What Happened to Russia's BMP-Terminator in Ukraine?

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Written by Chris Cappy and Justin Taylor
Edited by: Michael Michaelides

The BMPT Terminator isn’t a tank, and it’s not an armored personnel carrier, nyiet it’s the world’s first Tank Support vehicle! The terminator is specifically designed to increase survivability in the only location tanks are notoriously vulnerable: urban cities. On May 18th 2022 Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency confirmed the deployment of a company of Terminators alongside a few T-72 Tanks in the Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine. Videos of the scary looking vehicles quickly circulated around Russian military blogger telegram channels and a lot of hullabaloo was made over how these BMP Terminators would protect Russian tanks in the key battle for the city of Severodonetsk. This would be their first major combat test. So what happened to it since then, did it really work as promised? And does its tactics and doctrine really live up to all the hype? Is it going to travel from the future to take out Sarah Connor? Let's answer these questions and more!

Task & Purpose is a military news and culture oriented channel. We want to foster discussion about the defense industry.

#WAR #TANK #MILITARY

[Taskandpurpose]

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[ivanstepanovic]

In Afghanistan, the Soviets started using ZSU-23/4 to protect its convoys in mountainous regions. Now, ZSU is an anti-aircraft gun, but it also means it can elevate its guns very high and hit targets other vehicles couldn't. And it does have 4x23mm guns, so the volume of fire is outstanding. However, it was not well armored (had only a steel plate, 10mm thick). Thus the idea for a vehicle like this... Auto cannons with high elevation, but also some armor...
Now, they have too few of them and since those vehicles aren't your standard kind of vehicles, there is a massive confusion about how to use them. Seems like they are learning the hard way... Again...

[bobobo]

The Terminator is NOT comparable to 2 anti tank soldiers, let alone 2 bmp's and a rifle platoon. The reason infantry are dangerous are that they can attack from many different positions at the same time. A Terminator is like Rambo standing alone.
A Terminator is like a rifle platoon standing together in one spot.
It gives enemy a single large target rather than many small ones.

[victorious]

I watched the interview of the chief constructor of the BMPT. In short, what he said can be summed up as: "We took the specifications of the Ministry of Defence and made the exact opposite."

The Army requested a highly protected vehicle that can support tanks during the attack and in urban warfare, but the engineers thought it would be better to give it "a long hand and a sharp sight", because Heinz Guderian wrote that a tank should engage the attacking enemy from an ambush (true for the Wehrmacht in 1944 but irrelevant for what the Russian Army actually wanted). So they installed for instance the 2A42 30-mm cannons instead of the lighter and more modern 2A72 version, because the 2A42 is more accurate and can thus fire at longer ranges. Then they added the Ataka-ATGMs which were completely unprotected because the vehicle was not intended for use in combat at close range, and also some very cool but expensive sights for this stuff. Early versions came with the 40-mm AGS-17 grenade launchers but they were removed, because the engineers decided that the vehicle should operate at long ranges.

As the chief constructor puts it himself: "They wanted a sledgehammer - we built them a microscope." And he was really proud saying it. Except for the part that the military clearly ordered a heavy armored sledgehammer, not some high tech long range sniper wunderwaffe. Maybe that is why this vehicle which was first shown in 2000 has not been accepted into the Army for so long and is in service only in very small numbers now. Not only they don't have the tactics to use it - it's not what they wanted in the first place!

[Waldemarvonanhalt]

IMO this is a pretty neat-sounding concept if they could manufacture IFVs to have these kinds of turrets. I remember reading that the Russians resorted to using Shilkas (armoured AA) during the battles in Grozny, due to their ability to elevate their guns to very steep angles.

[dmitriik.]

Omg, I think it’s the first time Chris pronounced a name of a Ukrainian city correctly! 😂

[Reaperman]

I will say that they've made a fairly threatening looking vehicle there. The rockets give it a bit of a Robocop ED-209 vibe.

[grim]

There were two recent videos of terminators one comming in and supporting infantry positions and another of it assaulting a part of a city. The firepower they can laydown is impressive.

[lexslate]

Those Terminator turrets look very vulnerable. Like, any hit up there could disable those guns, and then it's just a moderately-armoured box wandering around and feeling sorry for itself. Oh, hey, our host said that too. Heh.

