The BMP-1: Really that bad?

[Sulman]

I've been playing 'Trident Valley' (it ships with CMSF) a fair bit as it's good fun and ostensibly a straight fight between blue and red; a company on each side.

Any Steel Beasts Pro PE player knows to be wary of the BMP-1; it doesn't usually survive long enough to get within gunnery range but if you're in a 70's MBT like the Leo 1 or the T-72M1 the 73mm HEAT armament is enough to embarrass you from any aspect.

In the scenario, playing red, the Bradleys were an absolute terror, and I was surprised how difficult they were to kill with BMP-1's, even in a well-organised flank attacks. I think (I'm still not sure if it was the BMP or ATGM fire) I managed one gun kill, but I saw at least half a dozen hits to the M2 side armour, with no apparent effect. The Brad's main gun went through the BMP's like they were paper. I was very impressed.

Surviveability is correctly awful, too. I kept the dismounts well away from the vehicles as it was clear any pixeltruppen in the BMP's when they get killed tend to become casualties. I'm sure the high red bodycount in a few scenarios is entirely down to the BMP's ability to cook infantry, and the AI's tendency to be very rigid about dismounting only when at objectives.

Learning to use IFV's properly is one of the fun things about CMSF; they're not easy to use offensively but it's hard to see how the BMP is anything other than a battle-taxi, vulnerable as it is to pretty much everything.

[Erwin]

The question is always whether the game is a form of propaganda re how great "our" toys are vs how awful "theirs" is. Steel Beasts is an almost official US Army sim trainer, so...

[Sulman]

The problem is always whether the game is a form of propaganda re how great "our" toys are vs how awful "theirs" is. Steel Beasts is an almost official US Army sim trainer, so...

Perhaps, but Russian kit can be a fearsome opponent in Pro PE. I find CMSF 'easier' as blue, if that makes any sense.

[Combatintman]

The BMP-1 is no great shakes though. Shocking ergonomics, one-man turret, unstabilised gun and early generation ATGM with poor optics and very low profile mean that the gunner is at a severe disadvantage when trying to acquire and engage targets.

[Vark]

Also like to add its a 50's design that was operational in the 60's, not surprising it gets taken apart by a Bradley. Try it against some M113's and see how it fares.

[Bradley Dick]

Yeah, the sabot for the 25mm is actually pretty devastating for earlier light armor in real life. So, it's modeled accurately, afaik. However, the idea of the US Army using training to make our equipment seem better than the enemy's seems to be in opposition to what I experienced. It seemed like everything they threw at us in training would always be worst-case scenario engagements where Russian armor was rolling at us with reckless abandon. This was before the shift from major power armored engagements to the low-intensity counter insurgency training that has been popular over the past few years.

[Vark]

Also, IRC, the OPFORS simulated capability was deliberately far in excess of the reality, especially regarding individual weapon systems and crew proficiency, but I don't think Erwin's comment was aimed at the professionals but BF.

As for the BMP, remember it was originally designed as a super battlefield taxi that could safely and speedily carry troops through NBC zones and eliminate any shattered survivors it encountered, not duke it out with heavy armoured forces.

[Erwin]

I was thinking more of the guys who mde Steel Beasts considering their customer base. I actually enjoy playing Red vs Red in CMSF, where the BMP series shines.

[MikeyD]

It also all depends on which Bradley you're talking about. Firing a HEAT round into the side of an ERA box Bradley is an exercise in futility. A lower grade non-ERA armor Bradley is much more killable. Bradley's front composite ceramic armor has been reported in one or two sites to be equivalent to 100-120mm steel or so, armored-up specifically to stand up to BMP-2 cannon. Bradley's achilles heel seems to be TOW missile internal stowage. If its penetrated the chances are fair that its going to go off like a bomb.

[Sulman]

I saw precisely this after an ATGM hit during one scenario. The Brad went up with an enormous boom, and took out a whole squad near it, too

[LongLeftFlank]

The BMP was one of those "camel is a horse designed by committee" designs, intended to be a NBC-hardened amphibious APC.... and oh yes, it should also give every infantry squad organic tank support and ATGM capability. As with the Bradley and Warrior, the moment you put a turret on the thing you start degrading its core function as an infantry battle taxi and it becomes an overweight and underpowered jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none, as well as a logistical resource hog.

ISTR that in Afghanistan the 40th Army began husbanding their BMP1s since the 73mm gun was deemed a lot more effective vs muj positions than the autocannon on later designs.

[akd]

ISTR that in Afghanistan the 40th Army began husbanding their BMP1s since the 73mm gun was deemed a lot more effective vs muj positions than the autocannon on later designs.

I thought it was the opposite due to the elevation limits of the BMP-1 gun in comparison to the BMP-2 (or perhaps that was Chechnya).

[Sergei]

No doubt both had their benefits, depending on the battleground. When fighting on a high plateau or attacking a village the elevation limits don't matter as much.

Vehicles like BMP are great operationally - a fast, ABC-resilient, amphibious IFV that can hold the line against main battle tanks of the time is just what the doctor ordered for warfare in the European theater during cold war. Red Army had to cross many great rivers during WW2, it would have been a lot easier had they had something like BMP. You just couldn't do that with something like the Bradley or Stryker!

Now, for a truly bizarre line of vehicles try the BMD... With only seats for 4 passengers it almost begs the question of is it really needed in the first place. But I think it takes some crazy nuts to agree to be thrown out of an airplane inside an 8-ton vehicle!

