The Mighty BMP-2

[Geskes]

Pilots,

 

As a former army officer in the dutch armed forces I really like to fool around with creating ground force scenarios. Last night, I had a russian force of some bmp's and t-80's attack a village in the middle of the night. The village was protected by some m1a2 abrams, IFV's and TOW HMMWV's. The idea was to first create a scenario where the russians would win and then have the player in his A10 turn the tide.

 

The T-80's where to break trough on the east side of the line and then attack the west side from the flank and rear. On the west side of the attack formation I had only put some BMP-2's figuring they wouldn't break trough and get hammered by the m1a2's.

 

However, the bmp-2's AT-5 missile outranged everything I had on the USA side. They took out a platoon of m1a2's and 2 TOW HMMWV's from kilometers away without even getting a single shot fired at them.

 

Now of course the in-game yankees just sat there without maneuvring or showing initiative but still this kind of surprised me so I went on the internet looking for answers.

 

AT-5 range : 4,000m

TOW range : 3,750m

M1A2 range : up to 3km to be effective against modern armor.

 

Now, this is just internet data but seemingly, the BMP2 does in fact outrange everything in the conventional western inventory??

 

Anyone with accurate knowledge care to debunk or comment on this?

[Soulreciever]

Not exactly knowledge, but i think the 3km M1A1 rmax is against, let´s say, a T90 with state-of-the-art armor, not against an outdated BMP-2.

 

It´s not the case that the projectile drops flat down after 3km, it´s just not as powerfull anymore.

But how old and well armored is a BMP-2?

 

In the german army they said a close range shot with the old G3 could penetrate the armor and harm the inmates.

[Geskes]

Yes, BMP2 armor cannot be great, indeed could very well be penetrated by 7.62 at short range. In any case its defintely not a modern armor package. We had APC's back in 2000 that could be penetrated by 7.62 rounds. Maybe the game's tanks only fire at maximum effective range regardless of target. Also I wonder how effective an AT-5 is in real-life against an M1 tank considering they are known to have taken multiple relatively close-range hits from ATGM's in Iraq for example. I also read a M1 got stuck in the sand and had to be abandoned, they tried to destroy it with rounds from another M1 but didnt succeed.

 

Anyways, 4km is pretty sick range. Modern systems like Javelin can't even reach 3km as far as I know.

[aaron886]

Targeting would be the real limit of range for the AT-5 at that distance, right? Can't be easy. (Shot in the dark here.)

[Moa]

In the 2006 Lebanon War Hezbollah did not try and kill Merkava directly with AT-5. I guess this was because the AT-5 was judged not effective enough. Arguably the M1A2 has better frontal protection than the Merkava (although lower crew survivability on hull breach).

 

Instead Hezbollah appear to have been trained to ambush tank commanders exposed in open hatches. This is where a large number of the casualties on the Israeli side came from. Once the Israelis tanks and infantry got close enough they made mincemeat out of Hezbollah (the latter still talk big, but it is telling they are not active over the border as they were before that War). Clever tactics by Hezbollah (eg. experienced Iranian instructors).

 

If you think the BMP-2 is lethal wait until you fly over a BTR-80 in your Hog. Their manually aimed optical sights do a vastly better job than the radar-guided Shilka (at least in FC2, have not tried in A-10C yet) - plenty of "huh?" moments there.

[Geskes]

Yes I'd guess as its just wire-guided like TOW and I don't know about the optics they've got but it cant be anywhere near what a modern MBT has. This engagement was at night so even harder but don't know if day/night actually influences ground vs. ground combat in the sim.

 

I am going to run some tests on BMP vs MBT, see what happens.

[Squid_DK]

Longest maingun kill by a tank was in excess of 4000 meters in the first Gulf war, the record was set by a brit Chally 1 firing a HESH at a T-72, at that range the LRF was unable to calculate the return signal but the gunner took a shot using manual tables.

Also both the Leopard 2 and the M-1A1 (And the M-1A2 used in DCS and FC2) fiels the Rheinmetall L44/55 120mm gun, it is more accurate than the british 120mm rifle, at least when it comes to APFSDS rounds (Spin degrades their penetration aswell as their accuracy)

 

Staffan

[Geskes]

OK I ran the tests and my initial observation was incorrect.

 

In all 4 scenarios the BMP's got killed as they should be. In one test a M1A2 took 3 hits and was still OK. In the final test a M1A2 goes down after 3 hits. I didnt notice a difference between just day or night in engagement range but definitely the bmps were impaired by fog/bad weather. The bad weather does hurt range more at night. In good conditions the tanks will fire first, at the exact same moment the BMP's stop advancing and start firing. But in bad conditions the tanks will fire and the bmp's are not firing back.

 

This was a 2vs2 scenario with 2 tanks at one end of the runway and 2 bmp's advancing towards the other end of the runway. Engagement started well before the bmp's reached the runway in good conditions at about 3500m, in bad conditions just when they are about to hit the other end of runway about 3100m and in very bad (night + rain/fog), bmp's keep on advancing.

 

In any case, I couldnt reproduce the BMP outranging the M1A2 in sim. Guess the crews in the tanks of my battle from yesterday had just fallen asleep :)

On the other hand, only in very bad conditions can the tanks get away with firing and not getting return fire. And they are not that accurate...

 

Well about the shilka's, I saw them performing a nice feat yesterday. They were taking out the mavericks that were shot at them by my wingman. It was from long range and the missile wasnt as fast anymore. The shilka took 4 or so of them down before getting hit. I dont know how they are in fc2 or bs (never get fired at by shilka's :)) but they have gotten to me in the a10 a couple of times already. If they are to your left or right and you see them you have plenty of time to dodge but if you dont see them it can go pretty fast. They do tend to aim short in my experience. Also the rain of shells bursting from the shilka's looks awesome in this engine.

Edited October 20, 2010 by Geskes

[aaron886]

Thanks for the update... sounds like good news!