The Ukranian BMT-72 - Insanity.

[PlasmaKrab]

pdoktar said:Finally somebody got the IFV concept right.

Yes, except for the whole infantry part
The problem you have on this design that you don't have on the Merkava, is that the engine is on the rear of the vehicle.
The whole seating arrangement looks even more cramped and unpractical than on a BMD. The idea of a narrow foldout armored causeway alongside the engine block, well... it may sound good on paper, but I'm not sure how the troops supposed to usse it would take it.

Best bet IMHO would be to re-engineer the tank that little bit further, flip the chassis back front and retain the front armor (at least) to keep a decent troops compartment at the rear.
Or reverse, go at it like with the Achzarit, put the troop compartment and exit ramp on the front. But I'm not sure the gunbarrel would like the whole ramming-into-buildings assault tactic.

[MarkSheppard]

The russians have actually looked at the engine in front idea, and rejected it because of damage to the engine in case of a penetrating hit.

They wanted a tank which can drive from East Germany to France, despite being knocked out and having their crews killed 3-4 times; a lot of minor hits can kill a lot of the crew, without significantly impairing the tank's mobility or firepower; allowing it to be repaired and put back into action once more after hosing out the dead crew.

Replacing an entire engine compartment after it took a APDFS round and stopped it is a bit more complicated than slapping armor plate over a 105mm APDFS hole and repairing spall damage in the driver's compartment...

[PlasmaKrab]

OK, I get the point.
I was more familiar with the Israeli idea that a trained crew is the hardest thing to replace in a tank, meaning that the engine was there to buffer shots for the crew, not the other way around.
Given the Soviet doctrine of that time, the idea that the crew is more easily replaced than major systems makes some sense, except regarding troops morale... (and electronics-rich control systems that might not be very spall-proof, by the way)

Anyhow, isn't the whole point of these tank-IFV hybrids and the heavy APC BTR-T/BMP-T series about protecting the infantry and the crew?

[loktarr]

PlasmaKrab said:

Given the Soviet doctrine of that time, the idea that the crew is more easily replaced than major systems makes some sense, except regarding troops morale... (and electronics-rich control systems that might not be very spall-proof, by the way)

After all, it's a WW2 proven doctrine. T-34s were back in combat up to 10 times before being disabled. Cost was something like 10.700.000 deads, more than the total of Israel population.

[Marek_Tucan]

To be fair most of these deaths didn't come to crews of T-34's. They had a significantly better chances of survival than the cannon fodder.

[Suhiir]

MarkSheppard said:
They wanted a tank which can drive from East Germany to France, despite being knocked out and having their crews killed 3-4 times; a lot of minor hits can kill a lot of the crew, without significantly impairing the tank's mobility or firepower; allowing it to be repaired and put back into action once more after hosing out the dead crew.

OK, learned my new thing for the day.
While I knew the Soviets weren't as concerned with casulties as the NATO nations I didn't realize they went so far as actually planning for their equipment to survive the crew.

[badger45]

They weren't, it's kind of urban legend. Soviet construction schools, whether on tanks, aircraft or submarines (e.g.) were always concerned about the crew in a normal way, AFAIK there is no proof to say nonsense like "crew matters less than engine". Engine forward is not found on any major soviet tank as well as on any US, British, French or German tank.

[AMX]

PlasmaKrab said:
Or reverse, go at it like with the Achzarit, put the troop compartment and exit ramp on the front.

Actually, the Achzarit doesn't have a front ramp - it has a rear exit, connected to the crew compartment by a narrow passage along the engine.

[PlasmaKrab]

Actually, the Achzarit doesn't have a front ramp - it has a rear exit, connected to the crew compartment by a narrow passage along the engine.

OK, my bad, it doesn't. Then are Israeli engineer APCs used to ram building walls for quick assault bakc first? I have heard of this practice being used in some rare cases for assaulting buildings under fire.

[Marcello]

"They weren't, it's kind of urban legend. Soviet construction schools, whether on tanks, aircraft or submarines (e.g.) were always concerned about the crew in a normal way, AFAIK there is no proof to say nonsense like "crew matters less than engine"."

Exactly. They did toy with the front engine idea:
http://www.morozov.com.ua/images/p78-2l.jpg
http://www.morozov.com.ua/images/p87-1l.jpg

Neverthless they rejected it, probably for the same reasons everybody else except the israelis rejected it.