[artnull]

“The whole Genisys of the terminator program” - I see what you did there Cappy 😂

[alaingabriel]

Take a look at the Canadian Skink from 1943. It was originally designed as an anti-aircraft armored vehicle (20 mm quad mount in an armored speedy turret) but the Luftwaffe became much less of a menace in the last year of the war so the Skink was obsolete before it was put into mass production. But they sent the three prototypes to Europe anyway and they found out that the Skink was great for very quickly "cleaning" German infantry positions entrenched in villages and towns. There's a great article on it in Wikipedia.

[tba]

"One BMPT will replace 2 BMPs and a motorized rifle platoon."
_-Uralvagonzavod Tank Factory press release_

Oh yeah, of course: one machine with a couple autocannons will absolutely be able to do the same spotting, screening, and anti-infantry work that two IFVs - also with autocannons - accompanied by fifty mechanized infantrymen can do. That totally makes sense, and is definitely not some marketing exec's fantasy about what he thinks his potential custsomers want to hear.

[SworBeyE]

It seems more likely that the few Terminators in existence were sent to the front for a short period of time as some sort of combat test/evaluation. It would make sense for them to be withdrawn quickly before one could be destroyed and the images posted all over social media

[bloodgulchpatrick]

It's not BMP "Terminator", it's BMPT "Terminator".
BMP stands for "Combat Vehicle for Infantry" (Infantry Fighting Vehicle), while BMPT stands for "Combat Vehice for Supporting Tanks", so T in the name is for Tanks, not "Terminator", which is a nickname.

[pertinaxt]

No man, you are not the only man who remember Mammoth tanks :D keep it coming, we love your stuff in Slovakia, do some video for Slovakia as you did for Latvia, Lithuania and Scandinavians pls :)

[rrolf]

I'm just an armchair strategist, with an old engineer's interest in the technology. But I saw a video of one of them firing, and one issue became immediately clear.

The design has two 30mm autocannons close to each other, and both with muzzle breaks. Every shot produces a lot of gasses directed to the sides... and at the other gun. Both barrels were shaking like mad from this interference. Who needs accuracy when you have mo' daka, right?

[mrcalevans]

I've learned more from these videos then I ever did from any pre-op brief or post-op debrief....

[isamu]

Very informative. I always thought "gun elevation and depression" was a measure of how happy or sad you were based on how many modular muskets you own.

[gerritvalkering]

While I have no doubt that the vehicle is great at clearing out infantry from an urban area, just like similar vehicles were used in WW2 by pretty much all the various forces, I feel the Russians still kind of missed why you really need the infantry support when you engage in urban warfare. The problem, to my admittedly relatively inexperienced mind, is visibility and target acquisition. Sure, you can smoke the third floor window, but you still can't watch them all, or keep an eye on all the doorways at the same time. And every side street, especially if that too has doorways. And behind you. The only place you probably don't have to watch for surprise anti tank rockets is right in front of you, and even that is a maybe.

[gtfawaynotnow]

I’ve seen a few vids of the terminators in kremenaya. Their role from what I could discern is sort of a level 2 support for destroying dug in troop fortifications.

Based off what I seen they can in theory engage 3 targets at once but so far the max I have witnessed is 2.

Aka the main cannons were ripping at one target while one of the grenadiers was suppressing a fox hole.

I haven’t seen it in urban combat yet but it does very well at suppressing the enemy in rural combat.

I think once the staff figures out how to best use the thing then it can be a beast.

As mentioned earlier it currently seems to be used as a “level 2” support unit now. Meaning if the bmp’s(being what I call level 1 support) have trouble with enemy fortifications they will then ‘call in’ or “summon” a group of 1-2 terminators which also seems to be accompanied by 2-4 MBT’s on average.

Afterwards they form a killing box with the MBT’s on the flanks and the terminator in the middle with 1-2 drones overhead doing spotting and surveillance.

The terminators then lay in overwhelming firepower generally in a straight line of fire while the MBT’s lay in firepower from an angle.

It’s very effective.

I’m not sure Chris’s numbers are correct and/or the build strategy may have been changed.

Based off the info I seen now that none of the terminators are ‘new’. They instead fit the terminator turret onto existing t-72 hulls as part of a modernization program.

Chris’s numbers seem to reflect more of the hull being freshly produced instead of being re-used.

I’ve also seen vids of troop feedback stating that the optics are very good on the terminators granting them very good visibility/situational awareness.

Lastly, all logical data aside it looks like one sexy death machine tho.