-climbing skills, thermal imagers and cannons, if on a modern battlefield it cannot crawl even a meter?
In continuation of this conversation, I propose to get acquainted with the most successful samples of foreign armored vehicles that have the greatest protection:
The most formidable. Stridesfordon 90
The Swedish infantry fighting vehicle, according to formal performance characteristics (gun caliber / mm armor), is the undisputed leader in the BMP class. Firepower, armor, mobility. Multi-ton sets of hinged passive armor provide all-aspect protection of the crew from 30 mm projectiles, increase the BMP's resistance to ammunition acting from the upper hemisphere. There is an anti-splinter lining of the fighting compartment.
Mine protection of the bottom of the BMP protects the crew from explosions of explosive devices with a capacity of up to 10 kg of TNT. The troopers are housed in separate cushioned seats, which increases the chance of avoiding serious injury in a mine explosion.
Most of the vehicles are equipped with a Barracuda mobile camouflage system (IR and RL range) and an optical-electronic suppression system (the configuration depends on the specific customer).
The most advanced export modification of the CV-90 Mk. III is equipped with a bicaliber 30/50 mm automatic cannon with a muzzle programmer of ammunition, as well as a SAAB UTAAS fire control system with day and night sights.
In addition to the basic version, a command and staff vehicle, an ARV, an anti-aircraft self-propelled gun and a light tank destroyer with a 120 mm gun are produced on the CV-90 BMP chassis.
Disadvantages of the machine in theory? CV-90 cannot swim.
Disadvantages of the machine in practice? In 2009, on the territory of Afghanistan, a CV-90 BMP from the Norwegian Armed Forces Telemark mechanized battalion was detonated on a powerful homemade artillery unit. The car was seriously damaged, the driver was killed. It turned out that all the measures taken were not enough to ensure the survival of the BMP crew in modern conflicts. Something else is needed.
Ultimate protection. "Akhzarit"
Heavy tracked armored personnel carrier of the Israel Defense Forces. Life on the front line forced the Israelis to violate all the established canons of tank building, the military got tired of dying in M113 armored personnel carriers from the very first hit of a cumulative grenade. The original solution to the problem was the Akhazarit armored personnel carrier on the chassis of the Soviet T-55 tank.
The mass of the T-55 hull with the turret removed is 27 tons, the mass of the Akhzarit is 44 tons - a significant difference of 17 tons is due to the installation of additional armor. The 200 mm armor of the Soviet tank was reinforced with overhead armor plates made of steel and carbon fibers, and a set of dynamic protection was installed outside. All these factors, combined with the low silhouette of the armored vehicle, provided an exceptionally high level of crew protection. In total, about 500 T-54/55 captured from Arab countries underwent this modernization.
In! Another conversation! - you say. This is no longer the 16 mm shell of the BMP-2. Where the body of the domestic BMP will burst at the welded seams from the blast wave, the Akhazrit armored personnel carrier will get off with only scratches.
To carry out the tasks of transporting personnel, the internal layout of the T-55 also underwent changes: the Soviet engine was replaced with a more compact 8-cylinder diesel engine "General Motors", which made it possible to equip a corridor along the starboard side of the armored personnel carrier, leading from the troop compartment to the aft armored door.
The armored personnel carrier is equipped with a stabilized machine gun installation OWS (Overhead Weapon Station) with remote control, as an additional weapon at the hatches on the roof of the hull, a pair of 7.62 mm machine guns on pivot mounts can be installed. Also, a slightly opened aft armored door, which is a folding ramp, can be used as an embrasure for observing and covering the "dead zone" behind the vehicle.
Disadvantages of an armored vehicle? Akhzarit cannot swim at all. "Specialists" will definitely note the weakness of defensive weapons - just a few rifle-caliber machine guns. A heavy armored personnel carrier will not fit in the cargo hold of a military transport aircraft. It is more expensive to operate than conventional armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles.
On the other hand, Akhzarit is not afraid of point-blank shots from any weapon in the arsenal of Hamas and Hezbollah militants. Small arms of all calibers, automatic cannons, single shots from anti-tank rocket launchers - all this is powerless against the 44-ton Israeli monster.
The military liked the idea of a super-protected armored personnel carrier so much that Israeli designers began to convert everything they could find into heavy armored personnel carriers: the 50-ton Puma armored personnel carrier based on the British Centurion tank or the Namer super-armored personnel carrier based on the main battle tank. Merkava "Mk.4. Today it is the 60-ton "Namer" that is the most highly protected armored personnel carrier in the world.
If you want scrambled eggs, break the eggs
Of course, invulnerable equipment does not exist - even the most "impenetrable" tanks perish in battles. Each design has its own vulnerabilities - a case of penetration from an RPG of the frontal armor part of the British "Challenger-2", one of the best protected tanks in the world, was recorded (a fatal grenade accidentally hit the most weakened place).
