How good is the bmp- 3 in comparrison to the bradley ?

[Battlefront.com]

John,

Before I say what I'm about to say, know that I really like the BMP-3. So much so that I almost bought one back in the Wild West Days of Russia. Yeah, no kidding. It was no secret that when pay wasn't regular the base commanders made a lot of shady deals to either keep their guys from deserting or just to line their pockets. It's a long, long story that ended with someone going to jail over here and probably snuffed out when he was deported back to Russia. But what's done is done and I didn't lose a dime in the process (escrow accounts are neat-o).

With that said... the BMP-3 is not a very good IFV when compared to the ones in the West. The problems are numerous, though there are some good points as well. Here is the bad stuff:

First, the interior space is extremely cramped. As bad as the BMP-1/2, despite the vehicle being bigger. I've also been in the inside of a BMP-1 and unless you're a midget with nothing but a bikini on, it's tiny. I forget the exact stats, but if IIRC only 25% of American males could fit in the thing, whereas something like 95% can fit in a Bradley or Stryker. This makes buttoning extremely impractical for any significant length of time, especially for larger soldiers.

Add to this the typical Soviet IFV/AFV problem of extremely poor crew disembarkation ergonomics. But in this case it's worse than the usual since there is no coherent method of dismounting. Let me illustrate!

The two SAW gunners have to climb out of their own individual top hatches at the front of the vehicle, offering them no protection from fire at all while getting out, and no protection to the front or rear.

In the rear compartment there are a total of 7 seats, 2 of which block the exits. In order to disembark the standard way, two soldiers open up the large rectangular hatches, step up onto the engine decking, move to the rear, open up the rear door, then jump down a considerable distance. While doing this they are completely exposed to threats from front and rear, and only somewhat protected from threats to the sides. Every soldier exiting has to risk this same exposure.

This means that if everybody dismounts at once, 1 guy is front left hull, 1 guy is front right hull, and the dismounts are behind to the left and right. This means that someone is always exposed to fire, no matter how the vehicle is parked.

As for protection, with the engine in the back and low there is less protection since the engine offers quite a bit of protection. Sitting to the rear and below the soldier's sitting positions, but not below where they sit, the engine offers no protection.

The other problem I've seen mentioned is the downside of having so many weapons. There is a VERY large amount of ammo in the vehicle and it is basically sitting out in the open of the interior, arrayed along the inside surface of the primary armor. One penetration in any one of a number of areas can, therefore, brew up the vehicle quite nicely.

Now, having said that the vehicle has a lot of positive points. Top speed, acceleration, size/profile, and armaments are all very good. The 30mm gun and it's BMP-2 like ability to shoot at aircraft mean that helicopters want to stay clear of these suckers even if they are at higher altitudes. Armor protection is adequate, but not great.

So it's a mixed bag even by Soviet/Russian doctrine standards, it's an unacceptable vehicle by Western standards. As I described above, this is what makes wargaming interesting

Steve

[ChrisND]

Just out of curiosity, how much were you going to pay for it?

[John Kettler]

Steve,

Good points! What I've seen so far of the infantry compartment of the BMP-3 and BMD-4 is not to be taken in the same vein as what I had to say about the turret and areas forward. What I saw, particularly in the Hellenic Army disembarkation footage, didn't look all that good, but it's still better, I think, than the BMP-1, not least in that there are several ways out. Big, beefy tall soldiers won't do well in any Russian designed AFV, which are sized for a long chronically underfed, hence shorter, Russian. This keeps both AFV size and weight down, but it wouldn't fly with our troops. Have been in a T-62 at NTC and barely got out of the turret in one piece (nasty unfinished protruding metal all over), this in a static tank! By contrast, the M-48A5 I was briefly TC of during my Hughes days had a turret the size of a ballroom and didn't endanger my hide at every move. The impact on both fightability and crew comfort is obvious. BMP-3 footage, though, shows that the turret of same is pretty roomy, as opposed to the horrendous BMP-1 turret and middling BMP-2 turret. The infantry fire from the back of the BMP-3 didn't impress me, but "marching fire" from the vehicle's own weapons definitely did. Very scary, and did you notice the frag plot and lethal area diagrams for the improved 100mm HE frag round? Thought the ATGM material was outstanding, especially given how tight-lipped on such stuff the Soviets were.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Smaragdadler]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

...Just look at how East Germany collapsed... all that military power just sat around and let the government fall. The DDR forces because they were tired of the BS, the Soviet forces because they knew a crackdown would likely result in their demise very quickly...

There are rumors that Honecker wanted to crack the demonstrations in Leipzig with NVA-Tanks, but his advisers could get it out of his head, because a large part of GDR population was trained as Kampfgruppen. (factory militia - trained for urban fighting)

off topic, I know.

-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Groups_of_the_Working_Class