New Russian Tanks

Russia Set to Get New 'Terminator' Armored Vehicles

It's difficult to stop and comes with an arsenal of weapons.

Getty Anton Novoderezhkin
 
By Kyle Mizokami

The Russian Federation is set to receive an unknown number of tank support vehicles dubbed "Terminators" in 2018. Designed to support tanks on the battlefield with a withering amount of firepower, Terminators carry a mix of missiles, light cannon, and machine guns that can engage everything from enemy tanks to ground troops.

The BMPT armored vehicle is the result of Soviet and Russian experiences in Afghanistan and post-Cold War conflicts in Chechnya. Soviet and later Russian tanks such as the T-72 were optimized for engaging NATO tanks on the battlefield and were not as efficient at battling guerrillas and light infantry. Guerrillas and light infantry, however, with anti-tank weapons such as the RPG-16 and Kornet missiles, are very efficient at battling tanks. They are also difficult for Russian tankers, sealed up in their vehicles and only able to see out of their armored vision blocks, to identify before they become a threat.

The Terminator is designed to ride shotgun with Russian tanks and rake the battlefield with firepower, killing enemy anti-tank teams or suppressing them so they are unable to aim properly. The BMPT has two 30-millimeter 2A42 autocannons and two 7.62-millimeter PKTM machine guns and will use them to engage probable and identified anti-tank positions. This allows Russian tanks to focus on the job of engaging enemy tanks and achieving breakthroughs.


Terminator accompanied by T-90M main battle tank at the Zapad 2017 exercises.
Anton Novoderezhkin

In addition to anti-personnel weapons the BMPT is also equipped with four 9M20 Ataka guided missiles, which can engage tanks or helicopters to ranges of up to 3.73 miles. There are also versions of Ataka that have high explosive warheads for use against enemy ground troops, and a version exists that uses a thermobaric warhead which disperses a highly combustible gas before exploding, issuing a deadly overpressure wave.

The Terminator is hard to kill, thanks its use of a recycled tank chassis. The thick front glacis armor, reinforced with explosive reactive armor, should allow the Terminator to shrug off everything short of an actual tank round, and perhaps even that.

The U.S. Army has no equivalent to the Terminator. In fact, no other mechanized army does. American armored vehicles, including M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles performed well in urban environments in Iraq, so it's not clear why the Russians feel they need a dedicated tank support vehicle. Then again, perhaps the Russians are on to something.

An unknown number of Terminators are on order, but TASS reports the contract for the armored vehicles placed in 2017 is worth $417 million. That's probably worth at least 100 Terminators, enough for two tank divisions. At least one Terminator has been shipped to Syria, where it was reportedly demonstrated to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It is unknown if it has actually seen combat.