According to Western data, the BTR-60 of all modifications was made about 25 thousand pieces. BTR-60 were actively exported abroad. In addition, the BTR-60PB was produced under a Soviet license in Romania under the designation TAV-71, these vehicles, in addition to the armed forces of Romania itself, were also supplied to the Yugoslav army.
According to some available data, as of 1995, the BTR-60 of various modifications (mainly BTR-60PB) were in the armies of Algeria, Angola, Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Botswana (24 units), Vietnam, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Egypt, Zambia (10 units), Israel, India, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, DPRK, Cambodia, Congo (28 units), Cuba, Laos, Libya, Lithuania (10 units), Mali, Mozambique (80 units), Mongolia, Nicaragua (19 units), Syria, Sudan, Turkey (received from Germany), Finland (110 units), Estonia (20 units). In addition, they are currently still in service with the armies of many CIS countries.
It is interesting that the export and re-export of the BTR-60 to various countries continues to this day. So only Ukraine in 2001 transferred 170 armored personnel carriers (136 BTR-60PB and 34 BTR-70) to the UN peacekeeping contingent in Sierra Leone. Including the Nigerian contingent transferred 6 BTR-60PB, the Ghani peacekeeping contingent 6 BTR - 60PB, the Kenyan peacekeeping battalion 3 BTR-60PB, one BTR-60PB to the Guinean peacekeeping battalion.
Compared with the BTR-60, the geography of the distribution of the BTR-70 armored personnel carriers is significantly narrower. In the 1980s, in addition to the Soviet Army, they entered service only with the National People's Army (NPA) of the GDR and the Afghan government forces. In addition, the analogue of the BTR-70 (TAV-77), produced under a Soviet license in Romania, was in service with its own army. Currently, these combat vehicles are in the armies of almost all CIS countries. As of 1995, except for the CIS countries, the BTR-70 was in service in Estonia (5 units), Afghanistan, Nepal (135) and Pakistan (120 units, received from Germany), Sudan, Turkey (received from Germany).
BTR-80 armored personnel carriers, according to 1995, were in service in almost all CIS countries, as well as in Estonia (20 units), Hungary (245 units), Sierra Leone, Turkey (100). The contract for the sale of a batch of Russian armored personnel carriers BTR-80A to Turkey was signed in 1995. This is the first time that the latest Russian military equipment has entered service with a NATO member country. Apparently, the choice made by the Turkish military is not accidental. Several years ago, Turkey received from Germany Soviet armored personnel carriers BTR-60PB and BTR-70 from the arsenals of the NNA of the GDR and has already managed to test them in combat conditions in the mountains of Kurdistan.
Since the production of the BTR-80 continues, it must be assumed that the above list of countries and the number of BTR-80 armored personnel carriers at their disposal will be significantly replenished. So the Hungarian army at the beginning of 2000 received the last 20 armored personnel carriers BTR-80, which completed the contract for the supply of 487 vehicles of this type from Russia. In total, over the past five years, Budapest received 555 armored personnel carriers BTR-80 (including BTR-80A), 68 of which were transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. By supplying armored personnel carriers, Russia has paid off Hungary's debt from Soviet times. The total cost of deliveries was $ 320 million (about $ 576,600 for one armored personnel carrier). According to media reports, in 2000, at the Eurosatori-2000 arms show in France, North Korea acquired a batch of Russian armored personnel carriers. The Arzamas Machine-Building Plant was supposed to supply Pyongyang with ten BTR-80s. And on October 15, 2002, the first batch of BTR-80A was sent to Indonesia (12 BTR-80A, personnel and spare parts).
In Russia itself, in addition to the Russian Army, the BTR-80 is in service with the Internal Troops and the Marine Corps. They are also used by the Russian contingents of UN forces in Bosnia and Kosovo.
In a military action, armored personnel carriers BTR-60 were first used during Operation Danube - the entry of troops of the Warsaw Pact countries into Czechoslovakia in 1968. The signal "Vltava 666" entered the troops on August 20 at 22 o'clock. 15 minutes, and already at 23:00 troops totaling 500 thousand people with 5 thousand tanks and armored personnel carriers crossed the Czechoslovak border. The 1st Guards Tank Army and the 20th Guards Army were brought into Czechoslovakia from the territory of the GDR. Here, the border crossing was carried out on August 21 "suddenly", on the 200 km front at the same time by the forces of 8 divisions (2 thousand tanks and 2 thousand armored personnel carriers, mainly BTR-60). After 5 hours. 20 minutes. after crossing the state border, units and formations of the 20th Guards Army entered Prague.
Fortunately, the 200 thousand Czechoslovak army offered practically no resistance, although in a number of its units and formations there were cases of "anti-Soviet psychosis." Fulfilling the order of her Minister of Defense, she remained neutral until the end of events in the country. This made it possible to avoid bloodshed, since the troops of the Warsaw Pact received quite definite "recommendations". In accordance with them, a white stripe was introduced - a distinctive sign of "our" and allied forces. All military equipment without white stripes was subject to "neutralization", preferably without firing. However, in the event of resistance, "stripless" tanks and other military equipment "were subject to" immediate destruction. " For this, it was not necessary to receive "sanctions" from above. When meeting with NATO troops, they were ordered to stop immediately and "do not shoot without an order."
