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Russia to Sell 420 BMPs to Greece
By agence france-presse
Published: 6 Oct 16:24 EDT (20:24 GMT) Print | Email

MOSCOW - Moscow and Athens are drafting a contract for the delivery of 420 Russian light-armored infantry vehicles to Greece, Russia's state-run weapons exporter announced Oct. 6.

Rosoboronexport said the deal would involve "brand new" BMP-3M infantry vehicles. No other details were provided.

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"At the beginning of 2008, the Greek ministry of national defense submitted a formal request for the delivery of these vehicles," Rosoboronexport said in a statement.

"The inter-governmental agreement and the corresponding contract are being prepared for their signature," it said.

Greece had decided in December to purchase 450 Russian tanks over 15 years for 1.2 billion euros ($1.63 billion), according to the Greek defense ministry.

The Russian firm's announcement came as a weapons trade show, Defendory International 2008, was set to open in Athens on Oct. 7.





Can anyone comment on this?

Is the BMP-3 a good pick for Greece? What are it's advantages over the other vehicles being considered? What other vehicles were even being considered?

Also, what's the deal with the 450 Russian tanks that were mentioned? I though they were sticking with their Leopards.



-K

We had a thread a while back.

Its purely a political decision, there was no competition involved in the decision to buy them. Same thing that will happen for the new frigates and fighters.

I believe the 450 "tanks" refers to the proposed purchase of 420 BMP3Ms plus 30+ BMP3Fs that will go to the marines.

Any news yet if Greece is still considering the Eurofighter, or are they going to look East?

Charles

Its still in contention, together with Rafale, Gripen and probably the F/A 18E or the F-16 block 60 if funds are a problem. The chance of a Russian buy is close to zero in my oppinion. If the Greeks go for the Eurofighter then the new frigates will be the French ones, if the go for the Rafale, the the frigates will be German, well you get the point

Re the purely political decision, I wouldn't think so, BMP-3M has a number of advantages, and has, not like older Russian IFVs, good FCS and protection. The main disadvantage is lack of BMS, but it may be supplied and installed by foreign company, on an export customer's wish.

Not arguing that but when such a large purchase is just anounced buy the PMs office without a competition its clearly political

What does the Greeks hope to gain politicaly by buying BMPs?? Sure wont make important Nato countries happy (at least not one specific).
If the fighters anf frigates will be British/French and German, they could just as well have choosen US or Swedish IFVs. Or South Korean etc. You get the idea..

Purely political (cheapest unit cost and/or lots of kickbacks). BMP-3 is probably the worst choice for Greece. The odds of a high intensity conflict with anyone in the near future ,even with Turkey, is extremely low. It will be peace-keeping and maybe rotations to Afghanistan.

FCS is meh. The light armor makes it vulnerable to mines and IEDs and is a big drawback for a relatively small country that like other NATO countries needs to limit its casualties in any conflict. The tracks will be a maintenance intensive and expensive in the long run.

They should have bought or developed something wheeled for most of their forces. BTR-90s or LAV IIIs or some such. Maybe Pumas or the native Leonidas-2 for a BDE or two to retain a heavy combat capability.

They should've purchased AIFV, named it GIFV and thus match TurkÜberGav!n's with GreekÜberGav!ns

There are many reason why Greece wants a friendly Russia, and this purchase goes a long way towards that, lets face it Greece and the US never had the best of relations, it is percieved in Greece that in any hypothetical crisis with Turkey the US would remain neutral and since Turkey is far the stronger that is not a good thing. Maybe a counter balance of Russia could avert any potential conflict.

Greece has signed an agreement with Russia and Bulgaria to build a pipeline towards the Aegean thus bypassing both Turkey and Georgia in moving natural gas and oil towards the Med.

Greece has moved from buying American weapons from some time, the biggest exception ofcourse being aircraft, but this might change as well.

As if friendly fire risk is not high enough already since the both use the same equipment more or less botha at sea land and air

Well, could it be just because BMP-3 has the features they want for their marine FV? Amphibious, big gun (also missile launcher), 30mm gun for other targets and lot of MGs.

For once i can see when all those weapons might be needed at the same time.

But the marine variant (BMP-3F) is a rather smaller part of the order. Then, perhaps they want to have a commonality between Marine and Army IFV.

Besides Cyprus is using the BMP3 for more than 10 years now and we seem pretty satisfied with it. Perhaps Russian after sales support is better than most believe it to be.

The marine variant can swim and fire in bad weather, whereas the regular one is certified for calmer seas. But they both do swim pretty well, especially compared to competitors that don't.

Are they getting the additional side armor kits? The one that adds protection from .50 caliber AP and 14.5mm ammo?

Speaking of .50 caliber AP and SLAP ammunition does anybody know their penetration capability in mm of RHAe?

Well, that was kind of my thought too. I wasnt the one who brought up the political dimention to the deal, just replied to it. Well if we dont have any actual Greeks to ask, I guess Mistral is the second best option so I wont qestion him

Lampshade111
--> http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/infantry/mg/50_ammo.html

And again who really needs an IFV that can swim? Marine IFV/AAV yes, but Mech INF IFV? MBT's can't swim and IMHO IFV are totally in wrong place if they are not supported by MBT's. Especially as we all know that swimming IFV are generally more weakly armored that those non-swimming ones.

