Russian Army Needs New ARV
The experience of the SVO is invaluable
It is too early to sum up the results of the special military operation in Ukraine, but preliminary conclusions can already be made. Concerning the failure of military equipment and its subsequent evacuation, they are of interest. In the specialized journal "Science and Military Security", authors from the Military Academy of Logistics named after General of the Army A. V. Khrulyov cite data that only a quarter of weapons, military and special equipment fails due to combat damage. 75 percent of evacuations to the rear are related to technical malfunctions. Quote from the authors:
“Of these, the share of failures due to operational reasons for armored vehicles is 60% (engine – 32%, transmission – 22%), for automotive equipment – 80% (engine – 48%, transmission – 38%)”
. The available evacuation equipment is literally working to the point of exhaustion - tracked evacuators travel up to 150 kilometers per day, and wheeled ones - 350-570 kilometers per day. All this leads to the premature failure of the evacuation equipment itself, which is fraught with quite understandable consequences. The shortage of evacuation equipment on the fronts of the North Military District has developed in the conditions of a fairly stable line of combat contact. And also in a situation where heavy equipment mainly does not participate in assaults.
A natural question arises: what will happen if there is a large-scale offensive? The authors of Science and Military Security give an example of the number of evacuation vehicles in a motorized rifle brigade, which has only 11 BREM units. This is, on average, several dozen tanks and BMP. Perhaps in peacetime such a number of tow trucks would be enough, but not in the conditions of a large-scale military conflict.
BREM-L on SVO
For reference: at the tactical level, the SVO employs four types of evacuation and repair vehicles: BREM-1(M), BREM-L, BREM-K, and REM-KL. The latter vehicle is not even conditionally armored. It is this vehicle that is “tasked with the task of transporting weapons, military, and special equipment during regrouping and transferring them to the unit’s repair and recovery units.”
What does this mean? Firstly, such a wide range of equipment, especially light BREMs, is not needed by repair units. For example, the BREM-L based on the BMP-3. The vehicle is good, reliable and modern, but it is not capable of pulling a damaged tank off the battlefield. Or pulling it out of clay. Considering the overload of combat equipment with additional armor and other improvements, the effective evacuation of even its relatives - IFVs, APCs and BMDs - is highly questionable. At the same time, the cost of the BREM-L is not fundamentally lower than the BREM-1(M) tank evacuator.
The situation is even worse with the BREM-K, built on the basis of an armored personnel carrier. Perhaps the only advantage of the vehicle is its wheeled chassis and the associated high mobility and resourcefulness. The authors from the MTO Academy quite rightly turn to foreign experience, according to which "the use of a single platform not only simplifies and reduces the costs of producing armored repair and recovery vehicles (BREM) by increasing the degree of unification, but also improves the organization of maintenance of armored vehicles both in peacetime and in combat conditions." A thesis that is very difficult to argue with.
BREM-1 on the SVO
A preliminary conclusion based on all of the above can be considered an urgent need to increase the number of BREMs at the fronts with a simultaneous reduction in diversity. A single heavy recovery vehicle is needed, and a vehicle based on the T-72, which we know as the BREM-1(M), will be of little help here.
Simpler and more powerful
The equipment of modern armed conflict inevitably becomes heavier. Even if this was not initially intended by the engineers. The threat drones forces vehicles to be loaded with hundreds, if not tons, of kilograms of additional iron. But even without this, a modern Russian tank weighs a lot. The T-90M already weighs 48 tons, while its ancestor, the T-72, started with 41 tons. It seems like a small amount – only 7 tons, but this is an increase of 17 percent.
The basic BREM-1 vehicle is quite sufficient for repair work, but is already weak for evacuating heavy equipment in difficult road and soil conditions. A temporary solution was an improved version of the BREM-1M with a high winch traction force, a forced engine and a reinforced crane unit. But the M version also showed the complete exhaustion of the platform's modernization potential. Some of the readers will probably remember the promising T-16 BREM, which was developed for noticeably heavier Russian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. The vehicle, at a minimum, is not inferior to Western vehicles, and in some respects surpasses foreigners. For example, protection, maneuverability and a crane-manipulator are beyond competition.
BREM T-16
The T-16 has one problem – it has never been seen in the troops. If there were still some rumors about the "Armata" in the SVO, then everyone forgot about the promising BREM. Meanwhile, without such heavy "Armata" tow trucks in the SVO, it is impossible, even if they were present in the Russian army in the required number. You can fantasize a lot about the T-16, but the tow truck is not ideal. In addition to the high cost, it is redundant.
The fact is that during a special operation, the ARV is practically never used for repair purposes. At the front, it is exclusively a recovery vehicle. The crews simply have no time to do repairs – the ARV is not even enough to move broken equipment to the rear. What kind of repair work can we talk about here? Therefore, the appearance of the ideal BEM (armored recovery vehicle) is deprived of a crane-manipulator and other repair equipment. Instead, the equipment requires a much more powerful winch.
An example is the American M88A2 Hercules BREM, which has a traction force on the main winch that is more than twice as large as its Russian counterparts. Despite its excess weight, the Hercules can evacuate heavy tanks without deploying pulley blocks, which the BREM-1M cannot do without. The mechanized coupling of the evacuation vehicle will be in demand, although very difficult to implement. This device allows for securing broken-down equipment without the crew leaving the armored space. On the prospective T-16, the mechanized coupling was implemented in metal.
BREM-1M are heading to the front
The gentleman's kit of a modern BREM must also include a reconnaissance drone, as well as an effective rear view system. The latter solution will allow a disabled tank to be evacuated from a dangerous area in reverse. The 1000-horsepower engine, which is currently mounted on the BREM-1M (the heaviest serial tow truck of the Russian Army), is also insufficient. The tow truck must be equipped with at least a diesel engine from a T-90M with a capacity of 1130 hp.
The experience of the special military operation has turned many foundations of the Army upside down, and the military-technical service is no exception. One of the components of strengthening the Russian Armed Forces should be the saturation of combat formations with modern evacuation equipment in the required quantity. Military conflicts will not be exhausted in the SVO, and it is very desirable not to step on the same rake in the future.
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