The real baptism of fire of the BTR-60 can be considered the Soviet-Chinese border conflict in the area of Damansky Island in March 1969. After a sharp deterioration in Soviet-Chinese relations in the mid-1960s, work began to strengthen the Far Eastern borders of the Soviet Union: the redeployment of individual units and formations of the Armed Forces from the western and central regions of the country to Transbaikalia and the Far East was carried out; the border strip was improved in engineering terms; combat training began to be carried out more purposefully. The main thing is that measures were taken to strengthen the fire capabilities of border outposts and border detachments; the number of machine guns in the units has increased, including large-caliber, anti-tank
grenade launchers and other weapons; armored personnel carriers of the BTR-60PA and BTR-60PB type began to arrive at the outposts, and maneuver groups were created on them in the border detachments.
It should be emphasized that the Chinese leaders were vitally interested in a major "victorious" conflict on the Soviet-Chinese border. Firstly, this guaranteed the generals a solid representation in the country's leadership, and secondly, the military-political leadership could confirm the correctness of the course towards turning China into a military camp and preparing for war, the instigator of which would allegedly be Soviet "social-imperialism." The preparation of a combat plan, with the use of approximately three infantry companies and a number of military units covertly located on Damansky Island, was completed on January 25, 1969. The PLA General Staff made some adjustments to the plan. In particular, he noted that if Soviet soldiers use improvised means ("for example, wooden sticks") or armored personnel carriers, then the Chinese soldiers should "resolutely fight back" using similar sticks and undermining combat vehicles.
On the night of March 2, 1969, PLA units (about 300 servicemen) invaded Damansky Island and, setting up single trenches, set up an ambush. On the morning of March 2, the border post of the Nizhne-Mikhailovka outpost reported to the commander about the violation of the State border of the USSR by two groups of Chinese with a total number of up to thirty people. Immediately, the head of the outpost, senior lieutenant I. Strelnikov, with a group of 30 border guards drove out in an BTR-60 and two vehicles towards the violators. He decided to block them from both sides and drive them out of the island. With five border guards, Strelnikov went to the island from the front. At a distance of 300 m from them, the second group of 12 people was moving. The third group of border guards of 13 people went to the island from the flank. When the first group approached the Chinese, their front line suddenly parted and the second line opened fire. The first two groups of Soviet border guards died on the spot. At the same time, machine gun and mortar fire was opened from an ambush on the island and from the Chinese coast at the third group, which was forced to take up a perimeter defense. Subdivisions of Chinese soldiers, who had infiltrated the island the night before, immediately entered the battle.
A motor-maneuverable group on armored personnel carriers of the neighboring Kulebyakiny Sopki outpost, headed by the head of the outpost, senior lieutenant V. Bubenin, urgently went to the rescue of our border guards. She managed to bypass the enemy from the rear and throw him behind the embankment on the island. The battle, with varying degrees of success, continued throughout the day. At that time, the command of the Imansky border detachment (which included the outposts "Nizhne-Mikhailovka" and "Kulebyakiny Sopki"), headed by Colonel D. Leonov, together with the maneuvering group and the school of the sergeant staff of the border detachment were at the exercises of the Far Eastern Military District. After receiving a message about the battles in Damanskoye, D. Leonov immediately gave an order to remove the sergeant's school and the maneuvering group from the exercises and move to the island's area. By the evening of March 2, the border guards recaptured Damansky and entrenched themselves on it. In order to prevent possible repeated provocations, a reinforced maneuvering group of the border detachment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel E. Yanshin (45 people with grenade launchers) moved to Damansky on 4 BTR-60PB. A reserve was concentrated on the shore - 80 people on armored personnel carriers (NCO school). On the night of March 12, units of the 135th motorized rifle division of the Far Eastern Military District arrived in the area of recent battles.
However, no one knew what to do next. The military-political leadership of the USSR was silent. Army units and subunits did not have appropriate orders either from the Minister of Defense or from the General Staff. The KGB leadership, which was in charge of the border guards, also took a wait-and-see attitude. This is what explains a certain confusion in the actions of the Soviet border guards, which clearly manifested itself on March 14 when the massive attacks ("human waves") from the Chinese side were repulsed. As a result of spontaneous and ill-considered decisions of the headquarters of the border district, the Soviet border guards suffered heavy losses (Colonel D. Leonov died, the Chinese captured the secret T-62 tank) and were forced to leave Damansky by the end of the day. The units and subunits of the 135th motorized rifle division actually saved the situation. At its own peril and risk, its headquarters ordered the artillery regiment of 122-mm howitzers, a separate rocket battalion BM-21 Grad, and mortar batteries of the 199th regiment (Lieutenant Colonel D. Krupeinikov) to launch a powerful artillery attack on the island and the opposite shore to a depth of 5 6 km. The motorized rifle battalion under the command of Lieutenant Colonel A. Smirnov put the dot over the "i". Within a few hours (having lost 7 people killed and 9 wounded, as well as 4 BTR-60PB), he managed to completely clear Damansky. Chinese casualties amounted to about 600 people.
