BTR 80 layout. Heavy armored personnel carriers from different countries
By the mid-50s, the requirements for armored personnel carriers had increased significantly: they should not be inferior to tanks in cross-country ability, which would allow motorized infantry not only to accompany tank units, but in some cases to go ahead of them. In many countries, such stringent requirements have led to a complete transition to tracked armored personnel carriers (for example, in the USA). However, the capabilities of wheeled armored vehicles had not yet been completely exhausted.
In the Soviet Union, at the end of the 1950s, a number of design teams took on the solution of this problem on a competitive basis. As part of the competition, an amphibious armored personnel carrier ZIL-153 was created: with a 6x6 wheel arrangement, a completely enclosed body, torsion bar suspension, front and rear steered wheels. The afloat movement of this 10-ton vehicle was ensured by a water-jet propulsion system.
A prototype of an armored personnel carrier was presented by Bryansk machine builders. This eight-wheeled combat vehicle, which was supposed to be armed with a 73-mm cannon, is often called a wheeled infantry fighting vehicle. Its main features include hydropneumatic suspension, which made it possible to change the ground clearance by more than 300 mm.
The most successful was the "49" armored personnel carrier, created at the GAZ Design Bureau. In 1959, the vehicle was adopted by the Soviet Army, and in 1961, mass production of armored personnel carriers began, receiving the army designation BTR-60P.
The armored personnel carrier's hull, open at the top, was welded from rolled armor plates. For protection from precipitation there was a tarpaulin awning. The SGMB machine gun of 7.62 mm caliber (ammunition capacity of 1250 rounds) was mounted on a machine mounted on brackets: in the stowed position - on the front plate, in the combat position - on the side or front plates.
The power plant included two 6-cylinder GAZ-40P carburetor engines with a power of 90 hp each, installed parallel in the stern. Each engine drove two drive axles through its own two-stage transfer case. All wheels were equipped with an independent torsion bar suspension and a tire pressure regulation system.
In 1963, the modernized BTR-60PA appeared with a completely sealed, closed-top body with a capacity of 12 people. For the landing there were 4 upper hatches with armored covers. In 1965, improved power plant and power transmission units were used on the BTR-60PA-1.
In the same year, the BTR-60PB version also appeared. The main difference of the latter was the conical turret with a coaxial installation of 14.5 mm KPVT machine guns (500 rounds of ammunition) and 7.62 mm PKT (2000 rounds of ammunition). In addition, the BTR-60PB had new surveillance devices; was replaced by a more advanced series of power plant units. All vehicles of the BTR-60 series were equipped with radio stations R-113 or R-123.
These armored personnel carriers were in service with the Soviet Army and the USSR Navy (marines) for a long time. In some parts they can still be found today.
In 1972, the same design bureau created the BTR-70 armored personnel carrier; four years later its mass production began.
The BTR-70 was a modernization of the BTR-60PB armored personnel carrier. Its main differences were as follows:
more powerful 8-cylinder carburetor (again) GAZ-66 engines with 115 hp each were installed. every; the placement of the paratroopers was changed, they turned to face the sides, which allowed them to fire from their places; lower side hatches for landing troops were cut out; gas tanks are located in isolated compartments; an automatic fire control system was installed; a separate brake drive was introduced, providing independent braking of the first and third pairs of wheels from the second and fourth; a system was installed to disconnect the power transmission from the engine from the driver’s seat, which made it possible to operate on a working one if one engine failed; two generators installed; The height of the car decreased by 185 mm. The armament remained the same as on the BTR-60PB.
BTR-80A
In the front part of the hull there are seats for the driver and commander, behind them are the seats for the paratrooper and gunner. In the troop compartment, parallel to the sides, there are two longitudinal seats for six paratroopers. For personal shooting, there are 7 hatches covered with armored covers.
In addition to the main weapons installed in the turret and the standard weapons of the motorized rifle squad, the following are transported inside the BTR-70 in packs: two Kalashnikov assault rifles, two portable 9K34 Strela-3 air defense systems, one RPG-7 grenade launcher and five rounds for it, two automatic grenade launchers AGS-17 "Flame".
Movement afloat is carried out by water-jet propulsion. The R-123M radio station is mounted on the BTR-70.
The latest production vehicles had turrets that allowed a large angle of vertical weapon guidance. BTR-70 with such a turret took part in the parade on November 7, 1986 in Moscow.
The BTR-70 armored personnel carriers entered service with the Soviet Army, as well as the NNA of the GDR and the Afghan government forces. Currently, these combat vehicles are available in the armies of almost all CIS countries.
Taking into account the experience of combat use of wheeled armored personnel carriers in Afghanistan, the BTR-80 armored personnel carrier was developed. Since 1984, this combat vehicle has been mass-produced.
The general layout of the BTR-80 is similar to its predecessor. The control compartment is located in the front of the housing. It houses the workstations of the vehicle commander and driver. Imaging devices are also installed here to ensure monitoring and driving the car day and night, an instrument panel, controls, a radio station, and an intercom.
The power compartment is located in the rear part of the hull and is isolated from the combat compartment by a sealed partition. It contains an engine with a clutch and a gearbox, representing a single power unit, water and oil radiators, heat exchangers, a gearbox oil cooler, an engine pre-heater, a water-jet propulsion unit, a water bilge pump, a filter-ventilation unit, fuel tanks, generators and other equipment.
Engine - KamAZ-7403, eight-cylinder, four-stroke, liquid-cooled, with a V-shaped cylinder arrangement, turbocharged, 260 hp. (191 kW). The use of a highly economical diesel engine made it possible to increase the range compared to the BTR-70 without actually increasing the volume of the main fuel tanks. There is no need for additional containers.
Ukrainian BTR-80
BTR-80A at the Nizhny Novgorod fair
Higher engine torque made it possible to increase the average speed of the machine.
The designers took care of increasing the combat readiness of the armored personnel carrier in the cold season. Thus, at ambient temperatures from -5°C to -25°C, the engine is warmed up by a pre-heater using an electric torch device. The air is also heated by a flame formed from the combustion of diesel fuel in the intake pipes during the starter cranking and initial operation of the engine until it reaches a stable mode.
When overcoming water obstacles, in order to prevent water from entering the engine, high air intake pipes are installed.
The use of one engine on the BTR-80 entailed significant changes to the transmission. The mechanical force is supplied to a five-speed three-way gearbox through a friction dry double-disc clutch with a hydraulic drive. Second, third, fourth and fifth gears are equipped with synchronizers.
Torque from the gearbox is transmitted through the intermediate driveshaft to the transfer case, which is made in two stages, with differential torque distribution to two streams: to the first - third and to the second - fourth axles. A forced locking of the center differential is provided for difficult road conditions (moreover, downshifting and locking of the center differential occur only when the front axles are engaged). And in order to prevent breakdowns when the transmission elements are overloaded (with the differential locked), the transfer case has a friction clutch - a limiting torque clutch.
Power is also taken from the transfer case to the water jet propulsion unit and winch. The box is equipped with two brake mechanisms of the transmission-type parking brake system.
The original design of the transfer case allows the BTR-80 to use, with minor changes, many components and parts of its predecessor, including drive axles, suspension, steering, service brakes, etc.
The high mobility of the BTR-80 is ensured by a powerful engine, drive on all eight wheels, their independent torsion bar suspension, high ground clearance, and a centralized tire pressure control system, thanks to which it is able to follow tanks and overcome trenches and trenches up to 2 m wide on the move.
A centralized tire pressure regulation system ensures high off-road performance comparable to tracked vehicles.
In addition, the BTR-80 can continue to move even if one or even two wheels completely fail. The vehicle will not be damaged if it hits an infantry mine, but even if it explodes with an anti-tank mine it retains mobility, since the energy of the explosion usually damages one of the eight wheels.
The fighting compartment is located in the turret and the middle part of the armored personnel carrier's hull. The standard armament of the vehicle consists of a 14.5 mm KPVT heavy machine gun and a coaxial 7.62 mm PKT machine gun. The turret installation also houses a day sight, two viewing devices and manual drives for guidance mechanisms in the horizontal and vertical planes. The gunner is located on a suspended seat under the turret.
The sighting range of firing at ground targets from a KPVT machine gun reaches 2000 m, from a PKT - 1500 m. Firing at low-flying, low-speed targets can be carried out from a KPVT machine gun at ranges of up to 1000 m, while the maximum elevation angle of the installation is 60. The rate of fire is KPVT-500-600 RDS/MIN, PKT-700-800 RDS/min, respectively, the ammunition capacity is 500 and 2000 rounds of ammunition in belts placed in cartridge boxes.
The fire capabilities of the BTR-80 are enhanced by the fact that the combat crew can fire personal weapons directly from the vehicle. For this purpose, the armored personnel carrier is equipped with seven embrasures with ball bearings and surveillance devices on the sides of the hull for firing in the frontal and flanking directions, and two on the roof for firing at high-lying targets. From two embrasures you can fire from machine guns, and from two hatches located on the roof, you can throw grenades, fire from hand grenade launchers and anti-aircraft missile systems such as "Strela" and "Igla". To set up smoke screens, there are six installations for launching ZD6 smoke grenades.
