Why does Russia need "Terminators"
BMPT "Terminator"
Recently, the Zvezda TV channel reported on the first tactical exercises in Russia, in which the Terminator BMPT took part.
Teachings
During these exercises tank The battalion, with the support of an experimental company of tank support combat vehicles (abbreviated BMPT) "Terminator", solved tasks in conditions close to combat.
Traditionally, when solving such problems, tank units interact with motorized infantry.
For only the infantry so far could more or less effectively protect their tanks from the anti-tank weapons of the enemy infantrymen.
Enemy infantryman with Javelin anti-tank missile system
And the problem here is not even that it is difficult for massive tanks to detect insidious and stealthy enemy infantrymen. After all, tanks can be fitted with additional cameras and various clever sensors.
The problem is that the infantrymen know how to spread out and turn into small single targets, for the destruction of which the tanks that rotate too slowly by the turrets may not have enough life time allotted to them in battle.
It is good if such sectors of the enemy's defense are detected by reconnaissance in a timely manner. Then it is possible to strike at them, for example, with heavy flame-throwing systems (TOS) "Buratino" or "Solntsepek", which destroy everything in large areas.
TPS "Solntsepek"
But what if the enemy was discovered suddenly?
Until the "Solntsepeki" receive an order, until they pull up, they will take up a position to strike ...
So the infantrymen have to accompany their tanks with their legs in the fire, smoke and roar of battle, extinguishing them from the rifle weapons enemy grenade launchers and operators of anti-tank complexes.
Tactical exercises to develop the interaction of infantry with tanks
It is very similar to how it happened in the now distant years of the Great Patriotic War.
It is clear that such conduct of hostilities is fraught with losses among its infantry. In the ratio of attackers to defenders: three to one.
But, besides this, the pace of the offensive is also significantly reduced, because, with all the desire, the dismounted infantryman moves much slower than the tanks, and the tanks are forced to slow down. Which again leads to losses already among the tankers.
Now let's get back to the exercises that took place.
Their feature was that the tanks acted there together not with motorized infantry, but with tank support combat vehicles. That is, a tactic was tested in which the infantry is not needed.
For effective target detection, "Terminators" have a developed surveillance system and various sensors combined with sights.
And to destroy them - a coaxial 30-mm automatic cannon, a machine gun, guided missiles and two automatic grenade launchers. Almost all of this arsenal, except for grenade launchers installed in the fenders, is a warhead placed on top, which has a significantly faster aiming of weapons at a target than tanks.
Combat unit BMPT "Terminator"
In addition to ground targets, Terminators can also extinguish air targets such as helicopters, and possibly some drones.
And, of course, "Terminators" can move at the same speed as tanks, which opens up wide tactical and even strategic opportunities for those who have them in service.
Robotization
Disputes about whether Russia needs BMPTs, whether Russia needs BMPTs, have been going on for a very long time.
The prototypes of the "Terminator" began to be developed back in the Soviet Union.
The idea of installing a warhead with a rapid-fire cannon, machine gun and anti-tank missiles on a tank instead of a turret seemed very tempting even then. The main problem was that for a long time it was not clear how to use such a machine. They even wanted to release it as a "tank for border guards".
In the end, the point of view won out that it should be a tank support combat vehicle.
But until now, the "Terminators" in Russia, as it were, are not quite accepted into service.
There is only an experimental company that is involved in these exercises. Yes, individual vehicles were tested in Syria.
Nevertheless, the concept of using BMPTs instead of infantry seems to me personally extremely promising. And, apparently, not only to me, since the Terminators still continue to slowly but surely move towards being in a single formation with the main Russian tanks.
And this trend is becoming more and more pronounced.
I think this is due to the course towards robotization of the Russian army.
BMPT "Terminator", of course, is not a robot. But this is a machine on which you can work out technical and tactical solutions, which will then be used on similar machines -robots.
By the way, I do not exclude that this is precisely why the terms of mass production and adoption of the Terminators are being postponed. It is more economically profitable to launch BMPT robots into mass production right away.
For those who believe that Russia does not need the Terminator BMPT at all, I want to remind historical the facts when Russia refused promising types of weapons that had already been put into service, only because the military could not develop an effective tactics for their use.
Drama of Drzewiecki's submarines;
Why "Muromtsy" did not become the "Weapon of victory" of Russia in the First World War.
I hope this will not happen with the BMPT.
- Dmitry Savostin
- https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Тяжёлая_огнемётная_система
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