In the summer of 1969, the situation also worsened on the Kazakh section of the Soviet-Chinese border, in the area of the Dzhungar salient, which was guarded by the Uch-Aral border detachment. And here the Soviet border guards used the BTR-60 in combat conditions. On August 12, border guards at observation posts "Rodnikovaya" and "Zhalanashkol" noticed movements of certain groups of Chinese military personnel in the adjacent territory. The head of the border troops of the Eastern District, Lieutenant General Merkulov, suggested that the Chinese side organize a meeting and discuss the situation. There was no answer. The next day, at about five o'clock in the morning, Chinese servicemen in two groups of 9 and 6 people entered the line of the USSR State Border at the Zhalanashkol frontier post and by seven o'clock went deep into the border space at a distance of 400 and 100 m. dig in, defiantly go out to the trenches at the border line, ignoring the demands of the Soviet border guards to return to their territory. At the same time, about 100 more armed Chinese were concentrated in the mountains beyond the border line.
A few minutes later, armored personnel carriers, outpost personnel and reserves from neighboring outposts arrived in the area of the intruders' invasion. The actions of all these forces were directed by the chief of staff of the detachment, Lieutenant Colonel P. Nikitenko. An hour later, several shots were fired from the side of the invading group in the direction of the trench line of the Soviet border guards. Return fire was opened at the violators. A fight ensued. At this time, three groups of Chinese with a total number of more than forty people, armed with small arms and RPGs, came close to the State Border and attempted to cross it in order to capture the nearest hill "Kamennaya". The reinforcements that came up from the neighboring outpost - a maneuvering group on three BTR-60PBs - entered the battle on the move. The first armored personnel carrier (side No. 217) under the command of junior lieutenant V. Puchkov was under heavy enemy fire: bullets and shrapnel demolished outdoor equipment, riddled the slopes, pierced armor in several places, jammed the tower. V. Puchkov himself and the driver of the armored personnel carrier V. Pishchulev were wounded.
A group of eight fighters, reinforced by two armored personnel carriers, under the command of Senior Lieutenant V. Olshevsky, deployed in a chain, began to bypass the intruders from the rear, cutting off their escape routes. From the side of the enemy outpost, a group of the assistant chief of staff of the maneuvering group, Captain P. Terebenkov, attacked. By 10 o'clock in the morning the battle was over - the Soviet side lost 2 border guards (Sergeant M. Dulepov and Private V. Ryazanov) killed and 10 people were injured. 3 Chinese were captured. On the battlefield, 19 corpses of the raiders were picked up.
But the real test for the entire family of GAZ armored personnel carriers was Afghanistan. During the decade of the Afghan war - from 1979 to 1989, the BTR-60PB, and the BTR-70, and the BTR-80 passed through it. in the development of the latter, the results of the analysis of the Afghan experience in the use of armored personnel carriers were widely used. It should be mentioned here that the BTR-60PB was in service not only with the Soviet Army, but also with the Afghan government forces. Deliveries of various weapons here from the Soviet Union began in 1956 during the reign of Muhammad Zair Shah. The BTR-60PB armored personnel carriers of the Afghan army often participated in military parades held in Kabul.
At the time of the introduction of troops, armored vehicles of motorized rifle divisions of the Central Asian Military District were represented by armored personnel carriers BTR-60PB, infantry fighting vehicles BMP-1 and reconnaissance patrol vehicles BRDM-2. In the Ministry of Internal Affairs, two out of three motorized rifle regiments were equipped with armored personnel carriers (the third was armed with BMP-1). The use here at the initial stage of the BTR-60PB is explained by the fact that the relatively new, at that time, the BTR-70 (their production began in 1976) was primarily equipped with the divisions of the GSVG and the western military districts. The unfolding clashes showed that Soviet armored vehicles are not sufficiently protected from modern anti-tank weapons, are fire hazardous, and tracked vehicles (tanks and infantry fighting vehicles) are quite vulnerable to detonation. The T-62 and T-55 tanks in service with the Central Asian Military District were urgently forced to modernize. They installed the so-called anti-cumulative gratings and additional armor plates on the towers, which the soldiers called "Ilyich's eyebrows." And the BMP-1s were generally withdrawn from Afghanistan and urgently replaced by the newest BMP-2s deployed from Germany.
The same had to be done with the BTR-60PB. In Afghanistan, its shortcomings appeared, aggravated by the special physical and geographical conditions of the theater of military operations. In a hot high-altitude climate, the carburetor engines of the "sixtieth" lost power and overheated, and the limited angle of elevation of weapons (only 30 °) made it impossible to fire at high-level targets on the slopes of mountain gorges, and protection was also insufficient, especially from cumulative ammunition. As a result, the BTR-60PB were quickly replaced by the BTR-70, nevertheless, control vehicles based on the "sixtieth" were used in Afghanistan until the very withdrawal of Soviet troops. But the BTR-70 also had almost the same drawbacks. Protection practically did not improve, the problem of engine overheating was not resolved and even worsened due to the slightly increased power of the propulsion system and the design features of the crankcases. Therefore, very often the "seventieth" in Afghanistan moved with open overhead hatches to improve cooling. True, they had a significantly increased (up to 60 °) elevation angle of machine guns, as well as increased fire safety due to the placement of fuel tanks in isolated compartments and an improved fire extinguishing system.