All conditions have been created for the crew and troops to carry out combat missions. The hermetic body, made of steel armor plates with differentiated angles of inclination, reliably protects the combat crew from 7.62 mm caliber bullets, shell fragments, and the frontal armor, due to its shape, also from 12.7 mm caliber bullets.
BTR-80 in Serbia, 1996
The filter ventilation unit cleans the intake outside air from dust, radioactive and toxic substances and supplies it to the habitable compartment.
Thanks to the presence of four hatches located in the roof of the hull, as well as two double doors on the right and left sides of the vehicle, the crew and landing force of the vehicle can quickly carry out both landing and disembarking. When opened, the lower door leaf forms a step, so that entry and exit can be done while moving.
The armored personnel carrier is equipped with an R-123M VHF radio station for external communications and an R-124 intercom for internal communications. Recently, a more modern tank radio station R-163 and an intercom device R-174 have been installed on the BTR-80.
BTR-80 armored personnel carriers were actively used during the fighting in Afghanistan. Now they are in service with the Russian Army, Internal Troops and Marine Corps. The BTR-80 has gained a reputation as a high-quality vehicle, capable of effectively solving problems in any climatic and road conditions.
Based on the BTR-80, a whole range of vehicles for various purposes has been developed: the BTR-80 command armored personnel carrier; self-propelled artillery gun 2S23 "Nona SVK", supplied to the troops since 1990; armored repair and recovery vehicle BREM-K, put into service at the beginning of 1993, reconnaissance chemical vehicle RKhM-4; unified chassis for command and observation vehicles of commanders of artillery batteries and divisions.
The designers, taking into account many years of operating experience, as well as the ever-increasing range of tasks to be solved, developed and put into production the BTR-80A armored personnel carrier in 1994.
The new combat vehicle retains all the best qualities of the BTR-80 - high mobility, maneuverability, survivability and significantly increased firepower.
The vehicle is armed with a turret-mounted cannon-machine gun mount, designed to combat ground and low-flying air targets. It houses a 30-mm 2A72 automatic cannon and a coaxial 7.62-mm machine gun (PKT) with guidance angles of 360° horizontally and from -5° to +70° vertically.
The cannon and the coaxial machine gun are installed outside the turret, which made it possible to increase the volume of the turret space, improve operator comfort, reduce noise and eliminate gas contamination in the habitable compartments when firing.
The cannon and machine gun are fed by belt feed from magazines attached to the bottom of the turret. The gun's ammunition capacity is 300 rounds (packed in 2 belts: one with high-explosive fragmentation incendiary (HEF) and fragmentation tracer (FR) shells, and the other with armor-piercing tracer (AP) shells). The machine gun's ammunition capacity is 2000 rounds in one belt. Cartridges with OFZ and OT shells are intended for firing at ground and air targets, and cartridges with BT shells are intended for hitting armored targets and firing points.
Aiming the cannon and machine gun at the target is carried out using the 1 PZ-9 day sight and the TPNZ night sight. The target firing range of a cannon during the day with a BT projectile is up to 2000 m, OFZ - up to 4000 m, at night - at least 800 m.
At the operator's workplace there are controls for the mechanisms of reloading, triggering, safety, changing the gun feed (OFZ or BT), locking devices, and inspection devices. There is also a remote control here that allows you to set the rate of fire of the gun: single, small (200 rounds per minute) and large (at least 330 rounds per minute). Thus, depending on the operational situation, the nature and type of targets, the operator can select the type of ammunition (OFZ or BT) and the firing mode.
The combat weight of the vehicle has increased slightly and is 14.5 tons. The height has increased to 2800 mm. All other characteristics remained the same as the BTR-80.
Tactical and technical characteristics of the BTR-80 armored personnel carrier
Combat weight, t......................... 13.6
Crew, people ......................... 10
Overall dimensions, mm:
length........................ 7650
width........................ 2900
height........................ 2350
ground clearance........................... 475
Max. speed, km/h:
on the highway........................ 80
afloat........................9
Power reserve:
on the highway, km........................ 600
afloat........................ 12
A Soviet armored personnel carrier, designed in the early 80s as a development of the BTR-70 armored personnel carrier, taking into account the shortcomings identified in the Afghan war. The BTR-80 entered serial production in 1984, and, having been modernized several times, is still in production as of 2012. The latest models of the BTR-80, equipped with reinforced weapons, are classified by many experts as wheeled infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs). It was used by Soviet troops in the Afghan War, and since the 1990s it became the main armored personnel carrier of the Armed Forces of Russia, as well as a number of other former Soviet republics, and was used in almost all major armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space. It was actively sold and currently continues to be exported; in total, as of 2011, the BTR-80 is in service with about 26 states.
History of creation and production
By the early 1980s, the main armored personnel carrier of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union was the BTR-70, launched into mass production in 1976. The experience of using them soon showed that, despite serious improvements compared to the BTR-60, many of the main shortcomings and shortcomings of its predecessor were transferred to it almost without corrections or changes. One of them was a rather complex and very unreliable design of a power plant consisting of twin carburetor engines, which also had increased fuel consumption and a number of other disadvantages compared to a diesel engine. The very unsatisfactory disembarkation and landing of troops and crew remained a serious problem; compared to the BTR-60, it was only slightly improved. As the Afghan War showed, the security of the vehicle was also unsatisfactory. In addition, the BTR-70 had problems with the new design of the water-jet propulsion; while afloat it often became clogged with algae, peat slurry, etc.
To eliminate these shortcomings, the GAZ-5903 armored personnel carrier was created in the design bureau of the Gorky Automobile Plant under the leadership of I. Mukhin and E. Murashkin in the early 1980s. While leaving the layout of the BTR-70 unchanged, the new vehicle differed from it in many improvements. For example, instead of a pair of carburetor engines, one diesel engine of higher power was installed, and large double hatches were equipped in the sides of the hull for landing and disembarking troops. The body itself has become 115 mm higher and longer, and 100 mm wider, but the overall height of the car has increased only by 30 mm. Subsequent development sought to give the crew and troops the ability to fire from under the protection of armor; for this purpose, the shooting ports on the sides of the hull were replaced by ball mounts facing the front hemisphere. The armored personnel carrier's armor was slightly strengthened, but the weight of the GAZ-5903 increased by 18% compared to the BTR-70, from 11.5 to 13.6 tons, but in general the mobility of the vehicle remained unchanged, and the cruising range only increased. After successfully passing state tests, the GAZ-5903 was adopted by the USSR Armed Forces in 1986 and received the name BTR-80.
Description
The BTR-80 has a layout with the control compartment located in the front, the combined landing and combat compartment in the middle, and the engine-transmission compartment in the rear of the vehicle. The crew of the BTR-80 consists of three people: a squad (vehicle) commander, a driver and a gunner; In addition, the armored personnel carrier can take on board a landing force of 7 soldiers.
Armored hull and turret
The BTR-80 has a weakly differentiated (classification term for the design of armored ground combat vehicles. A combat vehicle has differentiated armor protection if its hull is equipped with armor of unequal thickness in its various parts. As a rule, the thickest and most durable armor is equipped in places most susceptible to enemy fire - forehead or the entire front end of the vehicle. The sides and rear are equipped with less thick armor.) bulletproof armor protection. The armored body of the conveyor is made by welding from rolled sheets of homogeneous armor steel with a thickness of 5 to 9 mm. Most of the vertical armor plates of the BTR-80, with the exception of the lower side and rear ones, are installed with fairly significant angles of inclination. The armored hull of all BTR-80s has a streamlined shape, which significantly increases its seaworthiness and is equipped with a folding wave-reflective shield that fits in the stowed position on the middle frontal plate of the hull, thus not significantly increasing its protection.
In the frontal part of the hull there is a control compartment, in which, on the left and right, respectively, are the driver and commander of the armored personnel carrier. Behind it is a landing squad, made together with the combat one. Six paratroopers in the aft part of the troop compartment are placed in it on two longitudinal plastic seats in the center, sitting facing the side. In the front part, immediately behind the driver’s and commander’s seats, there are two single seats for the remaining members of the landing party, with the right seat facing the direction of the vehicle to ensure the possibility of firing, and the left seat, occupied by a member of the landing party, who in combat conditions becomes a turret gunner , turned with his back to the board. Near the seats of all members of the landing force, in addition to the turret gunner, there are eight ball mounts on the sides with horizontal aiming angles from +...-15 to +...-25 degrees. intended for shooting from personal weapons. The ball installations are turned towards the front hemisphere, as a result of which the rear hemisphere is a dead zone for paratroopers, and there is a small dead zone in the front left. Also, two more hatches for shelling the upper hemisphere, without ball mounts, are equipped in the landing hatches in the roof.
