BMP1/BMP2 vs Bradley

[TBlaster]

I was surprised to see the BMP2's 30mm be so ineffective against Bradley's. At least in the games I played I see 30mm rounds bounce off Bradley armor even at point blank range. Is the main gun of a BMP1 a bigger threat to a Bradley than the 30mm of the BMP2? Is the Bradley armor really that effective against 30mm rounds?

[Nemesis Lead]

I am no expert on this, but I remember the Bradley being criticized because it could not stand up to a point blank 125mm APFDS cannon round (I have seen video of a Bradley being destroyed in testing--it was in one of those documentaries objecting to what appeared to be a boondoggle DoD project).

Bradley armor is serious stuff. It is not 125mm proof, but I am not at all surprised that 30mm fire has no effect.

[thelmia]

I think the M2 was originally built to take 23mm fire.

It has been upgraded since the 80s with all manner of armor add- ons.

The BMP-1 has a low velocity, slow- firing gun. The BMP-2 has an autocannon. The autocannon will have an easier time hitting, and should be able to get a kill if you try hard enough. I wonder if the BMP is using the AP ammo.

The BMP-1 gun isn't all that accurate and relies on a HEAT warhead rather than velocity for penetration. The Bradley has reactive armor to stop that. I have not tried it in game but it shouldn't work that well.

In Steel Panthers 2 the BMP-1 gun was godlike. Not terribly accurate.

[rudel.dietrich]

Vehicles in the game are using the 'wrong' ammo for targets

If you look closely BMP2 are using 30mm HE ammo on armoured targets instead of their SABOT ammo

If any military people read this who served in IFVs/APCs

What is SOP as to what sort of ammo to use on what targets?

We are disscussing this down in beta land and would like to know what is realistic before any changes take place

Thanks!

[MikoyanPT]

In game the BMP 2 sometimes fire 30mm HE rounds at Bradleys, useless.

Sometimes fire 30mm AT rounds, can kill after 20 or 30 shots even if at point balank, and are killed after 4 or 5 rounds of 25mm rounds from the bradleys.

The ATGM fired from BMP2 however are very efective against bradleys even at close range, but they usualy first fire HE rounds, stop, wait, fire AT rounds, stop, wait a lot, fire atgm, score a kill.

Its rare they have that chance.

I know that because my gaming pc if off duty with CM:SF because of the ATI left click crash issue.

So i am at my old PC trying to make a scenario in wich a Bradley cavalry unit assaults a stronghold defended by uncon infantry and a squad of BMP2 hiding behind buildings.

So i often engage at close range with BMP when Bradleys are busy trashing the infantry in buildings with 25mm fire.

My conclusion after about 5 rounds tryed has defender. The Bradleys are too powerfull to face, the defenders dont stand a chance.

So i am swaping to red vs red and swapp the bradleys and hummves for a squad of BMP2 and a recon unit with BRDM2.

[MikoyanPT]

Originally posted by rudel.dietrich:

Vehicles in the game are using the 'wrong' ammo for targets

If you look closely BMP2 are using 30mm HE ammo on armoured targets instead of their SABOT ammo

If any military people read this who served in IFVs/APCs

What is SOP as to what sort of ammo to use on what targets?

We are disscussing this down in beta land and would like to know what is realistic before any changes take place

Thanks!

What you mean by SOP.

Dont need to be a military man to know that firing HE at armoured units will get you killed well before the enemy.

No need to be in the military, you can play ToW and find by yourself, they model it realisticaly, and you can chose wich ammunition to fire also.

Oh and talking about the beta. Why are my ARMOR in quick battles appearing has UAZ jeeps and recon detachment of infantry most of the time.

[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by MikoyanPT:

Oh and talking about the beta. Why are my ARMOR in quick battles appearing has UAZ jeeps and recon detachment of infantry most of the time.

Because you're playing a BETA.

[Sgt.Rock of Easy Company]

If I recall correctly, all modern western IFV's have an armor standard set by the BMP-2's 30mm autocannon. Whether this means that they are designed to just stop it from the front or all sides, im not sure.

