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BTR-70**FINISHED***


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I had thought I had finished this GB, but today an item arrived in the post. When I was building the BMP-2 I mentioned that there was a considerable debate about the relative merits of the expensive tracked BMP and the cheaper wheeled BTR, and that in the end it was decided to use far more BTR than BMP. At the time I placed a kit on back order, and here it is.

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I decided against the original open topped BTR-60 and went instead for a late version of the improved BTR-70, and it seems I should just have time to build it before the GB finishes.

 

Pete

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  • 2 weeks later...

I thought I had better make a start on this if I want to make the deadline - the box says there are "80+" parts but 32 of those comprise the suspension, drive shafts, wheels and tyres so hopefully it will be fairly quick. Here are the sprues.

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and here is the underside of the hull with the suspension etc added.

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In my build thread for my BMP-2 I mentioned that when the Soviets started looking for a new APC towards the end of the 1950's there were two competing design philosophies. The BMP family of tracked vehicles were designed to convey infantry alongside tanks right on to the battlefield and were not only to protect them from small arms fire and shell splinters but also from the expected effects of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical warfare. With this in mind they were equipped with airt scrubbers. To get maximum benefit the BMP had both cannon and missile armament and the infantry were provided with rifle ports so that they could fight from within the vehicle for as long as possible. This made them actually amongst the first of a new class of transports - the Infantry Fighting/Combat Vehicle. However they were somewhat cramped inside and rather expensive to build, so in the end they were allocated only to the Russian equivalent of the WWII German "Panzer Grenadiers", and the majority of troop transporting was done in the simpler and cheaper BTR-60/70/80 series of wheeled vehicles which initially were a sort of 8 wheeled armoured "truck" With 8 wheel drive, steering on the front two axles, adjustable tyre pressure controlled by the driver and water jet propulsion for river crossing they were fairly mobile off road though not perhaps as good as the tracked BMP. More later.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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11 hours ago, JeroenS said:

That's a lot of those parts already off the sprues. 

Certainly is - in fact there are now only 6 parts left as this is going together pretty quickly!.

First I completed the lower hull by adding some handrails and steps.

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Then I glued the wheels on, sandwiching the rubber tyres.

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I put that aside to dry whilst I assembled the turret and stuck lights, handrails etc on the upper hull, before priming it and painting it roughly in a light sand /pale stone colour - the lower half is in Soviet/Russian standard light olive "Zashchitniy Zeleno" whilst the upper half will be in a 3 tone camo scheme.

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 Once the halves are dry I will join them together.

 

Back in the late 1950's as I mentioned earlier the Soviets were in two minds over their proposed Infantry Fighting Vehicle, so as well as the tracked BMP they asked for designs with wheels and had either 4 or 5 submitted. Curiously those chose one from GAZ (Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod) which did not in fact fit the specification for a fully enclosed vehicle as the troop compartment had no roof, and GAZ did not really provide adequate facilities for the passengers to fire on the move as they felt it was impracticable! I have read that they made the choice because it was a simple vehicle with little "advanced technology" so should be more easy to produce in quantity, reliable and cheap, and also because they had a relationship with GAZ who had been producing lorries and wheeled armoured cars for the Red Army since the 1930's so felt that they were better equipped for the production than some of the other contestants. The layout was driver and commander in front under a roof and up to 16 infantry on lateral bench seats in an open compartment which could be fitted with a tarpaulin cover to keep out the weather. The engine was at the rear but as GAZ could not find a suitable single engine they mounted 2 x 6 cylinder petrol engines, one on each side driving only 2 of the axles ie one driving the first and third axle and one driving the second and fourth which meant it could still move at reduced speed if an engine packed up. A heavy machine gun could be mounted on a pedestal at the front of the open section. The machine was named the BTR-60P BTR standing for Bronetransportyor, and the P for "amphibious", as a water jet was mounted at the rear. Within a few years the Army managed to insist on a roof being fitted to reduce vulnerability and this resulted in the BTR-60PA. Because of the design there was no rear door and access to the troop compartment was through hatches in the roof which was not exactly ideal. A small turret similar to the one used on the BRDM-2 armoured car was fitted mounting  both a 14.5mm heavy mg and a coaxial 7.62mm one and the BTR-60PB had improved sighting arrangements.

 

Numerous variants were produced over the years and when Soviet production ended in 1976 it continued for several more years in other client countries - Wiki say around 25000 were made for the Soviet Army alone.