The BTR-80, like its predecessors, is equipped with two rectangular landing hatches in the roof, but still the main means of disembarkation and landing on it are large double-leaf side doors located immediately behind the turret. The upper lid of the side door folds forward as the vehicle moves, and the lower one folds down and becomes a step, which, unlike its predecessors, allowed landing and disembarking troops from the BTR-80 while moving. The driver and commander, as on previous models of armored personnel carriers, have two individual semicircular hatches, which are located above their workplaces. In addition, the BTR-80 hull is equipped with a number of hatches and hatches that serve as access to the engine, transmission and winch units.
Armament
The BTR-80 is armed with a twin mount of a 14.5 mm KPVT machine gun and a 7.62 mm PKT. The installation is equipped on axles in the frontal part of the turret, its guidance in the vertical plane, within?4...+60 degrees, is done manually using a screw mechanism, horizontal guidance is made by rotating the turret. The machine guns were aimed at the target using a periscopic monocular optical sight 1PZ-2, which had a variable magnification of 1.2x or 4x with a field of view of 49 degrees and 14 degrees, respectively, and allowed fire from the KPVT at a range of up to 2000 meters on ground targets and 1000 m against air targets, and from the PCT - up to 1500 meters against ground targets. KPVT specialized in combating lightly armored and unarmored enemy vehicles, as well as low-flying air targets, this machine gun has an ammunition load of 500 rounds in 10 belts, loaded with armor-piercing incendiary bullets B-32, armor-piercing tracer BZT, armor-piercing incendiary, with a carbide core tungsten, BST, incendiary ZP and incendiary instant action MDZ. The PKT specialized in defeating enemy personnel and firepower and has an ammunition load of 2000 rounds of ammunition in 8 belts.
Surveillance and communications equipment
The driver and commander of the BTR-80 during the daytime in non-combat conditions monitor the terrain through two hatches closed with windshields located in the upper frontal armor plate of the hull. In combat conditions, as well as when moving at night, they monitor the terrain through periscope viewing devices of various types. The driver on early production vehicles had three TNPO-115 periscope viewing devices for viewing the front sector; on subsequent series vehicles, another TNPO-115 was added to them, equipped in the upper left zygomatic armor plate of the hull. At night, the central forward-facing device was replaced by a TVNE-4B periscopic binocular passive night vision device, which worked by enhancing natural light, or by illuminating it with an FG125 headlight with an infrared filter. The field of view of the device along the horizon was 36 degrees, vertically - 33 degrees, and the vision range under normal conditions was 60 meters when illuminated by a headlight and 120 meters with natural illumination of 5·10?3 lux (Lux (from the Latin lux - light; Russian designation: lx, international designation: lx) - unit of illumination measurement in the International System of Units (SI)).
The main means of observation for the vehicle commander is the combined binocular periscope electro-optical viewing device TKN-3 with day and passive night channels. TKN-3 has a magnification of 5x for the day channel and 4.2x for the night channel, with a field of view of 10 degrees and 8 degrees, respectively. The equipment of the device allowed its rotation within +...-50 degrees. horizontally and swing within?13 - +33 degrees. in a vertical plane. The device was combined with an OU-3GA2M spotlight with a removable infrared filter, which was used for illumination in conditions of insufficient natural light. The night vision range for TKN-3 reached 300-400 meters. In addition to the TKN-3, the commander has three TNPO-115 devices - two for viewing the front sector and one equipped in the right upper zygomatic armor plate.
For a turret gunner, the main means of observing the terrain is the gun sight; in addition, he has periscope viewing devices: TNP-205, equipped on the left side of the turret and TNPT-1, located in the roof of the turret and providing rear visibility. The landing force has two TNP-165A periscope viewing devices, which are equipped in the roof of the hull behind the turret, next to the landing positions of the paratroopers-machine gunners, as well as four TNPO-115 devices, which are located in the upper side armor plates of the hull on both sides of the doors.
For external communications, the BTR-80 of early releases was equipped with the R-123M radio station; on vehicles of later releases it was replaced by the more modern R-163 or R-173. For internal communications, the BTR-80 is equipped with a tank intercom R-124 for three subscribers - the commander, driver and turret gunner.
Engine
The BTR-80 uses a KamAZ-740.3 engine with a turbocharger at each engine camber. The BTR-80 with the YaMZ-238M2 engine has the index BTR-80M
TTX
Classification: Armored personnel carrier
-Combat weight, t: 13.6
-Crew, people: 3
-Landing, people: 7
Case length, mm: 7650
-Case width, mm: 2900
-Height, mm: 2350..2460
-Base, mm: 4400
-Gauge, mm: 2410
-Clearance, mm: 475
Reservations:
Armor type: rolled steel
-Forehead of the body, mm/deg.: 10
- Hull side, mm/deg.: 7..9
-Hull feed, mm/deg.: 7
-Tower forehead, mm/deg.: 7
-Tower side, mm/deg.: 7
- Tower feed, mm/deg.: 7
Weapons:
Angles VN, degrees: -4..+60
-GN angles, degrees: 360
-Firing range, km: 1..2 (KPVT); 1.5 (PCT)
-Sights: 1PZ-2
-Machine guns: 1 x 14.5 mm KPVT; 1 x 7.62 mm PCT
Mobility:
Engine: Manufacturer: Kama Automobile Plant; Make: KamAZ 7403; Type: diesel; Volume: 10,850 cc cm.; Maximum power: 260 hp, at 2600 rpm; Maximum torque: 785 Nm, at 1800 rpm; Configuration: V8; Cylinders: 8; Fuel consumption on a combined cycle: 60..130 l/100 km; Fuel consumption on the highway: 48 l/100 km; Cylinder diameter: 120 mm; Piston stroke: 120 mm; Compression ratio: 16; Cooling: liquid; Clock (number of clock cycles): 4; Cylinder operating order: 1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8; Maximum speed: 2930
-Highway speed, km/h: 80
-Speed over rough terrain, km/h: 20..40 on ground; 9 afloat
-Highway range, km: 600
- Cruising range over rough terrain, km: 200..500 on dirt roads
-Specific power, l. s./t: 19.1
-Wheel formula: 8x8/4
-Suspension type: individual torsion bar with hydraulic shock absorbers
- Climbability, degrees: 30
-Overcome wall, m: 0.5
- Overcome ditch, m: 2
-Fordability, m: floats
According to Western data, about 25 thousand BTR-60s of all modifications were manufactured. BTR-60s were actively exported abroad. In addition, BTR-60PB were produced under 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 army of Yugoslavia.
According to some available data, as of 1995, BTR-60 of various modifications (mainly BTR-60PB) were available in the armies of Algeria, Angola, Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Botswana (24 units), Vietnam, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Egypt, Zambia (10 units), Israel, India, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, North Korea, 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 in the armies of many CIS countries.
Interestingly, the export and re-export of BTR-60 to various countries continues to this day. So only in 2001 Ukraine transferred 170 armored personnel carriers (136 BTR-60PB and 34 BTR-70) to the UN peacekeeping contingent in Sierra Leone. Including 6 BTR-60PBs were transferred to the Nigerian contingent, 6 BTR-60PBs to the Ghanaian peacekeeping contingent, 3 BTR-60PBs to the Kenyan peacekeeping battalion, and one BTR-60PB to the Guinean peacekeeping battalion.
Compared to the BTR-60, the geography of 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 Soviet license in Romania, was in service with its own army. Currently, these combat vehicles are available in the armies of almost all CIS countries. As of 1995, in addition to the CIS countries, the BTR-70 was in service in Estonia (5 units), Afghanistan, Nepal (135) and Pakistan (120 units, received from Germany), Sudan, and Turkey (received from Germany).
Armored personnel carriers BTR-80, according to 1995, were in service in almost all CIS countries, as well as in Estonia (20 units), Hungary (245 units), Sierra Leone, and Turkey (100). The contract for the sale of a batch of Russian BTR-80A armored personnel carriers to Turkey was signed in 1995. This is the first time that the latest Russian military equipment is entering service with a country that is a member of the NATO bloc. Apparently, the choice made by the Turkish military was 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 expanded. Thus, at the beginning of 2000, the Hungarian Army received the last 20 BTR-80 armored personnel carriers, which completed the contract for the supply of 487 vehicles of this type from Russia. In total, over the past five years, Budapest has received 555 BTR-80 armored personnel carriers (including BTR-80A), 68 of which were transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. By supplying armored personnel carriers, Russia paid off Hungary’s debt remaining from Soviet times. The total cost of supplies amounted to 320 million US dollars (about 576,600 dollars per armored personnel carrier). According to media reports, in 2000, at the Eurosatori 2000 arms show held in France, North Korea acquired a batch of Russian armored personnel carriers. The Arzamas Machine-Building Plant was supposed to supply ten BTR-80 BTRs to Pyongyang. 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, BTR-80s are in service with the Internal Troops and Marine Corps. They are also used by Russian contingents of UN forces in Bosnia and Kosovo.
