The introduction of the modernised BMP-2 solved one of the main issues with the BMP-1, namely its outdated 2A28 73 mm low-pressure gun. It was also one of the first combat vehicles to offer full NBC-protection, meaning that it could (in theory at least) fight its way through chemical weapons and radioactive fallout likely to be encountered on the battlefield of WWIII. As was typical for Soviet armoured vehicles, it featured a very low profile and proved to be both rugged and reliable. The vehicle was the first true modern infantry fighting vehicle, being able not only to transport the infantry to the battlefield, but to stay in the fight and provide supporting fire to the infantry squads once they had dismounted.
It isn’t hard to realise how this came to be. Note the BMP-1 being described as providing “Mobility, firepower and troop protection excellent by U.S. US educational poster from the Cold War showing the Soviet ‘Big 7’. While the tanks of the Soviet armoured groups changed rather dramatically during the cold war, the classic lines of the BMP was a mainstay of the operational manoeuvre groups poised to fight their way through the Fulda Gap from their introduction in the mid-sixties up until the fall of the Soviet Union, and onwards to this very day. Few post-war armoured vehicles can rival the fame of the BMP-1/2 family.
0 kommentar(er)
