73mm gun on Soviet IFVs

[Redwolf]

Is anybody able to make good use of the 73mm gun on the Soviet IFVs? I would have expected it to be at least as effective against infantry as a Sherman 75mm gun. But they very rarely fire that gun (not that they have much ammo in the first place).

I play with the BRM-1, which only has the 73mm gun and a MG (no ATGM). Even with specifically using the target command it prefers to fire the MG. "target light" doesn't seem to do its usual thing of engaging the MG.

Anybody got any tips? I'm limited in anti-infantry options.

[MikeyD]

BMP-1 73mm gun is basically a 'super RPG', a tube launched HEAT warhead rocket. I don't know if it is as bad in real life as it is in the game but you're lucky if you can hit the broad side of a bar with it. Very rarely it surprises you and puts a hole in an MBT but I wouldn't stake the outcome of the battle on it.

[Amedeo]

As you know, the 75mm M3 gun mounted on the Sherman was a superb HE-chucker, superior, in this role, even to the long barrelled 76mm gun.

The 73mm gun on the BMP-1, as Mikey wrote, is a glorified RPG. It was intended mainly as a short range AT weapon to give the BMP a token capacity to engage enemy AFVs in the dead zone of the Maliutka ATGM. Yes, it has also an HE round but its fragmentation capabilities are vastly inferior to those of the US 75mm HE shell, not to speak of its poor accuracy and short range. 

Summing up: it might be of limited use against not dug-in infantry without significant AT assets (and even a Dragon ATGM counts as significant in this regard), but don't expect the BRM-1 to be a mini assault gun. You should think about the BRM as an enhanced BRDM, not a scaled down ISU-152!   

[Bufo]

It is exactly like an SPG-9 (fires the same ammunition  as well) if that gives you any idea. We could have it in CMCW, I hope it will come in a future DLC.

[Pete Wenman]

2 minutes ago, Bufo said:

an SPG-9 (fires the same ammunition  as well) if that gives you any idea. We could have it in CMCW, I hope it will come in a future DLC.

It's already in CW

P

[The_Capt]

6 minutes ago, Bufo said:

It is exactly like an SPG-9 (fires the same ammunition  as well) if that gives you any idea. We could have it in CMCW, I hope it will come in a future DLC.

No lie @sburke bagged an M1 with this thing by hitting in the behind in the Soviet Campaign.

Edited May 1, 2021 by The_Capt

[Bufo]

4 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

No lie @sburke bagged an M1 with this thing by hitting in the behind in the Soviet Campaign.

Ah cool I didn't have that much time yet to play the game, and the TO&E page doesn't list it.

[nik mond]

Yep it can penetrate armor 11-14 inches, really, wow. The HE has to be loaded by hand with the weapon returned to a neutral orientation. My impression, in game I've seen it use HE on supply trucks, but it will follow up with the MG after, I've also seen it follow up again and use heat on soft targets. 

[Thewood1]

12 minutes ago, Bufo said:

Ah cool I didn't have that much time yet to play the game, and the TO&E page doesn't list it.

Its in the manual...page 59.

[sburke]

23 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

No lie @sburke bagged an M1 with this thing by hitting in the behind in the Soviet Campaign.

actually 2 and in the same turn.  High point of that scenario before I got utterly pulverized.

[SimpleSimon]

A low velocity 75mm HE-slinger used to be pretty common on tanks in general, and there was a lot of use for it against all kinds of things. The one on the BMP has the added benefit of being more useful against armor than something like the KwK L/24, F-34, or even the M3 on the Sherman which was like the King of those tank guns. The PG-9's armor penetration is something like 300mm-400mm against RHA as opposed to the L/24's 112mm with the best HEAT charge they ever made for it. That's enough to get through the M60A1's front plate in theory. 

Big picture though is that anything that slings an HE-Frag charge out to more than a kilometer away shouldn't be difficult to find a job for. The HEAT round is just a bonus. It's an IFV that can be used like the StuG and might even be far better thanks to its coaxial machine gun and full protection from battlefield HE and NBC for its infantry mounts. Yeah the Soviets switched an autocannon with the BMP-2, but at the time the BMP-1 was designed nobody was using subcaliber munitions for autocannons yet and it wasn't exactly easy to engineer any autocannon with a selectable HE/AP feed that didn't use complicated box magazines. (The Americans had rejected several submissions prior to accepting the Bushmaster M242 into service.) 

Edited May 1, 2021 by SimpleSimon

[SimpleSimon]

double post 

Edited May 1, 2021 by SimpleSimon

[MikeyD]

Quote

Yep it can penetrate armor 11-14 inches

Hah, that's pretty close to the penetration of a 152mm Shilellagh missile! (Shilellaghs had notoriously bad penetration stats).

[Bufo]

14 minutes ago, Thewood1 said:

Its in the manual...page 59.

I meant the official site (battlefront.com), I am not in front of my computer, only using my phone.

Edited May 1, 2021 by Bufo

[Redwolf]

How do you run a recoiless rifle in a AFV turret? Does it have a dedicated exhaust port?

[Thewood1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2A28_Grom

[FogForever]

I had some SPG-9s available in one of the Soviet Doctrine scenarios.  I happened to unload them in front of a previously unseen and clearly dazed US ATGM team.   Combined, the 2 SPG-9's were able to put 12-14 rounds of ammo into the ATGM position in 60 seconds.  The explosions were large enough to be satisfying.  I was actually happy with them. The only problem is they used up half their ammo in that one turn.  Checking out their BTR carrier, there is 9 rounds of resupply for the two SPG teams.  So each team will only get 4.5 rounds of ammo resupply which is probably good for maybe 20-30 seconds of fire.   Time to send them back to base.  They have had their 2 minutes of fame.

 

---Just double checked.  Each still has 17 rounds on hand.  Probably enough for another 3 minutes of fire before running out.  Although the rounds are heat rather than HE and I am not sure if they are good against infantry which are the available targets at the moment.

 

 

Edited May 1, 2021 by FogForever

[Ryujin]

7 hours ago, Redwolf said:

How do you run a recoiless rifle in a AFV turret? Does it have a dedicated exhaust port?

It's not recoiless in this setup, just low recoil with a small charge launching it out of the gun before the rocket lights.

 

[LongLeftFlank]

10 hours ago, Amedeo said:

As you know, the 75mm M3 gun mounted on the Sherman was a superb HE-chucker, superior, in this role, even to the long barrelled 76mm gun.

The 73mm gun on the BMP-1, as Mikey wrote, is a glorified RPG. It was intended mainly as a short range AT weapon to give the BMP a token capacity to engage enemy AFVs in the dead zone of the Maliutka ATGM. Yes, it has also an HE round but its fragmentation capabilities are vastly inferior to those of the US 75mm HE shell, not to speak of its poor accuracy and short range. 

Summing up: it might be of limited use against not dug-in infantry without significant AT assets (and even a Dragon ATGM counts as significant in this regard), but don't expect the BRM-1 to be a mini assault gun. You should think about the BRM as an enhanced BRDM, not a scaled down ISU-152!   

Yes, ISTR the Syrian SAA reverted to 73mm BMPs for urban counterinsurgency fighting; the 30mm autocannons just go in one wall and out the other. Just the opposite of the Red Army in A-Stan which found it needed main guns with 'reach'.