So in my opinion, the Bradley stopping 30mm autocannon from the BMP-2 is not that unreasonable. As for the 25mm penetrating the BMP-2 rather easily; if I recall correctly as well, the US 25mm, although being one of the smallest autocannons of the Worlds IFV's, penetrates the most at (I believe) 90mm at point blank range and retains veloctity fairly far. Whereas (I believe again) the BMP-2's autocannon can only penetrate either 40mm or 60mm and its round loses velocity fairly fast.

No idea on the BMP-1, except that the strykers take all forms of BMP-1 without casualties in-game (from all sides, except the ATGM in all situations).

Also, the Bradleys armor is a make-up of mostly aluminum with a spall liner (and some other stuff I forgot, damn I wish I could find my books :mad: :mad: )

[ August 01, 2007, 06:39 PM: Message edited by: Sgt.Rock of Easy Company ]

[MikoyanPT]

Originally posted by molotov_billy:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by MikoyanPT:

Oh and talking about the beta. Why are my ARMOR in quick battles appearing has UAZ jeeps and recon detachment of infantry most of the time.

Because you're playing a BETA. </font>

[Hub]

The 25mm chaingun on the Bradley can fire a depleted uranium sabot round (the M919) that will penetrate roughly 66mm of solid steel armour @ 90 degrees from 1500m.

The performance for the M791 APDS-T 25 mm round is roughly 48mm for the same armour, angle, and distance.

The APDS round fired by the 30mm 2A42 gun will penetrate 25mm of solid steel plate at 30 degrees at 1500m (31mm estimated for 90 degrees)

[Zipuli]

And please notice they don't have the APDS round in the BMP-2 in this game - maybe due to it not being used by Syrians (I think not many use it actually). The basic AP round used is quite bad in real life too, and it SHOULD NOT penetrate Brad. And it should have hard time against Stryker's front armour too! The thing that makes BMP-2's 30mm A/C great is the HE round and its rate of fire.

BMP-1's HEAT has more penetration, but it's slower to fire, more inaccurate and BMP-1 has no stabilizer to fire accurately on the move.

Zip

[Splinty]

I was in Bradleys in Desert Storm, we had the A2 models, we actually switched back to HE to take out BMPs and MTLBS because at ranges of 1200 M or more we couldn't tell if we were killing them because the APDS was going right through the enemy without any visible damage effects. We switched to HE because the rounds would set the BMPs etc. on fire. The APDS did kill the Iraqi stuff, we just couldn't tell.

[jjhouston]

Originally posted by rudel.dietrich:

If any military people read this who served in IFVs/APCs

What is SOP as to what sort of ammo to use on what targets?

We are disscussing this down in beta land and would like to know what is realistic before any changes take place

Thanks!

From the old Bradley gunnery manual, FM 23-1 (1996). Note footnote 2 indicating that ranges given are for APDS-T rather than for APFSDS-T.

[John Kettler]

TBlaster,

The vanilla BMP-2 was quite capable of destroying a vanilla Bradley frontally, which is precisely why the Bradley underwent an applique up armoring program. This was later followed by the addition of ERA. BTW, the 30mm gun on the BMP-2 is specifically designed as a dual purpose weapon for use against

ground targets and what Suvorov called the "flying tank," the attack helicopter. Because of this, the BMP-2 has a marvelous MOUT capability in that it can reach targets the Bradley can't. Helps to be able to fire almost straight up!

Regards,

John Kettler

[jomni]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

TBlaster,

BTW, the 30mm gun on the BMP-2 is specifically designed as a dual purpose weapon for use against

ground targets and what Suvorov called the "flying tank," the attack helicopter. Because of this, the BMP-2 has a marvelous MOUT capability in that it can reach targets the Bradley can't. Helps to be able to fire almost straight up!

Regards,

John Kettler

Ahh so that's why I was able to effectively shoot down a helicoper with my BMP in Steel Panters MBT.