Most probably no if one of the selection criteria has been the ability to swim as AFIAK BMP-3 loses its swimming feature with that protection kit

I don’t think so. BMP-3 can swim with the Auxiliary armour shields as well with the Add-on explosive reactive armour kit.

http://www.kurganmash.ru/en/machines/bmp3u...tection/shield/

http://www.niistali.ru/pr_secure/br_dz_light.htm

Greece needs tracked IFVs for her heavy forces. For ops like ISAF, KFOR she will acquire 84 wheeled IFVs.

Ok. I stand corrected.



But why swimming IFV for Heavy forces? LEO2A6HEL can't swim!

As many noted before, the decision was mainly political. But the capability of the vehicle to swim is very useful especially in the Thracian theater.

A video of a Greek M113 crossing a river.
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=mmObUoCBSE4

Well, the Greek have lots of water of all kinds, so I can see why they can appreciate amphibious capability more than many others.



No, it can still swim with them. And this is a pretty amusing story. With the original version of uparmor kit that we developed for the Emirates, BMP-3 could no longer swim. Because we basically reasoned like you, only more so - why would Emirates of all countries want an IFV that swims. To the amazement of our designers, the customer said that they'd be interested in this upgrade if and only if the floatation properties of the vehicle are not compromised. So our people had to take the uparmored BMP-3 for a swim in the Persian Gulf to demonstrate this. Go figure...

There was a discussion on this a while ago:

http://208.84.116.223/forums/index.php?sho...05&hl=BMP-3

I must admit, the uparmour kit, with the addition of the grill armour looks very impressive. I shouldnt like to go swimming with all that though!
http://www.niistali.ru/pr_secure/bmp_en.htm

Well if firepower is the name of the game I can't think of ANYTHING close to the firepower in the BMP-3 made by ANY Western country or any other nation for that matter. The only thing I can think of comparable is some of the IFV's made in the 1980's in Europe that had options for 90mm guns, but usually these "fire-support" version were not really made so much for the crew transport that the lesser armed variants with their 20mm to 40mm guns were. I guess you could stick one of those Israeli 60mm high-powered auto cannons on an APV/IFV (That the Israeli's armed some of the Super-Shermans with) and modify and put something together to be competitive with a BMP-3. But off the shelf in terms of raw firepower you can't beat the BMP-3 in that regard, with the downside being generals may change their tactics and try to use them as tanks and they do not have the protection and armor to be fielded in this manner and their survivability is slim against anything more than .50 cal. rounds.

Have you ever swim with any Russian/Soviet made IFV/APC? Yes I thought so too... it just is a thing that no normal human being would like to do while sober...usually 0.02 gives enough bravery... * Really one of the scariest things that I've ever done in my life was the swim with BMP!:



*Standard disclamer: It was a joke. I haven't and I wouldn't ever drive with any vehicle while under influence of alcohol....

What is the difference compared to other vehicles and in particular western ones? Compare BMP with other tracked amphibious IFV & APCs like M113, AMX-10P.

Well...according to manual it is normal that the vehicle leaks water inside...it is not allowed in western types (at least not in FDF). Driver has 0% posibbility to get out of vehicle it it sunks as the hatch is under water during "drive" in water...BMP is nearly impossible to stop in water and very hard to control it in water (for example IOT avoid collision)...over all "driving" with BMP in water is more like being in row boat with only one oar.

In case BMP-1/2 This is all due the design of vehicle as it doesn't have any kind of trim vain and it is only powered by its tracks in water. BTW BTR-60 is bit better due its propeller but way worser than XA-180. Unfortunately I don't have experience with any wester tracked IFV's/APC's in water.

Most pictures of BMP-3s with ERA I have seen show the vehicle using the larger square blocks, instead of the newer, slightly smaller, design. Does anybody know which type of ERA blocks would be "standard" for production? Also has anybody ordered ERA kits for the BMP-3 or shown interest in them?

Ref: KFOR
Outside of "look at our new toys" What for?
They are only 300m from the US operated multinational base. Anything that would threaten them would be delt with by a vast and rapid amount of objects far nastier than a wheeled IFV.

CV, BMP-3 is propelled by twin water jets and all hatches are above water, so should provide for a less harrowing experience than you describe

All BMPs have trim vain.

BMP-2
http://tanksinmoscow.com/Kubinka/Foto3/BMP-2_05.jpg
www.defencetalk.com/pictures/data/3506/BMP-2%20Divya%20Astra.jpg

BMP-3
http://tanksinmoscow.com/Kubinka/Foto3/BMP-3_13.jpg
http://img348.imageshack.us/img348/9279/bmp3052xz5.jpg

BMP-1A1. Greek BMP-1A1 crews during river crossing operation, always have their hatches open as you can see.

Rather a frontal wave breaker. Most of western designs (M113, M114, M2 Bradley even Sherman-DD had one) has all around Trim vain that prevents water to go over hull level. see: http://images.google.fi/imgres?imgurl=http...iFI284%26sa%3DN



Sorry man but you just can make those kind of accusations if you haven't done it by your self! Please read at least one properly done book before you come to tell these theories of yours...Because majority that you show to as is total BS!