 

More next time

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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:popcorn:

Back in autumn of '88 I was on an anti-tank camp in the Finnish Armoured Brigade. Took a ride inside a BMP-1, BTR-60PA and an MT-LBv, and on the rear deck of a T-55 and a T-72 to get a better idea what the armoured grenadiers can see outside or what the tank riders can see around them. Not much in either case. The cross country ride clinging to the low turret of the speeding T-72 was no joyride but I enjoyed it anyway. Also saw the three personel carriers approaching and then landing from a lake, not a very high profile or a very good target! A few years later one of our BTR:s sank in another lake, seven young conscripts were trapped in it and lost their lives. Made me dislike the BTR:s even more than I had before, when I had only hated them. V-P

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45 minutes ago, vppelt68 said:

:popcorn:

Back in autumn of '88 I was on an anti-tank camp in the Finnish Armoured Brigade. Took a ride inside a BMP-1, BTR-60PA and an MT-LBv, and on the rear deck of a T-55 and a T-72 to get a better idea what the armoured grenadiers can see outside or what the tank riders can see around them. Not much in either case. The cross country ride clinging to the low turret of the speeding T-72 was no joyride but I enjoyed it anyway. Also saw the three personel carriers approaching and then landing from a lake, not a very high profile or a very good target! A few years later one of our BTR:s sank in another lake, seven young conscripts were trapped in it and lost their lives. Made me dislike the BTR:s even more than I had before, when I had only hated them. V-P

Interesting but rather sad. Many years ago, when I was working in a well paid job and had a bit of cash to spare I was seriously considering buying a surplus FV 432 APC - somebody had bought a batch and was selling them off. I decided it was impractical but I rather liked the thought of a roofed BTR-60PA or PB - our terrain and climate is probably nowhere near as severe as yours but the idea of an amphibious 8x8 to get up and down the hills when we had snow, with the added advantage of being able to wade through floods had a certain appeal, as did the fact that they are clearly designed to work in severe winter conditions. Shortly afterwards my employer decided to "downsize" and I was made redundant so the idea was never taken any further.

 

Pete

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Everything is now on except the wing mirrors and I have put a first coat of camo paint on.

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Not too bad.

 

As I mentioned last time the original BTR-60P was basic and did not entirely satisfy the original requirements, even after a roof was put on so in 1972 the "improved" BTR-70 entered service. The armour was slightly thicker and it had more damage resistant tyres with the tyre pressure control system. The original lateral bench seating was changed to be like the arrangement in the BMP with seats arranged lengthways on the sides and in the middle - this reduced the capacity to 9 but by that stage policy was to use smaller infantry squads anyway. An NBC air filtration system was fitted and GAZ made an attempt to allow the passengers to fire on the move with a row of small rifle ports on the side, and in the later 1976 modification which I am building they also added 4 ports in the roof. A door was provided on both sides between the second and third axles to allow the infantry easier access, but although uprated to 2 x V8 engines with more power it still ran on petrol which was not considered entirely safe so production switched quite early to the BTR-80 which had a single diesel engine and various other modifications. I don't have a number for how many were built but it was certainly a lot less than the BTR-60 series and also the BTR-80 which is still in production and has been used in strength in the Ukraine.

 

Pete

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Those rifle ports were of course designed for the ubiquituous Kalashnikov assault rifles. The AK-47:s have their front sight bead rather far back, as the Finnish assault rifle m62, 7,62 RK 62, has the sight near the tip of the barrel. Thus we couldn't stick our guns through the ports at all, but the armoured jaegers in the Armoured Brigade had to be equipped with Kalashnikovs.

 

Oops... Sorry to hi-jack your thread Pete, that's a very good looking BTR model you've built! V-P

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37 minutes ago, vppelt68 said:

Those rifle ports were of course designed for the ubiquituous Kalashnikov assault rifles. The AK-47:s have their front sight bead rather far back, as the Finnish assault rifle m62, 7,62 RK 62, has the sight near the tip of the barrel. Thus we couldn't stick our guns through the ports at all, but the armoured jaegers in the Armoured Brigade had to be equipped with Kalashnikovs.

 

Oops... Sorry to hi-jack your thread Pete, that's a very good looking BTR model you've built! V-P

Hi V-P - feel free - any info is always useful and anyway I do it all the time myself:whistle: . I believe that in the BMP the ports were provided with special AKM guns and kit to provide an air-tight seal and to extract the fumes when they were fired, but clearly that was not the case in the BTR-60. Not sure about the later versions as they were supposedly "NBC proofed", but in any case aiming them would have been difficult, particularly when moving, so the result seems to be usually classed as "suppressive fire" at best. 

 

Pete.

Edited by PeterB
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  • PeterB changed the title to BTR-70**FINISHED***

Well, that did not take long - a definite possibility for a "Blitzbuild" if anybody is looking for a subject. The parts are well moulded with little flash and the fit is pretty good. The instructions could be a little more helpful in showing the alignment of some parts, but are otherwise fine, though the painting instructions not only give no idea of date, unit or location but the way they are drawn makes it difficult in some places the distinguish between green and sand. 

Here it is next to its rival, the BMP-2.

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At 7.5m long and 2.8m wide it is pretty big, but at the same time the length is emphasised by the low profile.

 

That really is my final build in this GB so thanks to all involved in organising and running it - I have had a lot of fun!.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

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