The BTR-80, which was later adopted for service, also passed through Afghanistan. The powerful diesel engine installed on the new machine instead of the two carburetor ones made it possible for the troops to more effectively use the combat vehicle in the mountains and deserts, since the rarefied air does not so negatively affect the operation of the diesel engine. At the same time, the power reserve has significantly increased and the fire hazard has decreased. However, the protection of the BTR-80 remained insufficient. This can be confirmed by the numbers of losses - over the nine years of the war in Afghanistan, 1,314 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles were lost, as well as 147 tanks. Therefore, the troops carried out a huge amount of work to find additional means of enhancing the protection of personnel and the armored personnel carriers themselves, primarily from hits from cumulative shells, as well as fire from 12, 7-mm and 14, 5-mm machine guns. HEAT shells and large-caliber bullets hit the armored personnel carrier, getting into external equipment or flying into the operating units through the blinds and open hatches. The entire engine compartment was also characterized by insufficient armor.
Taking this into account, in the fighting, separate screens from bullets and grenades were installed on armored personnel carriers, special lattice screens made of sheets of automobile springs, screens of rubberized material were hung between the wheels, other improvised means of protection were also used: automobile wheels, containers with water, oil, sand or stones, etc. Handicraft protection devices have not received widespread adoption. The main reason was the increase in the mass of the armored personnel carrier, which negatively affected its operational and technical characteristics, because even in its "pure" form, the BTR-80 was heavier than its predecessors by about 2 tons.
In 1986, based on the experience of using armored personnel carriers and by conducting experimental and theoretical research at the Military Academy of armored vehicles, a set of measures was developed to increase the bullet resistance of vehicles. Among them:
use as a second barrier (without separation behind the upper side plates of the bow of the hull to protect the commander and driver, behind the armor parts of the tower to protect the shooter) additional screens made of organoplastic;
installation of an organoplastic sheet as an insulating screen along the contour of each fuel tank.
Calculations have shown that when these measures are implemented, the increase in the mathematical expectation of the number of unaffected motorized riflemen after firing from a large-caliber machine gun from a distance of 200 m can reach 37% with an insignificant (about 3%) increase in the mass of the combat vehicle.
Much better was the case with the mine resistance of wheeled armored personnel carriers, which, in some cases, boggled the imagination. Here's a typical example. After the BTR-80 was blown up by the TM-62P mine (the explosion took place under the right front wheel), the rubber of the wheel was completely destroyed, the wheel reducer, the wheel suspension, and the shelf above the wheel were damaged. Nevertheless, the car left the site of the explosion on its own (after walking 10 km from the site of the explosion), and the people inside the car received only light and medium concussions. The restoration of the machine in the regiment's repair company took only one day - the replacement of the failed components. Not a single standard anti-tank anti-track mine was almost unable to stop our armored personnel carrier. The spooks, in order to really disable the armored personnel carrier, put a bag with 20-30 kg of TNT under the mine. Tracked vehicles were much weaker in this sense. After detonation of the BMP, the body often burst by welding, and it was no longer subject to restoration. The BMD did not hold a mine at all. The crew and the landing party were partially killed, partially seriously injured. The car itself could be evacuated from the site of the explosion only on a trailer.
After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989, GAZ armored personnel carriers began to be used more and more often on the territory of the disintegrating Soviet Union itself. Due to their large number, they were widely used by various warring parties during most of the armed conflicts that broke out. Obviously, for the first time in large numbers, armored personnel carriers appeared on the streets of Tbilisi in April 1989, back in the days of the living USSR. The military units separated the conflicting parties in the Osh valley, on the border of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, in Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia. In January 1990, the storming of Baku took place. A year later, armored personnel carriers appeared on the streets of Vilnius, and then in Moscow during the period of the ever-memorable GKChP.
In 1992, an armed conflict broke out between the Republic of Moldova (RM) and the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR). The start of a large-scale war on the Dniester can be dated March 2, when a Moldovan special police unit (OPON) launched a provocative attack on a Russian military unit near Dubossar. By this time, Moldova already possessed a significant amount of armored vehicles, both transferred from the arsenals of the former Soviet Army, and generously supplied from Romania. In December 1991 alone, Moldova received 27 BTR-60PB units and 53 MT-LB-AT units, 34 MiG-29 fighters and 4 Mi-8 helicopters, and a significant amount of other heavy weapons. And from fraternal Romania for the period from May to September 1992, weapons and ammunition worth more than three billion lei were supplied, including 60 tanks (T-55), more than 250 armored personnel carriers (BTR-80) and infantry fighting vehicles. Obviously, all the BTR-80s used by Moldova in combat were of Romanian origin, since, according to the Russian military, they were not in service with the 14th Army. Thanks to such an extensive arsenal, the OPON members could use a large number of armored personnel carriers in the March battles, while the Pridnestrovians in the Dubossar region had only three GMZ (tracked mine layer), MT-LB and one BRDM-2. However, despite such unequal forces, the Pridnestrovians resisted. As a trophy, a new BTR-80 (Romanian production) was captured by the driver and one of its crew members were citizens of Romania. These volunteers were unlucky - they were killed.
