Posted on 02/10/2023 6:04:09 AM PST by marcusmaximus
Putinista.
Bkmk.
I was never on a Bradley so I can’t tell you where the fuel tanks are located.
I’ve seen a reference to upper and lower fuel tanks but I have no idea what it means.
I don’t think the Bradley was designed to counter the BMP, it was more a matter of designing an infantry fighting vehicle that could keep up with the Abrams.
I trained on M60 tanks and worked on M-113 & M-577s and was a TC on an M901, a 113 variant.
I liked the M113 Dragon carrying Scout version best, light, fast and agile with lots of room and hatches for driver, commander, cargo and a ramp.
As a light infantryman senior NCO, I was trained on M113s and had a Bradley platoon assigned to me on combat missions.
They are bad-assed, and would have no issue taking on a BMP.
Bidenista. Memory.
Reads thread: "What snacks go well with bitter tears?"
The BMPT was built from lessons learned during the First Battle of Grozny from December 1994 to March 1995. That war started when Chechens denied their True Russian Heritage ™ by wanting self rule independent from Russia. Russia responded to this unprovoked aggression by invading Chechnya. This was the same cause of the Second Chechen War, the Russo-Georgian War, the Annexation of Crimea, and the Russo-Ukrainian war.
(Does any of this sound familiar?)
During the Battle of Grozny, Chechen anti-tank teams from basements and rooftops destroyed 225 Russian and armored vehicles. The BMPT was (allegedly) built from lessons learned during this battle.
Looking over the design, I wonder if their were lessons learned built in or if it was more of a bureaucratic do-something-then-send-it-to-marketing design. The BPMT has four anti-tank guided missiles, and 600 each 30mm automatic grenade and cannon rounds stored under light armor on top of vehicle, in addition to or five crew hatches. It was designed for urban combat where high elevation fire is needed, which means it was designed expecting to take antitank attacks from above.
Near misses by artillery are destroying T-72s and T-90s by damaging what is not frontal armor. Guided rounds are destroying Russian tanks by direct hits. Ukraine has thousands of spotter drones watching the front lines and extremely good artillery targeting. It should be painfully obvious that putting expensive, rare and vulnerable BMPTs anywhere near the front lines makes them prime targets for precision artillery fire, the one threat that was never part of the design.
To Russia, this is a example of their military technology that strikes fear into the west. To me it is just dumb.
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