In a military action, BTR-60 armored personnel carriers were first used during Operation Danube - the entry of troops of the Warsaw Pact countries into Czechoslovakia in 1968. The signal “Vltava 666” was received by the troops on August 20 at 22:00. 15 minutes, and already at 23 o'clock troops with a total number of 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 introduced into Czechoslovakia from the territory of the GDR. Here the border crossing was carried out “suddenly” on August 21, on a 200 km front simultaneously by the forces of 8 divisions (2 thousand tanks and 2 thousand armored personnel carriers, mainly BTR-60). In 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 virtually no resistance, although cases of “anti-Soviet psychosis” were noted in a number of its units and formations. Following the orders 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 Warsaw Pact troops received very specific “recommendations.” In accordance with them, a white stripe was introduced - a distinctive sign of “friends” and allied troops. All military equipment without white stripes was subject to “neutralization,” preferably without shooting. However, in the event of resistance, “stripeless” tanks and other military equipment” were subject to “immediate destruction.” To do this, there was no need to receive “sanctions” from above. When meeting with NATO troops, they were ordered to stop immediately and “do not shoot without a command.”
The Soviet-Chinese border conflict in the area of Damansky Island in March 1969 can be considered a real baptism of fire for the BTR-60. 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 terms of engineering; 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; in units the number of machine guns increased, including large-caliber, anti-tank
grenade launchers and other weapons; Armored personnel carriers of the BTR-60PA and BTR-60PB types began to arrive at the outposts, and maneuver groups were created in border detachments using them.
It must be emphasized that Chinese leaders were vitally interested in a major “victorious” conflict on the Soviet-Chinese border. Firstly, this guaranteed the generals solid representation in the country’s leadership, and secondly, the military-political leadership could confirm the correctness of the course of turning China into a military camp and preparing for a war, the instigator of which would allegedly be Soviet “social-imperialism.” The preparation of a combat plan, using approximately three infantry companies and a number of military units secretly 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 Chinese soldiers should “resolutely fight back” by using similar sticks and blowing up combat vehicles.
On the night of March 2, 1969, PLA units (about 300 military personnel) invaded Damansky Island and, having equipped 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 to meet the violators. He decided to block them on both sides and drive them off the island. With five border guards, Strelnikov headed towards the island from the front. At a distance of 300 m from them, a second group of 12 people was moving. The third group of border guards, consisting of 13 people, approached the island from the flank. As 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, from an ambush on the island and from the Chinese coast, machine guns and mortars opened fire on the third group, which was forced to take up a perimeter defense. Units of Chinese soldiers who had entered the island the night before immediately entered into battle.
A motorized maneuver group in armored personnel carriers from the neighboring Kulebyakiny Sopki outpost, led by the head of the outpost, Senior Lieutenant V. Bubenin, urgently went to the rescue of our border guards. She managed to get around the enemy from the rear and throw him behind the embankment on the island. The battle continued all day with varying success. At this time, the command of the Iman border detachment (which included the outposts “Nizhne-Mikhailovka” and “Kulebyakiny Sopki”), led by Colonel D. Leonov, together with the maneuver group and the school of non-commissioned officers of the border detachment, were in the exercises of the Far Eastern Military District. After receiving information about the battles on Damansky, D. Leonov immediately gave the order to remove the school of non-commissioned officers and the maneuver group from the exercises and move to the island area. By the evening of March 2, the border guards recaptured Damansky and gained a foothold on it. In order to prevent possible repeated provocations, a reinforced maneuver group of the border detachment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel E. Yanshin (45 people with grenade launchers) on 4 BTR-60PB moved to Damansky. A reserve was concentrated on the shore - 80 people in armored personnel carriers (a school for non-commissioned officers). 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 fighting.
However, no one knew what to do next. The military-political leadership of the USSR was silent. Army units and units did not have relevant orders from either the Minister of Defense or the General Staff. The leadership of the KGB, which was in charge of the border guards, also took a wait-and-see approach. This is precisely what explains a certain confusion in the actions of the Soviet border guards, which was clearly evident on March 14 when repelling massive attacks (“human waves”) from the Chinese side. As a result of spontaneous and ill-considered decisions of the border district headquarters, the Soviet border guards suffered heavy losses (Colonel D. Leonov died, the Chinese captured a secret T-62 tank) and were forced to leave Damansky by the end of the day. In fact, units of the 135th Motorized Rifle Division saved the situation. At its own peril and risk, its headquarters gave the order to the artillery regiment of 122-mm howitzers, a separate BM-21 Grad rocket division and mortar batteries of the 199th regiment (Lieutenant Colonel D. Krupeinikov) to carry out 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 dotted the i’s. 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 losses amounted to about 600 people.
In the summer of the same 1969, the situation noticeably worsened on the Kazakh section of the Soviet-Chinese border, in the area of the Dzhungar ledge, guarded by the Uch-Aral border detachment. And here, Soviet border guards used BTR-60s in combat conditions. On August 12, border guards at the Rodnikovaya and Zhalanashkol observation posts noticed the movements of individual 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 military personnel in two groups of 9 and 6 people reached the line of the State Border of the USSR at the Zhalanashkol border outpost and by seven o'clock they went deeper into the border space at a distance of 400 and 100 m. Here the violators began dig in, defiantly go out to the trenches near 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 beyond the border line in the mountains.
A few minutes later, armored personnel carriers, outpost personnel and reserves from neighboring outposts arrived in the violators’ invasion area. The actions of all these forces were led by the chief of staff of the detachment, Lieutenant Colonel P. Nikitenko. An hour later, the invading group fired several shots in the direction of the trench line of the Soviet border guards. Return fire was opened on the intruders. A fight ensued. At this time, three groups of Chinese with a total number of over forty people, armed with small arms and RPGs, came close to the State Border and attempted to cross it with the aim of capturing the nearby Kamennaya hill. Reinforcements arrived from a neighboring outpost - a maneuverable group on three BTR-60PBs - immediately entered the battle. The first armored personnel carrier (onboard No. 217), under the command of junior lieutenant V. Puchkov, found itself under heavy enemy fire: bullets and shrapnel demolished the external equipment, riddled the slopes, pierced the armor in several places, and jammed the turret. V. Puchkov himself and the driver of the armored personnel carrier V. Pishchulev were injured.
A group of eight fighters, reinforced by two armored personnel carriers, under the command of Senior Lieutenant V. Olshevsky, turned into a chain and 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 maneuver group, Captain P. Terebenkov, attacked. By 10 o'clock in the morning the battle was over - the Soviet side lost 2 border guards killed (Sergeant M. Dulepov and Private V. Ryazanov) and 10 people were wounded. 3 Chinese were captured. 19 corpses of the raiders were collected on the battlefield.
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, BTR-70, and BTR-80 passed through it. When developing the latter, the results of an 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. Supplies of various weapons here from the Soviet Union began in 1956 during the reign of Muhammad Zaire Shah. BTR-60PB armored personnel carriers of the Afghan Army often participated in military parades held in Kabul.
At the time of the entry of troops, the armored vehicles of the motorized rifle divisions of the Central Asian Military District were represented by BTR-60PB armored personnel carriers, BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles and BRDM-2 reconnaissance and patrol vehicles. In the MSD, two out of three motorized rifle regiments were equipped with armored personnel carriers (the third was armed with BMP-1). The use of the BTR-60PB here at the initial stage is explained by the fact that the relatively new, at that time, BTR-70 (their production began in 1976) was primarily equipped with divisions of the GSVG and western military districts. The ensuing military clashes showed that Soviet armored vehicles were not sufficiently protected from modern anti-tank weapons, were fire hazardous, and tracked vehicles (tanks and infantry fighting vehicles) were quite vulnerable to explosions. The T-62 and T-55 tanks in service with the Central Asian Military District were forced to urgently modernize. They were equipped with so-called anti-cumulative grilles and additional armor plates on the towers, which the soldiers nicknamed “Ilyich’s eyebrows.” And the BMP-1s were completely withdrawn from Afghanistan and urgently replaced by the latest BMP-2s transferred from Germany.
The same thing had to be done with the BTR-60PB. In Afghanistan, its shortcomings became apparent, aggravated by the special physical and geographical conditions of the theater of military operations. In the hot high-altitude climate, the carburetor engines of the “sixtieth” lost power and overheated, and the limited elevation angle of the weapons (only 30°) made it impossible to fire at high-lying targets on the slopes of mountain gorges, and protection was insufficient, especially from cumulative ammunition. As a result, the BTR-60PB were quickly replaced by the BTR-70, however, control vehicles based on the “sixtieth” were used in Afghanistan until the withdrawal of Soviet troops. But the BTR-70 also had almost the same shortcomings. Security practically did not improve, the problem of engine overheating was not solved and even worsened due to the slightly increased power of the propulsion system and the design features of the crankcases. Therefore, very often the “seventies” in Afghanistan moved with open over-engine hatches to improve cooling. True, they had a significantly increased (up to 60°) elevation angle of the 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 put into service, also passed through Afghanistan. The powerful diesel engine installed on the new vehicle instead of two carburetor engines enabled the troops to more effectively use the combat vehicle in mountain and desert conditions, since rarefied air does not have such a negative effect on the operation of the diesel engine. At the same time, the power reserve has increased significantly and the fire hazard has decreased. However, the security of the BTR-80 remained insufficient. This can be confirmed by the loss figures - over the nine years of the war in Afghanistan, 1314 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, as well as 147 tanks, were lost. Therefore, the troops carried out a huge amount of work to find additional means of enhancing the protection of personnel and 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 armored personnel carriers, hitting external equipment or flying inside operating units through blinds and open hatches. The entire engine and transmission compartment was also characterized by insufficient armor.