On April 1, 1992, the first invasion of Bender took place. At 6 o'clock in the morning, two Moldovan armored vehicles broke into the city, heading for the intersection of Michurin and Bendery Uprising Streets, where the police post was changing. The batters of Moldova were shot from the machine guns of the "rafiki" of the police and guards (several people were killed), as well as a bus that happened to be nearby, carrying another shift of workers of a cotton spinning factory. There were also victims among them.
At the end of March, OPON members made an attempt to cut the Tiraspol-Rybnitsa highway. Of the six armored personnel carriers traveling to the PRM position, five vehicles were destroyed.
In May 1992, local residents, exhausted by the incessant shelling of Dubossar, blocked the road to the tank and motorized rifle companies of the 14th Army returning from the range. 10 T-64BV tanks and 10 BTR-70 armored personnel carriers were captured. An armored group was immediately formed from them, which was thrown into the area, from where an intense shelling was conducted.
The next aggravation of the military situation took place in June. Armored vehicles of Moldova burst into Bender in several directions. At the first stage, up to 50 armored vehicles were involved. Armored personnel carriers and airborne combat vehicles, practically without reducing speed, fired at improvised barricades. Active hostilities continued in Transnistria until the end of July, when the peacekeeping forces of Russia entered the republic.
In the same 1992, a war broke out between Georgia and Abkhazia, which at that time was a subject of the Republic of Georgia. On the morning of August 14, the detachment of the combined regiment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Abkhazia, who was on duty at the bridge over the Inguri River, saw a column of Georgian armored vehicles moving towards the Georgian-Abkhaz border. Five fighters were disarmed almost without a fight. Abkhazia was taken by surprise. Interestingly, the Georgian side planned the invasion of Abkhazia, code-named Operation Sword, in a completely different way. At night, it was planned to transport the assault detachments of the Georgian Defense Ministry to Abkhazia by rail. Along the way, Georgian fighters with equipment were to land at strategically important facilities, and in Sukhumi to join up with a unit of the Mkhedrioni armed formation stationed in the sanatorium of the camp site named after. XI exit a few kilometers from the city center. However, on the eve of the start of operations on the territory of Western Georgia, supporters of the previously ousted President Z. Gamsakhurdia blew up a large section of the railway leading to Abkhazia. This forced an urgent revision of the plans of the operation, and it was decided to "go head-on".
In the Caucasus, as well as in Transnistria, one of the conflicting parties had an overwhelming superiority in armored vehicles. At the time of the invasion, the Georgian military group numbered about three thousand people and was armed with five T-55 tanks, several BMP-2 combat vehicles, three armored personnel carriers BTR-60, BTR-70, multiple rocket launchers "Grad", as well as Mi helicopters -24, Mi-26 and Mi-8. Abkhazia practically did not have armored vehicles and heavy weapons, almost all the armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles that it had at the end of the war were obtained by the Abkhaz militias during military operations from the Georgians.
The use of armored personnel carriers during the two "Chechen wars" of 1994 and 1999 by both sides was extremely broad and requires a separate large study. Here we can dwell only on certain points.
It is well known that the regular units of D. Dudayev's army had a large number of armored vehicles. Only in Grozny, when in June 1992, under the threat of hostilities from the Chechens, Russian troops left the territory of Ichkeria practically without weapons, 108 armored vehicles were left: 42 T-62 and T-72 tanks, 36 BMP-1 and BMP-2, 30 BTR-70. In addition, the military left 590 units of modern anti-tank weapons, which, as subsequent events showed, played an important role in the destruction of armored vehicles of the Russian army. However, it should be remembered that the exact amount of military equipment at the disposal of the Chechens is unknown - the flow of weapons to this region remained constant and uncontrolled by the federal authorities. So, according to official data, the Russian Armed Forces only from December 11, 1994 to February 8, 1995 destroyed 64 tanks and 71 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, another 14 tanks and 61 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers were captured.
According to the then head of the GBTU, Colonel-General A. Galkin, 2,221 armored vehicles were involved in Chechnya, of which (as of early February 1995) 225 units were irretrievably lost - 62 tanks and 163 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers. Large losses of Russian equipment, including armored personnel carriers, at the initial stage of the First Chechen War and especially during the storming of Grozny are explained by inappropriate tactics, underestimation of the enemy and insufficient combat readiness. Russian troops entered Grozny without encircling it or cutting off from reinforcements. It was planned to capture the city on the move, without even dismounting. Due to the lack of personnel, the convoys were of a mixed nature, and most of the armored personnel carriers moved with little or no foot cover. These first columns were completely destroyed. After the regrouping, the number of infantry was increased, and the systematic liberation of the city began, house by house, block by block. Losses in armored vehicles were significantly reduced thanks to a change in tactics. Assault groups were formed, the Russian infantry moved on a par with armored vehicles to support and cover it.