According to Russian manula and FDF orders: You should never ever swim with your hull hatches open due the possibility of getting water in from open hatch as you don't have all around trim vain. A mater of fact Russian manual orders all hull hatches to be closed during swimming and those are also ordered to seal with special watertight paste that is supplied as a part of IFV's own gears (I've got no clue about its ingredients but we used to call it "bears sh*t" by its looks) - also rear doors are sealed. You can see why from this picture: http://tanksinmoscow.com/Kubinka/Foto3/BMP-2_05.jpg
BTW 1: you can also see in above picture special swimming periscope (that also belongs to every IFV gears) that is about three times longer than the normal one and is put during swimming in place of drivers middle periscope. And this due the waves going over the hull.
BTW 2: Notice that in photo above the BMP-2 looks like its swimming straight and its hull line way over water line, but that is just what the angle of this pic lies.
In fact normally it is only the left side of BMP-2 that is well over the waterline as all BMP-2's have a bit slanting way of swimming due the extra weight that transmission and engine causes to right side as those are situated bit off the hull centerline.

Most of those BMP-1 photos you posted doesn't show swimming. Couple of those show how it is done going in and out from the water - not actual swimming - and others most probably wading over streams than swimming. The last photo though is interesting (I've seen couple of other similar Russians too), it seems to be possible to swim with BMP-1 (I haven't seen though any photos of BMP-2 doing that) while empty (no INF Squad, INF ammo, crew and INF Squad gears, RPG's, AA-missiles or IFV's own ammo inside = about 3,1 tons lighter as the swimming weight that is 13t +-2%) hatches open if there is calm waters. Russian manual though say that it is not allowed - besides it is just purely stupid to drive any hull hatches open if in combat situation no mater are you in water or in land because you can't the traverse turret electrically.

Still this is seems to become just some kind of CV bashing event...while there still is no real comments on the issue.The issue was originally in post 19 usability of swimming in heavy forces IFV...

Sorry to disappoint you but I’ve done it with M113A1 and with BMP-1A1. M113 does not have all around Trim vain.

That is true. My mistake. As I said don't have any experience on western designs.

Question: Do you really swim across rivers with hatches open and with fully loaded vehicles? Is there some modifications to allow you to not use same safety regulations that the manufacturers manual says?

BTW I checked both the user's manual (made by FDF based on most important parts of all original Soviet manuals) and translated technical manual both say in "Chapter: Usage of BMP-1 on waterborne oparations" as I stated earlier.

The only open hatches are the ones of the crew. Passenger hatches stay closed. As far as I know, the only problem the army had, was with M113 when the upgraded them with diesel engines. But the problem was solved.

I would think that bmp-class (1/2) vehicles are no better or worse in swimminig compared to it's contemporary track-propulsive designs ( as M113). Swimming capability is seriously poorer than in Btr-60PB for instance but i wouldn't think that as decisive factor. I remember that regulation in ussr manual for water objects diagonal flow was 1,25 m/s and "wave" height max some 0,2- 0,25 metres which is about maximum conditions that earlier bmp's can operate in optimal conditons. I have hard time believing that contemporary vehicles AMX or 113 would do it considerably better. Those conditions limits use of bmp in water in river crossings or small lakes in good, recoinnainsed spot in normal weather. I think that in modern world that kind of ability is considered useless in many doctrines ( which it probably is..) but in mass offensive soviet doctrine these have their place.

On contrary we do have remember that water driving system of bmp is idiot proof: was it three switches to switch and off you go to swimming. Of course peace time it is: one week of inscpection of the vehicle to be qualified proper to water Steering with tracks is a bit difficult in water, you must stop turning some 45 degrees before wanted direction or you go spinning all the way Hull lays low in water but i wouldn't fear that unless there would be all the gear and men inside. More scary would be finding a proper "landing" spot in unknown river bank. When slope is small and beach is solid it's no problem. But in bad conditions trying to get shore with mud base, when tracks are not completely getting grip of the land and tracks are not propelling the vehicle in water either: that i would consider a scary..

No, in the U.S. Army your "frontal wave breaker" was technically called a "trim vane" (or sometimes, informally, a "surfboard").

Nor did the M114 have an all-round "water barrier", in addition to the M113, as someone else has noted.

http://www.tpub.com/content/carrierpersonn...-261-10_323.htm



TM 9-2350-261-10 STOW TRIM VANE 3. WARNING Buoyancy pods add weight to trim vane. Personnel can be injured and equipment dam- aged. Raise and stow trim vane slowly. Have helper assist. Avoid being caught between trim vane and hull or ground. 1. Raise and hold trim vane in stowed position. Have helper assist. 2. Pull trim vane quick release handle. Align quick release with extension linkage. Release quick release handle to secure trim vane in stowed position. END OF TASK 2-218 Change 1

As far as I know, UAE ordered 50 ERA kits for their BMP-3, but no one else has bothered.

I stand corrected, Thanks.