Taking this into account, in combat operations on armored personnel carriers, separate screens from bullets and grenades, special lattice screens from sheets of automobile springs were installed, screens made of rubberized material were hung between the wheels, and other available means of protection were used: automobile wheels, containers with water, oil, sand or stones, etc. Homemade protection devices have not been widely used. 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 armored personnel carrier-80 was approximately 2 tons heavier than its predecessors.
In 1986, based on the experience of using armored personnel carriers and through experimental and theoretical research, a set of measures was developed at the BTV Military Academy to increase the bulletproof resistance of vehicles. Among them:
Calculations have shown that when these measures are implemented, the increase in the mathematical expectation of the number of unhit motorized riflemen after firing from a heavy machine gun from a distance of 200 m can reach 37% with a slight (about 3%) increase in the mass of the combat vehicle.
The situation was much better with the mine resistance of wheeled armored personnel carriers, which, in some cases, was amazing. Here's a typical example. After the BTR-80 exploded on a TM-62P mine (the explosion occurred under the right front wheel), the wheel rubber was completely destroyed, the wheel gearbox, wheel suspension, and shelf above the wheel were damaged. Nevertheless, the car left the explosion site on its own (having walked 10 km from the explosion site), and the people inside the car received only mild and moderate concussions. Restoring the vehicle in the regiment's repair company took only one day - replacing failed components. Not a single standard anti-tank anti-track mine was almost able to stop our armored personnel carrier. In order to truly disable the armored personnel carrier, the dushmans placed a bag with 20-30 kg of TNT under the mine. Tracked vehicles were much weaker in this sense. After an explosion, the body of an infantry fighting vehicle often burst due to welding, and it could no longer be repaired. The BMD did not hold a mine at all. The crew and troops were partially killed and partially seriously injured. The car itself could only be evacuated from the explosion site on a trailer.
After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989, GaZ armored personnel carriers increasingly began to be used on the territory of the disintegrating Soviet Union itself. Due to their large numbers, they were widely used by various warring parties during most armed conflicts. Obviously, armored personnel carriers first appeared in large numbers on the streets of Tbilisi in April 1989, back in the days of the living USSR. Military units separated conflicting parties in the Osh Valley, on the border of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, in Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia. In January 1990, the assault on Baku took place. A year later, armored personnel carriers appeared on the streets of Vilnius, and then Moscow during the ever-memorable State Emergency Committee.
In 1992, an armed conflict broke out between the Republic of Moldova (RM) and the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic (PMR). The beginning of a large-scale war on the Dniester can be dated to March 2, when the Moldovan special police unit (OPON) launched a provocative attack on a Russian military unit near Dubosari. By this time, Moldova already had 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, 27 BTR-60PB and 53 MT-LB-AT units, 34 MiG-29 fighters and 4 Mi-8 helicopters and a significant amount of other heavy weapons were transferred to Moldova. And from fraternal Romania, 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-80 armored personnel carriers used by Moldova in combat operations 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 could use a large number of armored personnel carriers in the March battles, while the Transnistrian forces in the Dubosary area had only three GMZ (tracked minelayer), MT-LB and one BRDM-2. However, despite such unequal forces, the Pridnestrovians survived. A new BTR-80 (Romanian production) was captured as a trophy; the driver and one of its crew members were Romanian citizens. These volunteers were unlucky - they were killed.
On April 1, 1992, the first invasion of Bendery took place. At 6 o’clock in the morning, two armored personnel carriers from Moldova burst into the city, heading to the intersection of Michurin and Bendery Uprising streets, where a change of police post was taking place. The Moldavian fighters shot with machine guns the "rafiks" of the police and guard (several people died), as well as a bus that happened to be nearby, transporting the next shift of workers at a cotton spinning factory. There were also victims among them.
At the end of March, OPON officers attempted to cut the Tiraspol-Rybnitsa highway. Of the six armored personnel carriers going to the PRM positions, five vehicles were destroyed.
In May 1992, local residents, exhausted by the incessant artillery shelling of Dubosary, blocked the road for the tank and motorized rifle companies of the 14th Army returning from the training ground. 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 intense shelling was coming from.
The next escalation of the military situation occurred in June. Moldavian armored vehicles burst into Bendery in several directions. At the first stage, up to 50 armored vehicles were involved. Armored personnel carriers and airborne combat vehicles, practically without slowing down, shot at improvised barricades. Active hostilities continued in Transnistria until the end of July, when Russian peacekeeping forces entered the republic.
Also in 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, a detachment of the combined regiment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Abkhazia, on duty on the bridge over the Inguri River, saw a column of Georgian armored vehicles moving towards the Georgian-Abkhazian border. Five fighters were disarmed with virtually no fight. Abkhazia was taken by surprise. Interestingly, the Georgian side planned the invasion of Abkhazia, codenamed Operation Sword, in a completely different way. At night, it was planned to transport assault troops of the Georgian Defense Ministry to Abkhazia by rail. Along the route, Georgian soldiers with equipment were supposed to land at strategically important objects, and in Sukhumi they were to connect with a unit of the Mkhedrioni armed formation, stationed in the sanatorium of the tourist center named after. XI Congress a few kilometers from the city center. However, on the eve of the start of the operation on the territory of Western Georgia, supporters of the previously overthrown President Z. Gamsakhurdia blew up a large section of the railway leading to Abkhazia. This forced an urgent review of the operation plans, 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 BTR-60, BTR-70 armored personnel carriers, Grad multiple rocket launchers, as well as Mi helicopters -24, Mi-26 and Mi-8. Abkhazia had practically no 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 Abkhazian 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 widespread and requires a separate major study. Here we can only dwell on certain points.
It is well known that the regular units of D. Dudayev’s army had a large number of armored vehicles. In Grozny alone, when in June 1992, under the threat of armed action from the Chechens, Russian troops left the territory of Ichkeria practically without weapons, 108 units of armored vehicles were left behind: 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 the armored vehicles of the Russian army. It should, however, be remembered that the exact amount of military equipment at the disposal of the Chechens is unknown - the influx of weapons into this region remained constant and uncontrolled by the federal authorities. So, according to official data, the Russian Armed Forces alone 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, 2221 units of armored vehicles were deployed in Chechnya, of which (as of the beginning of 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 assault on Grozny are explained by inappropriate tactics, underestimation of the enemy and insufficient combat readiness. Russian troops entered Grozny without surrounding it or cutting it off from reinforcements. The plan was to capture the city on the move, without even dismounting. Due to the lack of personnel, the columns were mixed, and most armored personnel carriers moved with minimal 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 due to changes in tactics. Assault groups were formed, Russian infantry moved level with armored vehicles to support and cover it.
The bulk of Russian armored personnel carriers were destroyed using anti-tank grenades and grenade launchers. In urban combat conditions, armored personnel carriers were poorly suited; due to weak armor, it was also possible to hit them in the least protected places - in the stern, roof, sides. Favorite targets of Chechen grenade launchers were fuel tanks and engines. The density of fire from anti-tank weapons during street fighting in Grozny was 6-7 units per armored vehicle. As a result, almost every damaged vehicle had an average of 3-6 damaging hits in its hull, each of which would have been quite enough to disable it. An acute problem was the low fire resistance of armored personnel carriers after they were hit by cumulative grenades and shells. Fire extinguishing systems of domestic armored vehicles have shown an unacceptably long reaction time and low efficiency of fire-fighting means. As a result, more than 87% of hits from RPGs and 95 percent 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 in using armored personnel carriers accumulated during the ten-year Afghan war was not used by the top military leadership, which was unable to make 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 presented virtually the same problems to 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 and infantry fighting vehicles. The vital modernization of armored personnel carriers in order to increase their security fell almost entirely on the shoulders of the combat units themselves. And resourceful infantrymen hung empty ammunition boxes and sandbags on the sides of armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, laid out tubes with disposable grenade launchers and flamethrowers on the armor, and equipped places for riflemen and rear 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 personnel carriers 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 Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, FSP of the Russian Federation, FSB and Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation). In the battles for Grozny in the winter of 2000, armored personnel carriers accounted for more than 28% of the total number of lightly armored vehicles used by federal troops. A characteristic feature of the distribution of armored personnel carriers among law enforcement agencies is that 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, various armored personnel carriers are “worked” mainly by units of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, various riot police and special forces, and military formations of the Ministry of Justice.