The bulk of Russian armored personnel carriers were destroyed with anti-tank grenades and grenade launchers. In the conditions of urban combat, armored personnel carriers were poorly adapted, due to weak armor, moreover, it was possible to hit them in the least protected places - in the stern, roof, sides. The favorite targets of the Chechen grenade launchers were fuel tanks and engines. The density of fire from anti-tank weapons during street battles in Grozny was 6-7 units for each armored vehicle. As a result, in the hull of almost every damaged vehicle, there were on average 3-6 damaging hits, each of which would be quite enough to incapacitate. An acute problem was the low fire protection of armored personnel carriers after being hit by cumulative grenades and shells. The fire extinguishing systems of domestic armored vehicles showed an unacceptably long reaction time and low efficiency of means of fighting fire. As a result, more than 87% of hits from RPGs and 95% of ATGMs in armored personnel carriers led to their defeat and fire. For tanks, this number was respectively 40 and 75%.
It seems strange that the vast experience of using armored personnel carriers accumulated during the ten-year Afghan war was not used by the top military leadership, which was unable to draw appropriate and timely conclusions about the quality and ways of modernizing domestic armored personnel carriers. As a result, six years later, the First Chechen War posed virtually the same problems for the army. As a result, in just two years of this war, the Russian army lost more than 200 tanks and almost 400 armored personnel carriers (infantry fighting vehicles). The vital modernization of armored personnel carriers in order to increase their security almost completely fell on the shoulders of the combat units themselves. And resourceful infantrymen hung empty ammunition boxes, sandbags on the sides of armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, laid out tubes with disposable grenade launchers and flamethrowers on the armor, equipped places for riflemen and aft machine gunners. Some of the vehicles were equipped with a wire mesh mounted 25-30 cm from the hull to repel cumulative and anti-tank grenades, Molotov cocktails and bundles of explosives.
Wheeled armored vehicles made up a significant part of Russian armored vehicles used during the "Second Chechen Campaign", so in the period from November 1999 to July 2000, they averaged 31-36% of all lightly armored combat vehicles used by military formations of all law enforcement agencies (Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, bodies and internal forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, FSP RF, FSB and Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation). In the battles for Grozny in the winter of 2000, armored personnel carriers made up more than 28% of the total number of lightly armored vehicles used by the federal troops. A characteristic feature of the distribution of armored personnel carriers among law enforcement agencies is that the units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation own on average 45-49% of armored personnel carriers and 70-76% of infantry fighting vehicles. Therefore, on various armored personnel carriers "work" mainly units of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, various OMON and SOBR troops, military formations of the Ministry of Justice.
At the initial stage of the campaign, when the bandit groups of Basayev and Khattab invaded Dagestan, and then in Chechnya itself, the militants conducted actions that were completely unusual for partisans, which in fact were, to hold the territory. Under these conditions, the use of standard army armored vehicles - tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers - by the Russian army and the Internal Troops was especially effective. At the second stage, the bandit formations radically changed their tactics, moving on to ambush attacks on transport convoys, shelling of checkpoints and mine warfare. In the context of information, food and moral support, greater
part of the local population, such a guerrilla war can continue for quite a long time. The task of direct combat against bandit groups in such conditions should be carried out by special forces units, so to speak, "in the den," that is, in the places where the militants are based - in the forest and in the mountains. The task of the troops holding and controlling the territory is reduced mainly to protecting and patrolling settlements and communications, as well as escorting convoys with cargo.
Russian troops in Chechnya are mainly engaged in such tasks now. It should be emphasized here that the BTR-80 is not at all adapted to perform such functions. The design of the BTR-80 (as well as the BMP-2) provides for the concentration of fire due to the armor only in the front hemisphere. Circular shelling is possible only from the weapons installed in the turret, which have insufficient power. Likewise, observation devices are concentrated in the front hemisphere. As a result, the soldiers have to be located on the armor of an armored personnel carrier, where they can conduct observation and fire at all 360 °, and it is not the thin bottom of the vehicle that protects them from the explosion of a mine, but its entire body. In addition, you can always quickly dismount and hide from the fire of the militants behind the car body. Thus, in these conditions, the armored personnel carrier has lost one of its main functions - the transportation of troops under the protection of armor.