On June 12, 2006, the tank "Merkava" Mk.2 of the "Alef" company of the 82nd battalion of the 7th armored brigade moved into the territory of Lebanon with the task of occupying the dominant height near the village of Aita ha-Shaab. It was not possible to complete the task - the explosion of a land mine, with a capacity of more than a ton of TNT, stopped the tank forever. The ammunition load exploded, the torn off tower stuck into the dried up ground at a distance of 100 meters from the tank's hull, smaller debris were later found in Israel. The crew died in full: Alexey Kushnirsky, Gadi Mosaev, Shlomi Irmiyagu and Yaniv Bar-On.
Such cases cannot serve as a reliable argument for assessing the security of combat vehicles - modern technology is not able to effectively resist such powerful explosive devices. Unfortunately, such "gifts of fate" are inevitable - despite all measures to improve security, the bloody harvest of war will definitely require sacrifices.
Much more revealing is another story that took place in the same June 2006 - the main battle tank "Merkava" Mk.4 was blown up by a land mine containing 300 kg of explosives. The explosion tore off the entire nose together with the engine, and then three Malyutka ATGMs were fired at the overturned tank. Result: out of seven people in the tank (crew, battalion commander, staff officers), six survived.
Now imagine in place of the "Merkava" Mk.4 a heavy armored personnel carrier "Namer" created on its basis - there is every reason to believe that the survivability of an armored personnel carrier would be at least no less than that of a main battle tank. A simple question: what would have happened if the domestic BMP-3 were in their place? However, it is clear that it is a tragedy.
For the guaranteed destruction of such monsters as "Akhzarit" or "Namer", exceptional conditions are required - massive shelling with modern ATGMs or incredible explosive devices. Alas, to defeat domestic armored vehicles intended for transporting personnel, the most primitive means are enough - up to several shots from a large-caliber machine gun.
The positive experience of the Israel Defense Forces is being scrutinized around the world. In the United States announced the start of work on a promising infantry fighting vehicle to replace the M2 "Bradley". The project called "Ground Combat Vehicle" (GCV) involves the creation of super-heavy tracked infantry fighting vehicles weighing from 58 to 76 tons (64-84 "short" American tons). The idea of the Americans is clear: 10 GCV crew members require no less protection than 4 crew members of the M1 Abrams tank.
Direct comparison of GCV with German "Royal Tigers" and other "wunderwaves" of the Second World War is incorrect. The Nazis did not have the main thing - powerful enough engines, the most powerful "Maybach" barely produced 700 hp. Modern technology makes it possible to create engines with twice the power, coupled with reasonably efficient and reliable transmissions.
Heavy armored vehicles like the GCV and Akhzarit seem to be the most suitable means for future conflicts - such vehicles are effective for warfare both in open areas and in dense urban areas. The large mass of the GCV does not bother its creators too much - the weight and dimensions of the new BMP generally correspond to the Abrams tank. The lack of buoyancy will have little effect on its mobility and combat effectiveness: BMPs rarely operate in isolation from tanks. And where there are tanks, there are always bridgelayers and other specialized equipment.
All other "advantages" of a promising American infantry fighting vehicle (acoustic shot sensors, thermal imagers, remotely controlled machine-gun turrets) and "disadvantages" (frankly, poor air transportability, negative buoyancy) pale against the background of the main thing - providing high protection for the crew.
The Stryker family of American "light" armored vehicles should not be misleading - this technique is designed for low-intensity conflicts (Papuans and "police" operations), when the use of powerful anti-tank weapons by the enemy is unlikely. It is worth noting that the basic 17-ton Stryker armored personnel carrier does not have a turret or any heavy weapons - all the mass reserves were spent on armor protection (the most modern technologies, MEXAS mounted ceramic armor sets) - and, nevertheless,there are a lot of complaints from Iraq about the poor security of the car. The creators of the Stryker clearly did not expect so many sophisticated anti-tank weapons, even in anti-terrorist operations.
Omsk armor
Work to improve the security of armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles is being carried out even in Russia. In 1997, Omsk designers presented their own modernization of the T-55 tank - the BTR-T heavy armored personnel carrier. The car embodied the best features of the domestic tank school: the designers limited themselves to minimal changes in the fighting compartment - the modernization of the tank did not affect its main components; Unlike the Israeli vehicle, the BTR-T retained its solid armament - instead of the standard turret, a new low-profile turret with a 30 mm automatic gun and the Konkurs ATGM were installed. Of course, the military was not satisfied with some of the technical shortcomings of the first domestic heavy armored personnel carrier - for example, the unsuccessful landing through the roof hatches. In principle, all the problems were completely solvable - alas, the well-known economic and political events of those years did not allow the useful machine to be finalized and put into production.
There are even more interesting projects in this promising direction - heavy armored vehicles BMPV-64 and BMT-72 have already been created in Ukraine (as you might guess, based on T-64 and T-72 tanks). What development awaits armored vehicles next? Progress moves in a spiral - perhaps, “inadequate” 100-ton monsters will appear, which, at a new stage of historical development, will again be replaced by light armored vehicles. And the infantry will continue to ride on the armor.