At the initial stage of the company, when the bandit groups of Basayev and Khattab invaded Dagestan, and then Chechnya itself, the militants carried out actions completely uncharacteristic of partisans, which they essentially were, to retain 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 gangs radically changed their tactics, switching to ambush attacks on transport convoys, shelling checkpoints and mine warfare. In conditions of information, food and moral support of greater
For some of the local population, such a guerrilla war can continue for quite a long time. The task of directly combating bandit groups in such conditions should be carried out by special forces units, so to speak, “in the lair,” 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 comes down mainly to protecting and patrolling settlements and communications, as well as escorting convoys with cargo.
Russian troops in Chechnya are mainly engaged in similar tasks now. It should be emphasized here that the BTR-80 is completely unsuited 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. All-round fire is only possible from weapons installed in the turret, which have insufficient power. In the same way, observation devices are concentrated in the front hemisphere. As a result, soldiers have to sit on the armor of an armored personnel carrier, where they can observe and fire at 360°, and from a mine explosion they are no longer protected by the thin bottom of the vehicle, but by its entire body. In addition, you can always quickly dismount and hide from militant fire behind the body of the vehicle. Thus, under these conditions, the armored personnel carrier lost one of its main functions - transporting troops under the protection of armor.
The experience of using BTR-80A is interesting, of which, unfortunately, there are very few in Chechnya. For example, a motorized rifle company of one of the units of the internal troops, armed with several such vehicles, carried out combat missions to escort convoys with materiel. Here the BTR-80A demonstrated sufficient reliability and high efficiency. The presence of BTR-80A “cannon” BTR-80A among the combat escort vehicles of the columns significantly enhanced the fire capabilities of the guard, especially with the onset of dusk. This revealed not only the high efficiency of fire destruction of the enemy, but also a strong psychological impact on him. At the same time, the military noted that due to the cramped conditions inside the vehicle and too little space for landing troops on the roof of the hull (the sweep radius of the long barrel of a 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 transporting infantry becomes difficult. As a result, BTR-80A were 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 also included in the Russian contingents of the IFIR and KFOR forces performing peacekeeping missions in the Balkans. We took part in the famous forced 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 far beyond the borders of the former USSR. Their geography includes the Middle 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 were Egypt and Syria, into which a deep river of supplies of Soviet military equipment began to flow since the late 1950s. Egypt received its 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 from the USSR about 750 tanks (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 the complete defeat of the Arabs. The most difficult situation developed on the Egyptian front; in addition to the loss of significant territory, the Egyptian army suffered catastrophic losses during the fighting, more than 820 tanks and several hundred armored personnel carriers were destroyed or captured. The restoration 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 1,260 tanks and 750 armored personnel carriers BTR-60 and BTR-50. The same large volumes of tanks and armored personnel carriers were supplied 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 the Syrian army had 1,300 armored personnel carriers (BTR-60, BTR-152).
Syrian armored personnel carriers took part in the first attack on Israeli positions on 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 “ceremonial” formation: tanks were in front, followed by BTR-60s. Here in the “Valley of Tears”, during fierce fighting that lasted three days (until October 9), more than 200 Syrian armored personnel carriers were destroyed. The BTR-60PBs remaining in service with the Syrian army after the Yom Kippur War were 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.
BTR-60s were used quite widely during the war in Angola, which 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 worth more than $200 million to Luanda. 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" with a landing force of marines (equipped with an BTR-60PB) on board also arrived at the Angolan coast several times. The Cuban military contingent in Angola, which at times reached 40 thousand people, also had its own weapons. In general, over more than ten years, starting in 1975, 500 thousand Cuban volunteers 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 one time. After the signing of the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in 1974, the Soviet Union began to provide Somalia with enormous assistance in creating national armed forces, which were almost entirely equipped with Soviet military equipment. In particular, in 1976 they had 250 tanks, 350 armored personnel carriers, etc. Soviet military advisers and specialists were engaged in training local military personnel in Somalia.
Since 1976, rapprochement with Ethiopia began, and already in December an agreement was reached on Soviet military supplies to this country in the amount of $100 million. In reality, the first large supply of weapons was estimated at $385 million 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 took the side of Ethiopia. Cuba also provided significant assistance, sending its regular units with full standard weapons to this country. In addition to weapons, Soviet military specialists also 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, citing the fact that there was a minefield ahead, one of the Soviet generals got into an armored personnel carrier and led the brigade around.
The American military probably first encountered the BTR-60 in battle during the US invasion of Grenada. At six o'clock on the morning of October 25, 1983, 1,900 US Marines and 300 soldiers from the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States landed in St. George's, the capital of Grenada. It is interesting that 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 “drop in” on Grenada. Although before the landing, the CIA reported that only 200 “workers” from Cuba were employed in the construction of the grandiose 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, this information turned out to be inaccurate. The Americans faced well-organized resistance from more than 700 Cuban soldiers and officers. So the first priority of the 75th US Rangers was to capture the Point Salines airport, located in the southwestern part of the island.
The operation began with a series of failures. First, a group of naval special forces was discovered and was unable to secretly land on the shore. Then, on the lead Hercules, which was delivering the landing force, the navigation equipment flew, and the planes could not reach the target for a long time. Because of this, the timing of the operation was violated. Having landed, the rangers began to clear the runway from construction equipment and prepare for the landing of the brigade of the 85th Airborne Division. However, the Cubans soon launched a counterattack with three armored personnel carriers - 60PB, led by a Cuban officer - Captain Sergio Grandales Nolasco. After a fierce battle, the armored personnel carriers were destroyed by fire from portable anti-tank weapons, and Nolasco was killed. Over the next three days, with the joint efforts of a brigade of paratroopers, two battalions of the 75th regiment, with the support of attack aircraft, the Cuban resistance was broken, and the Americans completely captured the island. But due to the existing losses and a number of failures, the operation in Grenada is not considered successful.
Conclusions:
Concluding the story about GaZ wheeled armored personnel carriers, we can cite the assessment given to the BTR-60/-70/-80 by Russian military specialists, which is based on the rich 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 BTR- 70), the optimal joint operation of which in practice is quite difficult to synchronize, or still due to the insufficient power of one diesel engine (260-240 hp for the BTR-80);
- insufficient firepower, which does not allow inflicting defeat at any time of the day and with sufficient effectiveness. Currently, in order to successfully fight militants day and night in mountainous areas and in urban environments, 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 8-10 mm on average, does not provide reliable protection against fire from enemy heavy machine guns (DSHK), and a complete lack of any protection against cumulative ammunition (grenades from RPGs and recoilless rifles, light ATGMs). Based on the experience of armed conflicts, this is the main and most painful drawback of almost all light armored vehicles - infantry fighting vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, etc.
One can positively evaluate their high survivability when detonated by mines and land mines, which is ensured by the design features of the chassis - an 8x8 wheel arrangement with independent suspension of each wheel and transmission. Even when designing an armored personnel carrier, the choice of a multi-axle wheeled propulsion device was determined not only to ensure high maneuverability, but also to achieve the greatest survivability in case of mine explosions. During local conflicts, there have been numerous cases of armored personnel carriers “crawling away” from fire under their own power, having lost one or even two wheels when they were detonated by a mine! Another noteworthy feature is 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 else's production, but homemade landmines that are many times more powerful than them. Here, however, it is necessary to note that the flat and thin bottom of armored personnel carriers itself does not withstand the shock wave well. This drawback is partially eliminated in the design of the BTR-90, which has a Y-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 not sealed, volume of the internal space of the armored personnel carrier - the control and troop compartments, and the absence of stocks of detonating ammunition and fuel tanks in the troop compartment. Thus, there is no sudden jump in air pressure in the armored personnel carrier, which often incapacitates (“jams”) the tank crew in its small armored confined space. Only what the cumulative jet directly hits is affected.
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The problem of transporting infantry and supporting it in battle became acute for the Soviet army already during the Great Patriotic War. To solve these problems, armored personnel carriers were developed. However, initially their designs had many “childhood diseases”, which were quite difficult to cope with.
New solutions, as often happens, were prompted by the war. After the uprising in Budapest, they abandoned the open top of the armored personnel carrier, a legacy of the Great Patriotic War. The operation of the BTR-60 and its modifications led to, and the battles in Afghanistan revealed problems already with the “seventieth”. After modernizing this vehicle, the army received a new BTR-80.
History of creation
The fighting in the democratic republic of Afghanistan revealed many shortcomings of the BTR-70. One of the main ones was the unreliable power system, two carburetor engines, paired and located in the rear of the armored personnel carrier.
In addition to the traditional disadvantages of gasoline engines in the army, gluttony was added even by army standards. Combat operations in the highlands also showed problems with power loss. The hatches on the body of the armored personnel carrier caused problems; it was difficult for the crew and motorized riflemen inside; it was difficult to quickly leave the vehicle.