The experience of using the BTR-80A is interesting, of which, unfortunately, there are very few in Chechnya. For example, a motorized rifle company of one of the subunits of the internal troops, armed with several such vehicles, performed combat missions to escort convoys with materiel. Here the BTR-80A demonstrated sufficient reliability and high efficiency. The presence of BTR-80A "cannon" columns among the combat escort vehicles significantly increased the fire protection capabilities, especially with the onset of dusk. At the same time, not only the high efficiency of the enemy's fire engagement was revealed, but a strong psychological effect on him. At the same time, the military noted that due to the tightness inside the vehicle and too little space for the landing on the roof of the hull (the radius of the "sweeping" of the long barrel of the 30-mm cannon is such that it leaves almost no room for shooters on the roof of the armored personnel carrier), the use of the BTR-80A as a full-fledged armored personnel carrier for the transport of infantry becomes difficult. As a result, the BTR-80A was most often used as fire support vehicles, especially since there were few of them.
In addition to hot spots on the territory of the former USSR, wheeled armored personnel carriers, in particular the BTR-80, were "noted" as part of the Russian contingents of the IFIR and KFOR forces carrying out peacekeeping missions in the Balkans. They took part in the famous march of Russian paratroopers to Pristina.
Thanks to wide export supplies, wheeled armored personnel carriers of the GAZ family took part in various military conflicts and far beyond the borders of the former USSR. Their geography includes the Near and Far East, the south and east of the African continent, and in recent years, southern Europe.
Probably, one of the first countries to receive the BTR-60 was Egypt and Syria, into which a full-flowing river of supplies of Soviet military equipment has flowed since the late 1950s. Egypt received the first tanks back in 1956, and before 1967 two more large batches of armored vehicles were delivered here, including the latest T-55 at that time and various armored personnel carriers. Until 1967, Syria received about 750 tanks from the USSR (two tank brigades were fully equipped with them), as well as 585 armored personnel carriers BTR-60 and BTR-152.
As you know, the "six-day" Arab-Israeli war of 1967 ended in complete defeat for the Arabs. The most difficult situation developed on the Egyptian front, in addition to the loss of a significant territory, the Egyptian army suffered catastrophic losses during the hostilities, more than 820 tanks and several hundred armored personnel carriers were destroyed or captured. The reconstruction of the armored power of the Arab armies in 1967-1973 was carried out at an unprecedented pace, again due to supplies from the USSR and the countries of the socialist camp. During this time, Egypt received 1260 tanks and 750 armored personnel carriers BTR-60 and BTR-50. In the same large volumes, supplies of tanks and armored personnel carriers were carried out to Syria. In total, by the time the Yom Kippur War began (October 1973), the Egyptian army was armed with 2,400 armored personnel carriers (BTR-60, BTR-152, BTR-50), and Syria - 1,300 armored personnel carriers (BTR-60, BTR-152).
Syrian armored personnel carriers took part in the first attack on Israeli positions in the Golan Heights on October 6. The offensive was led by three infantry and two tank divisions. Eyewitnesses of the battle noted that the Syrians were advancing in a "parade" formation: tanks were in front, followed by BTR-60s. Here, in the Valley of Tears, during fierce battles that lasted three days (until October 9), more than 200 Syrian armored vehicles were destroyed. Remaining after the "Yom Kippur War" in service with the Syrian army, the BTR-60PB was used almost ten years later, during the 1982 war in Lebanon. They, in particular, were in service with the Syrian 85th separate tank brigade stationed in Beirut and its suburbs.
The BTR-60 was widely used during the war in Angola that lasted more than ten years. According to incomplete data, the USSR transferred 370 armored personnel carriers, 319 T-34 and T-54 tanks, as well as other weapons to Luanda for an amount exceeding $ 200 million. Military equipment, weapons and equipment were sent both by air and by sea from the USSR, Yugoslavia and the GDR. In 1976-78, the large landing ship "Alexander Filchenkov" arrived several times to the Angolan shores with a landing party of the Marine Corps (equipped with an BTR-60PB) on board. The Cuban military contingent located in Angola, which at times reached 40 thousand people, also had its weapons. In general, for more than ten years, since 1975, 500 thousand Cuban volunteers have visited Angola, their losses amounted to 2.5 thousand people.)
Soviet-made armored personnel carriers were used by both sides during the Ethiopian-Somali conflict of 1977-78. Both states, Somalia and Ethiopia, were considered "friendly" at the time. After the signing of the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in 1974, the Soviet Union began to provide Somalia with tremendous assistance in creating a national armed forces, which were almost completely equipped with Soviet military equipment. In particular, in 1976 they had 250 tanks, 350 armored personnel carriers, etc. Soviet military advisers and specialists trained local military personnel in Somalia.
In 1976, rapprochement with Ethiopia began, and in December an agreement was reached on Soviet military supplies to this country in the amount of $ 100 million. In reality, the very first large supply of weapons was estimated at 385 million dollars and included 48 fighters, 300 T-54 and 55 tanks, armored personnel carriers, etc.
However, these African countries "friendly" to the USSR had serious territorial claims against each other, which led to the outbreak of an armed conflict in which the Soviet Union sided with Ethiopia. Cuba also rendered substantial assistance, sending its regular units with full standard weapons to this country. In addition to weapons, Soviet military specialists arrived in Ethiopia, the number of whom, according to Western estimates, reached 2-3 thousand people. They contributed greatly to the success of the Ethiopian troops. For example, during the decisive battles near Harar, when the Cuban brigade stopped, referring to the fact that there was a minefield ahead, one of the Soviet generals got into an armored personnel carrier and led the brigade around.
