Russia's Rare Terminator Fighting Vehicle Is Vanishing
The BMP-T's niche has disappeared
This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.
Russia’s rarest armored fighting vehicle (AFV) just broke cover for the first time this year. The heavily armed BMP-T Terminator is back! Just don’t expect it to make much, or any, difference on the ground in Ukraine.
The BMP-T exists to escort tanks and shoot up the infantry ambushers who hunt them. The problem for the 90th Tank Division, the sole confirmed user of the 48-ton, five-person vehicle, is that infantry ambushes are rare these days. The main threats to Russian tanks are mines and drones. And to mines and drones, the BMP-T is just another target.
A photo circulated online recently depicting a BMP-T with add-on anti-drone protection. It’s one of just 20 or so the Russian vehicle-maker Uralvagonzavod has ever produced for the Russian army. That makes it one of the rarest fighting vehicles in an army with tens of thousands of tanks, BMP-2s and BMP-3s and other AFVs.
The BMP-T is special. It’s not as well-armed or well-protected as a tank, but it’s better-armed and better-protected than a standard BMP infantry carrier. With its small turret cradling twin 2A42 30-mm cannons firing 300-g shells at a rate of around 200 rounds a minute, the BMP-T can lay down a lot of firepower.
“The most important thing is to support the tanks,” a BMP-T commander told the Russian state newspaper Izvestia. That emphasis on tank support is why the BMP-T doesn’t carry infantry passengers, unlike other BMP models that are primarily infantry carriers.
Ukrainian forces have destroyed or damaged several BMP-Ts since the type first rolled into action no later than early 2023. Late last year, Uralvagonzavod produced a small batch of new BMP-Ts to complement the initial batch of 12 vehicles.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.
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Well clearly its twin 2A42 30-mm cannons are not much good against drones. I wonder if the Russians have thought about optimizing their Terminators as anti-drone platforms?