Fire support on the battlefield was also scant. Combat experience has shown that the elevation angle of armored personnel carrier weapons is insufficient for firing in the mountains. The armor protection of the “seventy” was also insufficient. The water-jet system did not operate effectively; when crossing water bodies, it became clogged with silt, peat and algae.
The design group of the Gorky Automobile Plant, under the command of I. Mukhin and E. Murashkin, was tasked with modernizing the car in accordance with the requirements of the military.
The modernization turned out to be so deep that we can talk about a fundamentally new armored personnel carrier of domestic design.
The twin engine was replaced with one powerful one, KamAZ-740.3, a diesel engine with a turbocharger. The body was increased in comparison with the BTR-70 by 115 mm in height and length, by 100 mm in width. However, due to the reduction in ground clearance, the overall height of the car increased by only 30 mm.
The hull armor was strengthened; all changes led to an increase in the weight of the vehicle by 18%. If the BTR-70 weighed 11.5 tons, then the “eighty” recovered to 13.6 tons. After testing at testing grounds, in 1986 the new armored personnel carrier was officially put into service.
Design of the BTR-80
The layout of the machine consists of three parts. At the head there is a control compartment with a crew of a driver and commander. They are positioned like this: on the left is the Mech-Water, on the right is the commander. The middle part is occupied by the gunner-operator and seven landing personnel.
By the way, ten to twelve people can fit “on the armor.”
The troops inside the vehicle are seated along the central axis, facing the sides for the most effective observation and shooting from personal weapons.
The landing force fires through embrasures with ball mounts. They are designed for firing angles from ±15 to ±25° from the central axis of the vehicle. The turret is controlled by a gunner operator, whose combat position is located in the suspended seat of the turret with circular rotation.
The commander of a motorized rifle squad sits in a separate seat immediately behind the driver and commander, and fires from an embrasure in the direction of the vehicle’s movement. Dead zones for landing are the rear hemisphere and the front left part, behind the driver.
The engine in this armored personnel carrier is located in the tail section. The designers placed several small access hatches on the hull to allow quick access to the components and mechanisms of the power plant and transmission.
The vehicle's armor is bulletproof and poorly differentiated. The hull is assembled from rolled steel sheets, joined by welding, the armor thickness is 5-9 mm. The body is streamlined for better passage of water obstacles, the sheets are installed at different angles of inclination to increase protection during shelling.
The middle frontal sheet is covered with a special shield-wave reflector.
In the raised position, it protects the driver's sight glass from being overwhelmed by waves when moving afloat.
New, wide two-piece doors to the troop compartment were installed. The upper half folds to the side and is fixed with a spring delay; the lower half, in the open position, forms a step, a kind of ramp, and facilitates landing from a moving vehicle.
The vehicle's armament is paired: a large-caliber (14.5 mm) KPVT machine gun and a 7.62 mm PKT. The weapon is placed in a small armored turret for all-round firing, the installation is trunnion-mounted, the elevation angle ranges from −4 to +60°.
The weapon unit is aimed and the turret is rotated manually. Aiming is provided by the 1PZ-2 periscope sight. Monocular optics allows you to cover a KPVT target at a distance of up to 2000 m, PKT up to 1500 m. The ammunition stowage includes 500 cartridges in boxes for KPVT and 2000 for PKT.
Surveillance is carried out through periscopes. The driver has three TNPO-115 periscopes. For operations at night, the use of infrared headlights and an optical device is assumed.
Visibility through observation devices at night, depending on conditions, varies from 60 to 120 meters.
The commander's visibility is provided by a combined type TKN-3 viewing device; for use at night, an OU-3GA2M searchlight with an infrared filter is installed on the vehicle body, which ensures operation in active mode and a visibility range of up to 400 meters.
The operator-gunner is provided with all-round surveillance: front and rear viewing periscopes of the TNP type and a sight. Six additional technical equipment are additionally installed in the troop compartment to provide paratroopers with visibility.
Communication is provided by R-123 radio stations on early series of vehicles, later they were replaced by more advanced R-173. In addition, during the modernization, simplex radio stations R-163 were installed on some of the vehicles. Internal communication is provided by R-124, designed for three subscribers.
Modernization and comparison with foreign analogues
Over its many years of service, the BTR-80 has been modernized several times. The following types of vehicles are found in the Russian army:
- a command and staff vehicle, additionally equipped with radio communications and terrain positioning equipment; in addition, part of the BTR-80K was released as mobile missile launch control posts;
- BTR-80A, a modernized version with an uninhabited combat module with a 30 mm 2A72 cannon. Instead of a turret with a pair of machine guns;
- BTR-80M, with a reinforced YaMZ-238 engine, as well as tires with increased bullet resistance and a longer hull;
- BTR-80AM, YaMZ-238 engine and uninhabited combat module.
In addition to Russia, these transporters are in service in 26 countries around the world. Not only Russians like to improve, so there are options that are adjusted even to NATO standards. Hungarian developers have achieved the greatest success in this field:
- BTR-80 SKJ – specialized medical vehicle;
- BTR-80 VSF - for RCBZ troops;
- BTR-80 MVJ – a tow truck for equipment damaged on the battlefield with the possibility of simple repairs on site;
- BTR-80 MPAEJ – device for repair and maintenance;
- BTR-80 MPFJ – engineering and technical modification.
In addition to Hungary, a lot of work was done on the “eighty” in Poland and Ukraine. The attention with which engineers treat this vehicle speaks of its enormous potential for modernization and importance in military affairs.
The use of the BTR-80 in Afghanistan and other conflicts did not greatly interest the American military, accustomed to tracked transporters. The situation was changed by the famous Throw on Pristina, which showed the advantage of wheeled vehicles over tracked vehicles in such operations.
As a result, the US Army received the M1126 Stryker, which is based on the Swiss “Piranha” armored personnel carrier and our “eighty”. Comparative tests, meanwhile, showed that Americans have serious problems. Due to the heavy weight of the vehicle and the features of the transmission, the Stryker is more likely to get stuck in the mud.
If a mine tears off a couple of wheels on a domestic armored personnel carrier, it is quite capable of getting to its own.
The American, despite having the same 8 wheels, gets up after losing at least one of them.
Combat use of the BTR-80
From the moment the first vehicles entered service with the troops, they immediately occupied their rightful niche. Not a single military clash that has occurred since 1986 on the territory under the jurisdiction of the USSR, Russia and allied countries has occurred without at least the indirect participation of the BTR-80.
The armored personnel carrier, the workhorse of any conflict, ensured the fast and relatively safe delivery of manpower to the scene of a collision. She also supported the infantry with the fire of her machine guns, and, if necessary, evacuated wounded soldiers.
An indicative case of the competent use of the qualities of the BTR-80 can be seen in the events of August 1996.
In Grozny, units of internal troops were blocked on Minutka Square. There was no possibility of evacuating seriously wounded soldiers. One of the officers, Major Larin, decided to make his way with the wounded on an armored personnel carrier.
Having accelerated, Larin and his crew make their way through the first ring of encirclement, but it was necessary to drive through the entire city. The commander orders false smoke to be lit on the turret of the armored personnel carrier before the next barrier of militants. At the same time, the vehicle is attacked from several sides by grenade launchers.
One of the grenades, having torn off the boxes attached to reinforce the armor on board, explodes near the hull without damaging the engine. The commander orders the driver to slow down without turning off the engine and slowly stop the car. At the same time, the lights flare up, and the complete impression of the machine being defeated is created.
According to Larin’s recollections, the militants rose to their full height, expecting stunned and burned soldiers to climb through the hatches. Instead, the crew turns the KPVT towards the attackers. A burst from a machine gun is accompanied by an order to pick up speed again. This trick made it possible to escape from the encirclement and deliver the wounded to the hospital.
In other wars, skillful hands and a clear head made it possible to use the maneuverability and power of armored personnel carriers with all efficiency.
Trace in culture
The BTR-80, one of the most popular vehicles of recent decades, has made a huge contribution to cinema and video. Everything that is, in one way or another, related to combat operations will definitely be shown by the BTR-80 sooner or later. Thanks to its characteristic silhouette, it is impossible to confuse this car.
It’s interesting that you can see the device not only in movies, but also in numerous videos of music performers.
With a high degree of probability, if they want to depict “something military” in their creations, then the hard worker BTR-80 will appear there. Often these cars are used in small towns on Victory Day.
If you really want to, you can not only fly into space, but also build an BTR-80 yourself and put it on a shelf at home. The Russian company “Zvezda”, as well as the Chinese “Trumpeter” and the Italian “ITALERY” and many others are producing prefabricated models of the BTR-80.
The products are in great demand in China. Our eastern neighbors, passionate about the reconstruction of the Soviet and Russian armies in the Afghan and Chechen wars, are no less interested in this technology than the Russians.