During the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988, the BTR-60 PB armored personnel carriers were used by both sides. They were supplied to Iran in the 1970s, even under the Shah's regime. Iraq also had a large number of such armored personnel carriers. Some of them (mainly control vehicles) survived even until 1991, and were part of the Iraqi troops opposing interethnic forces during the operation to liberate Kuwait.
Probably the first time the American military had to face the BTR-60 in battle during the US invasion of Grenada. At 6 a.m. on October 25, 1983, 1,900 US Marines and 300 Organization of East Caribbean States soldiers landed in St. George's, the capital of Grenada. Interestingly, the US Navy squadron that delivered them was carrying a new shift of Marines to Lebanon, and already on the way received an order from President Reagan to "enter" Grenada. Although before the landing, the CIA reported that the construction of a grand airport, which, according to Reagan, was supposed to become a transshipment base for Soviet and Cuban aircraft, and probably served as the real reason for the invasion, employed only 200 "workers" from Cuba, this information was not accurate. The Americans faced well-organized resistance from more than 700 Cuban soldiers and officers. So the primary task of the rangers of the 75th regiment of the United States was to capture the Point Sales Airport, located in the southwestern part of the island.
The operation began with a series of failures. At first, a group of naval special forces was discovered and could not secretly land on the coast. Then the navigation equipment flew on the lead "Hercules" delivering the troops, and the planes could not reach the target for a long time. Because of this, the timing of the operation was violated. After landing, the rangers began to free the runway from construction equipment and prepare for the landing of the 85th Airborne Division's brigade. However, the Cubans soon launched a counterattack on three armored personnel carriers - 60PB, led by a Cuban officer - Captain Sergio Grandales Nolasco. After a fierce battle, armored personnel carriers were destroyed by portable anti-tank fire, and Nolasco was killed. In the next three days, through the joint efforts of a paratrooper brigade, two battalions of the 75th regiment, with the support of ground attack aircraft, the resistance of the Cubans was broken, and the Americans completely captured the island. But due to the existing losses and a number of disruptions, the operation in Grenada is not one of the successful ones.
Conclusions:
Finishing the story about the GAZ wheeled armored personnel carriers, one can cite the assessment given to the BTR-60 / -70 / -80 by Russian military specialists, which is based on the richest accumulated experience in the combat use of these vehicles. In their opinion, these armored personnel carriers have a number of serious shortcomings, the main of which are:
- insufficient specific power - on average 17-19 hp / t, due to the imperfection of the power plant, consisting of two relatively low-power carburetor engines (2x90 hp for the BTR-60 and 2x120 (115) hp for the armored personnel carrier) -70), the optimal joint operation of which in practice is rather difficult to synchronize, or still insufficient power of one diesel engine (260-240 hp for BTR-80);
- insufficient firepower, which does not allow inflicting damage at any time of the day and with sufficient efficiency. At present, for a successful fight against militants day and night in mountainous areas and in urban conditions, it is necessary to have an automatic cannon with an appropriate fire control system (FCS) as the main armament of an armored personnel carrier;
- relatively weak armor, not exceeding an average of 8-10 mm, does not provide reliable protection against the fire of enemy heavy machine guns (DShK), and the complete absence of any protection against cumulative ammunition (grenades from RPGs and recoilless guns, light ATGMs). According to the experience of armed conflicts, this is the main and most painful drawback of almost all light armored vehicles - infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, armored personnel carriers, etc.
We can positively assess their high survivability when blown up by mines and landmines, which is provided by the peculiarities of the chassis design - an 8x8 wheel arrangement with an independent suspension of each wheel and transmission. Even during the design of the armored personnel carrier, the choice of a multi-axle wheeled propeller was determined not only in order to ensure high cross-country ability, but also to achieve the greatest survivability during mine explosions. In the course of local conflicts, there have been cases of "crawling" from under fire on their own, armored personnel carriers, which lost one or even two wheels during a mine explosion! It is also noteworthy that both in Afghanistan and in Chechnya, the enemy used and is using on the roads against our equipment, as a rule, not standard mines of someone's production, but homemade land mines many times superior in power. Here it is necessary, however, to note that the very flat and thin bottom of the armored personnel carriers does not hold the shock blast wave well. This drawback is partially eliminated in the design of the BTR-90 having a U-shaped bottom.
Deserves respect and the relative (compared to tanks) survivability of wheeled armored personnel carriers when hit by cumulative anti-tank grenades outside the engine compartment, even in the absence of any special protection. This is ensured by the relatively large, usually non-sealed volume of the internal space of the armored personnel carrier - the command and control compartment and the troop compartment, the absence in the troop compartment of reserves of detonating ammunition and fuel tanks. Thus, in the armored personnel carrier there is no sharp jump in air pressure, which often incapacitates ("muffles") the tank's crew in its small armored enclosed space. Only what the cumulative jet directly hits is affected.