[track]

Well just try 30mm vs. a Stryker. It is hilarious to see how it takes half a minute of auto-cannon fire to disable an armored car. Strykers must have space age armor.

[John Kettler]

jomni,

If it was a BMP-2, that's why. I can also tell you that in the analyses I did, they were bad news for A-10s. For that matter, in laser instrumented tests conducted in the 1980s, reviewers were horrified to discover, in going over the video tapes, that Red forces had successfully engaged A-10s with tank main gun fire.

track,

If what was said elsewhere in the thread is true, and the BMP-2 is only modeled as having HE (why, I don't know), then I'm not sure how well that would work against the slat armor. Offhand, I wouldn't be surprised to find a lot of rounds either breaking up or deflagrating because of differential stresses on the projectile body. Further, I suspect the slat armor could take a bunch of hits (remember round to round dispersion?) while still remaining substantially intact. This would seem to be borne out given that some slatted Strykers have taken a bunch of RPG hit (way more powerful than a 30mm HE burst)

and survived. The basic MEXAS armor array is designed to defeat only projectiles through the 14.5mm KPVT API, NOT the 30mm on the BMP-2--in any form.

Regards,

John Kettler

[gmfrank]

I also have observed a startling ability of strykers to shrug off sustained BMP-2 autocannon fire.

A MGS took a pretty serious pounding for almost 2 full turns from 2 BMP-2s at about 400-ish meters. It took its time during those turns and blew each to hell with its gun. No casualties to the crew, but I don't recall what type of vehicle damage (if any) had occurred.

Off hand 30mm bursts (HE or AP) seem like they should shred a stryker pretty bad...

[track]

With the normal AP ammo load it should be cheese with few bursts. But not in this game. It is not a tank.

[The Bluesman]

I played a QB where a company of Strykers drove very slowly across the map and shrugged off 30mm fire for ages. After a while there were a few mobility kills and much of the equipment was shot off them but I had few, if any proper penetrations. Luckily for me neither the MGS platoon, nor any of the Strykers fired back (I don't know where the infantry were).

[track]

Noticed this with after few encounters between the vehicles. Perhaps they made Strykers way too tough in oder to make them withstand those RPG-shots?

Stryker is supposed to be the hero of this game?

[Zipuli]

"With the normal AP ammo load it should be cheese with few bursts."

Nope, the normal AP ammo on BMP-2 is really crappy. The penetration is really weak. I should know, I've fired enough of that stuff... The gun is used in helos, yes, but still the AP ammo sucks. The newer APDS ammo is a bit better, tho I think it's only used in Russia + few other eastern european countries (like Chechz?), but definately not in ME.

Like some of you said, the AA and MOUT capability is very good. TC has a AA-sight and the elevation goes almost straight up. But only few degrees down... The vehicle needs to be almost vertical to be able to fire straight ahead.

Zip

[ August 02, 2007, 11:53 AM: Message edited by: Zipuli ]

[track]

Don't know about 30mm ammo specs, but at least 14,7mm HMG puts holes into BTR hull easily. Tried and true.

Strykers are modern, but they are still wheeled APCs. It cannot be that almost a minute of 30mm fire would do only superficial damage?

[Zipuli]

For example AMV is also just a wheeled APC but the version we bought has enough armour to take 30mm APFSDS in the front and drive on. Or at least that's what they say, and why would that NOT be true as it is 100% sure tested. Actually saw one of the shot up hulls from tests, but didn't have time to see what it was shot with. Same armour level as in CV9030Fin...

Yes, and that extra armour means it can't swim. They are so heavy... BTRs can all swim and their armour is as pathetic as in BMPs. BMP-2 has max armour of 23mm in front turret lol.

Zip

[track]

A minute of 30mm bursts to the side and it is toasted. The protection values they give are the optimal ones. Fired against the best protection and at pre-determined angles.

I still remember the fuss about Bradleys' armor not beign exactly what it was supposed to be.

As an example upgrade a Pasi-APC with some extra armor and anti-RPG grills. Would like to be inside it if someone fired at it with 30mm cannon for one minute?