Video
It is the most popular armored personnel carrier in the Russian army. This wheeled vehicle was created taking into account the experience of previous military conflicts. The BTR-80 crosses small water obstacles, quickly picks up speed, and has good maneuverability coupled with weapons, armor for the engine and crew. There is also fire-fighting equipment and radiation protection - a tribute to the capabilities of modern weapons. The main task of the vehicle is to quickly deliver troops to the battlefield and provide cover. In the case of organizing a defense, an armored personnel carrier is dug into the ground, and a tower with a machine gun is turned into a pillbox.
In which troops is it used?
The scope of application of armored personnel carriers is quite wide. If we talk about the BTR-80, the technical characteristics allow this vehicle to be used in a wide variety of troops. It is mainly used by motorized riflemen. In any textbook on tactics you can find schemes for conducting combat in various situations with a motorized rifle platoon and three armored personnel carriers.
High speed and maneuverability make the BTR-80 an ideal vehicle for airborne units. The ability to cross water obstacles and the ability to be transported on landing ships allow it to be used in Marine Corps operations. Eight-wheeled vehicles easily slide down ramps straight into the water, within a few minutes, under the cover of artillery, they reach the shore and begin the assault on land, while under the armor “black berets” are waiting in the wings.
It is also possible to drop equipment from aircraft; after landing, the armored personnel carrier immediately enters into battle. Modern parachute systems allow tanks and armored personnel carriers to be dropped simultaneously with their crew, with minimal risk to people.
The BTR-80 was used as the main vehicle in the wars in the North Caucasus. The troops were transported directly on the roof of the transport vehicle. In the event of a military clash on the way, the soldiers jumped off and took cover behind the armored sides.
For foreigners, the Russian soldier is associated not only with the Kalashnikov assault rifle, but also with the BTR-80. Technical characteristics allow the equipment to be effectively used in anti-terrorist operations. This is the most popular wheeled vehicle in the Russian army; modifications based on the BTR-80 are used by assault units, communications units, artillery, and also as a mobile first aid post.
Appearance
Many combat vehicles have approximately the same appearance as the BTR-80. The photo below is presented for better understanding of the information. The body is made of armored steel, welded rigidly and reliably. The main elements are the bow, stern, sides, roof and bottom. The transport vehicle has a whole collection of hatches: for the winch in the bow, there are also inspection hatches, for the air gun, driver and commander hatches, the fighting compartment and a hatch above the power plant. There is also a wave-reflective shield in front.
The turret is made in the form of a truncated cone and has embrasures for installing coaxial machine guns. Welded from armored steel.
BTR-80. User manual
The armored personnel carrier is driven like a regular car, there is a steering wheel, pedals and a gear shift lever. The new models even have an automatic transmission. The visibility is a bit small for a driver, but this is not a racing car either. The main thing is to see everything that is in front, and the BTR-80 with its mass and power will not even notice what is on the side. It does not have the same maneuverability as tracked vehicles, but is irreplaceable in battles on level ground. The rapid movement of the landing forces will create a numerical and fire superiority at the required points. Blocking streets and certain areas of the city, crossing a river, pinning down enemy infantry with machine-gun fire - the BTR-80 was created to perform precisely such tasks.
Technical changes to the engine
In the 80s, designers of the Gorky Automobile Plant were tasked with creating an armored personnel carrier, eliminating the shortcomings of the BTR-70. The design of the BTR-80 is very different from its predecessor. First of all, instead of two carburetor engines, they installed one diesel engine from a KamAZ vehicle - a 4-stroke 8-cylinder liquid-cooled diesel engine. This engine is less likely to explode, and its volume is 30 percent larger than its predecessor. A turbocharger is installed to increase power. As a result, the BTR-80 has 260 hp and accelerates to 100 km/h. This is in ideal conditions. On the highway - 80 km/h, on dirt roads - from 20 to 40 km/h. Can cross water obstacles at a speed of 9 km/h.
The use of one engine led to other changes. In the transmission, mechanical force is supplied to a 5-speed gearbox through a dry friction double-disc clutch with a hydraulic drive. All gears, except the first, are equipped with synchronizers.
Increased cross-country ability through differential locking
The differential of the BTR-80 has been improved compared to the BTR-70. From the gearbox the torque is transmitted to a two-stage transfer box. Differential distribution is carried out in two streams: to the first-third and second-fourth BTR-80 bridges. The center differential lock is forced and is activated in difficult road conditions. At the same time, the differential locks only when the front axles are engaged. To increase service life and avoid breakdowns due to overloads, the transfer case is equipped with a torque-limiting clutch.
BTR-80 survivability
The armored personnel carrier has bullet-resistant tires with adjustable pressure. After all, how long a given vehicle will survive on the battlefield depends on mobility. The design of the BTR-80 is such that the failure of one or two wheels will not stop it. The technical characteristics are even such that the energy of the explosion will damage only one wheel, and the anti-personnel armored personnel carrier of this model is not at all dangerous.
The desire to provide protection for the crew is understandable, but the thicker the armor, the heavier the vehicle and the slower it moves. The description of the BTR-80 makes it possible to recognize in it the features of the BTR-70; the differences in appearance are insignificant, especially for those not versed in military equipment. The BTR-80 has a longer hull and slightly improved armor. Even in this case, the weight increased by 18 percent - to 13,600 kg. Thanks to changes in the chassis and engine, mobility remains the same. The cruising range, thanks to the diesel engine, has increased to 600 km on the highway.
The firepower of the vehicle has been increased at the expense of the crew. The shooting ports on the sides of the hull are turned towards the front hemisphere, and an embrasure has also appeared, allowing the commander to fire.
Movement on water
An amphibious vehicle can be easily distinguished by its raised nose - the same as that of the BTR-80. The photo above shows the process of disembarking from the ship. A second car is floating in the background, and the first has already reached the shore. Operation of the BTR-80 when crossing a water obstacle is simple. The design includes one water jet with an axial pump located in the aft part. Movement on the water is controlled using the steering wheel. In addition to the two front axles, which move on land, water rudders and a damper help turn on water. An armored personnel carrier is a heavy vehicle, and this could not have happened without it.
Initially, the BTR-80 was conceived without a water cannon, but the naval command needed a vehicle capable of landing from ships and adapted to the needs of the Marine Corps. Marine units - from assault troops to command communications - all sit on the BTR-80.
Equipment BTR-80
The technical characteristics of the BTR-70 needed to be expanded to adapt to the conditions of modern warfare. The BTR-80 was equipped with a BPU-1 turret machine gun mount, the vertical guidance angle of which is 60 degrees. Together with 1PZ-2, it allows anti-aircraft fire. Like a ninja from movies, the BTR-80 can create a smoke screen and hide: for this purpose, the 902B system, which consists of six grenade launchers, is installed on the roof.
At first, the armored personnel carrier, like its predecessor, was armed with a KPVT paired with a PKT.
During the creation of this technology, Afghanistan was the main testing ground for use, however, the designers took care of combat in cold climates. At temperatures from -5 to -25 o C, a pre-heater is provided, designed on the principle of an electric torch device. When the engine warms up, a flame torch is formed from the combustion of diesel, which also increases the temperature.
The R-123 radio station originally present in the armored personnel carrier was replaced with a newer and more efficient R-163-50U.
BTR-80 with automatic cannon
In 1994, a modification of the BTR-80A armored personnel carrier was put into service. For the first time, a landing vehicle was equipped with a 30-mm 2A72 automatic gun, with 300 rounds of ammunition. A similar gun is used on landing troops, as well as on Ka-50, Ka-52 and Mi-28 helicopters. A burst of eight shells from such a BTR-80 cannon can penetrate 120 mm tank armor.
The technical characteristics of the new turret allow it to hit targets with a large elevation angle - up to 70 degrees. Shot range - up to 4 km. The same PKT of 7.62 caliber with 2000 rounds is paired with the gun. All weapons are located outside the habitable compartment so that powder gases do not enter the premises. For shooting at night, a TPN-3-42 “Crystal” night vision sight is installed, the aimed shooting range with its use is up to 900 m.
Other modifications of the BTR-80
The characteristics of the armored personnel carrier allow for its further improvement. For the needs of the internal troops, the BTR-80S was developed, which has a 14.5-mm KPVT gun instead of an automatic cannon. Photographs of OSNAZ units always depict this equipment.
The BTR-80M was developed after a fire at the Gorky Automobile Plant. No one expected that production and equipment would be restored in less than a year, so they used the weaker YaMZ-238 engine, but KI-128 tires are more resistant to damage.
Several variations of command and staff vehicles have been developed for field command posts, for example the BTR-80K, equipped with an additional communication device. Machines were also created to control artillery and establish communications, having large antennas instead of weapons. There is even a self-propelled howitzer with a 120 mm gun.
Cumulative anti-tank shells are a real scourge for armored vehicles. As a result, armored personnel carriers began to be equipped with mesh screens, which also protect against large-caliber bullets. There is experience in installing dynamic protection on the BTR-80, and the chassis is beginning to be covered with screens from the T-72.
Modifications based on the BTR-80 are also being created in other countries.