[LongLeftFlank]

Yes, BMD reprsents even more of that mindset. While having VDV desantniki running amok in the Frankfurt area in light armour shooting up NATO airbases, nukes and supply dumps was the kind of out-of-the box thinking favoured by the "Ogarkov group" in the mid Sixties, by that time large scale WWII style airborne drops were unthinkable in the SAM era. On the other hand, having a light IFV that could be carried on a cargo plane made the Soviet threat to intervene in Egypt in 1973 (103rd VDV was actually flown to Belgrade) more credible.... Of course, the Israeli heavy armour would still have chewed them to bits.

For clarity, the BMD crew jumped separately, not in the vehicle, and I think the bulk of the stores -- ammo, fuel, etc were on a separate pallet. Also, the crew were considered part of the paratroop squad. The idea was that without a logistics tail, these things weren't going to have that long an operating life behind enemy lines, so they'd serve their tactical purpose and then either become bunkers or be abandoned.

One does have to admire the creativity of the thinking (lest anyone be under the misapprehension that the Soviets were human wave robots). The weaknesses tended to be in inconsistent quality of execution, not design.

[Vark]

Didn't the Russians study WWII operations and conclude the critical factor was exploiting the surprise of the initial landing to quickly seize the objectives. Airborne forces, using the BMDs, did not need to be dropped onto the objective but could move considerable distances, fighting through any hastily created blocking positions or repelling counter-attacks and still achieve their mission objectives.

Most Western paratroops I talked to were quite envious of their Soviet counterparts mechanised ability and the additional firepower it brought. As for fighting MBT's, if you are you have cocked up your pre-mission intel spectacularly, Arnhem anyone? As for not using them because of SAM's the Soviets spent an awful lot of time practising to do just that, then again they were experts at maskirovka!

[Sergei]

They did develop a method of dropping the BMD with a two-man crew. The problem with the original method of dropping the vehicle and the crew separately was that they tended to drift far apart, negating the shock effect of having AFV's operating on ground at the get go. In the worst case the enemy could reach the vehicle before the crew, or block the crew from reaching it... or the crew might not even find it if dropped at night.

I think if the Russians ever go to Moon, they should base the lander unit on the BMD.

[Sergei]

And while discussing the Soviet airborne AFV's, we should also pay our respects to the ASU-57 and ASU-85 airborne assault guns. ASU-57 weighed less than half of that of a BMD and could be dropped with its crew, and this was in the 1950's.

I really love German and Soviet WW2 assault guns. Just think if the Germans had had airdroppable StuGs in Crete... hmm, Fallschirm-Sturmgeschütz or FStuG! Of course Locust was cool as well. And the early glider tankette designs...

[LongLeftFlank]

But they'd also put a lot of study into minimizing dispersion (e.g.dumping all the guys and gear out together at the absolute minimum safe jump height, tethering men to pallets, etc) after studying WWII. I'm sure they claimed that they could drop the crew in the vehicle, and even experimented with same, just like the Pioneers could supposedly throw up a functioning rail bridge in 24 hours and so on. Speaking of maskirovka.

The message, of course, was propaganda. "Resistance is futile; we can be in Bonn in 48 hours. So play nice."

[MikeyD]

I suspect if, in some alternate universe, the US had fielded some of the Russian equipment and the Russians had our we'd be praising our US-designed T72s and BMPs to the skies while mocking and belittling their M113s, Bradleys and Humvees. I recall how we had borrowed a few Italian Centauro 105mm gun armored cars for training in anticipation fielding MGS and had a laundry list of harsh critisicm of the vehicle. Our own MGS arrives for testing and list of problems was even longer! In Iraq it was briefly declared 'operationally ineffective' pending much-needed fixes.

[LongLeftFlank]

Yeah, at the end of the day it's stlll the guy behind the weapon (or underneath it with a wrench) who matters most.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

Well, I might match it against a Stryker except the guys inside have the Javelin ATGM :cool:

[Vark]

Yeah, at the end of the day it's stlll the guy behind the weapon (or underneath it with a wrench) who matters most.

Or in the case of the BMD, the man who packs the chute or maintains the retro rockets! The BMD also is very useful to the Russian film industry as it makes quite a good vismod early war BT5/7.

As for rail bridges in 24 hours, they once spanned the Vltava bridge in less than that, when repairs to one of the major bridges was needed, and that was in the early seventies.

All this talk of desantki with light armour makes me pine for a Cold War gone hot module. Imagine the screen on your computer showing little BMDs storming forward against a hasty NATO blocking position. Or your ASU-85's desperately trying to stop the German M48's from breaking through and praying (no atheists in foxholes remember) for the OMG's lead T-64BV's to arrive. Really think BF are missing a trick, the number and type of scenarios available would be truly amazing, given the variety of forces involved.

Finally what about the SPRUT SD?

[dpabrams]

All this talk of desantki with light armour makes me pine for a Cold War gone hot module.

Bump, bump. Who cares for a Putin vs the US in the Ukraine 2014? Not me. How many of us Cold Warriors would freak over CM 1985?

[Combatintman]

It would definitely be on my must buy list and depending on the nationalities modelled with some modding you could do a lot of the withdrawal from empire conflicts as well as the obvious what-if Cold War gone hot stuff.

Not saying that I wouldn't buy the 2014 Ukraine scenario but I just see it as an updated version of what we've got already in CMSF. It would be so much better to pitch M48s, M-60s, Centurions, Chieftains and Leopard 1 tanks against T-55, T-62, T-64 and T-72.

[Vark]

It's not only the range of armour available in a 1980's module but the variety between similar tanks fielded by the various armies. I also think that the 80's would be a perfect mixture of technologies, with few vehicles able to accurately engage at CMSF ranges and most ATGW's, though deadly against older armour, severly resticted by modern composite armours/reactive armour. I do feel though that the C&C system would have to be changed to reflect the differing command styles of the combatants, otherwise an M60 would be relatively the same as a T-64, just a bit higher in profile!