Georgi A. Angelov, “Free Europe”. The headline is from FrogNews.
Bulgaria managed to deliver them a month ago, but Ukraine has already modernized the BTR-60 light armored vehicles donated to it, reported the specialized Ukrainian website “Military”.
The news comes a little more than a month after the first armored personnel carriers were loaded onto trains at the Kurilo station near Sofia and left for the country attacked by Russia. Already at the end of November 2023, the National Assembly approved the donation of over 100 obsolete Bulgarian armored personnel carriers, owned by the Ministry of the Interior. Their shipment was delayed due to a lack of money for transport and the veto of President Rumen Radev, who opposes military aid to Ukraine. Parliament overrode the veto.
Now the machines are already undergoing a complete modification to meet the minimum requirements of the modern battlefield. Their engines will be changed, landing hatches will be widened, additional armor will be installed, new sights and navigation. And they will come into use in Ukraine, which has been defending itself for more than two years against the Russian invasion.
What exactly did Bulgaria send?
In addition to being morally obsolete, the combat vehicles donated by Bulgaria to Kiev are also not in good condition.
The BTR-60 is the first generation of the Soviet amphibious armored personnel carrier series and has been in service since 1959.
The hundred machines were lying for decades in warehouses of the Ministry of the Interior. Several of them were last on the road about 20 years ago – that’s when they last participated in a parade.
Before that, they were part of the equipment of the former “Internal Troops”, created after September 9, 1944 under the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the aim of suppressing riots, uprisings and resistance against the regime in the country. “Internal troops” were disbanded in the mid-1960s.
In January 1985, the governing body of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP) – Politburo, decided to continue forcibly changing the names of the Bulgarian Turks in Northern Bulgaria as well. The BKP propaganda machine calls this the “Revival Process”. “Internal troops” are restored and then the Ministry of Internal Affairs acquires the machines that will soon be at the front in Ukraine.
This model has three main problems, Igor Fedyk, a Ukrainian military journalist and analyst, told Free Europe. They are:
– Unreliable two gasoline engines that consume a lot of fuel;
– Inconvenient and small landing hatches;
– Weak defense.
New Deutz engines
Now the Ukrainian army is replacing the old twin GAZ-40P gasoline engines on the APCs with a power of 90 hp. with two new 102 hp Deutz BF4M2012 German diesel engines. everyone. This means that with a weight of 10,500 kg, the machine will have a power of 205 hp, writes “Military”. The gearbox will also be replaced.
In the original version of the BTR-60, the Russian engines were disliked because of their poor timing, since one drives the 1st and 3rd axles of the machine, and the other drives the 2nd and 4th. In addition, the high fire hazard of gasoline is also a problem. That’s why the new engines are diesel.
The decision to install the more difficult-to-operate pair of engines, instead of a single engine, was made to simplify and lower the cost of the upgrade, as well as to reduce the number of interventions in the machine’s construction.
A modernized version of the BTR-60 with a single Cummins engine is in service in the Bulgarian army, which required the engine and transmission compartments to be redesigned and the geometry of the armored hull to be changed.
New hatches
In the Ukrainian version, the design of the outdated model of the armored personnel carrier has also undergone significant changes. First of all, instead of extremely inconvenient and small hatches, larger doors are cut on both sides of the landing compartment of the machine, through which soldiers can enter and exit comfortably.
It is a question of survival in combat conditions – the rapid exit of the landing party and, accordingly, the rapid withdrawal of the machine after that, explained Fedik.
The troop benches, which in the original APC were back-to-back, are now mounted opposite each other. “Military” quotes a developer of the modernization of the machines donated by Bulgaria, who says that the benches are intended for a landing of seven soldiers, but according to the reporter of the publication, the hull can fit a larger number of soldiers.
By default, the crew consists of three people: a vehicle commander, a driver and a gunner. The latter serves the guns in the enclosed machine gun turret.
Armament remains the same as it was: 14.5 mm heavy machine gun KPVT and twin 7.62 mm machine gun PKT. The effectiveness of the use of weapons should be increased by the installation of a new day and thermal vision night sight.
Night vision and more armor
The driver of the modernized old armored personnel carrier will receive a Ukrainian thermal imaging system for night vision “SPO MBT”. It consists of a front and rear camera with a day and night video channel, and a monitor with a control panel. The front camera provides visibility of the roadway at any time of the day at a distance of 600 meters, and the rear – up to 25 meters. The machine will be able to move at night without headlights.
The security of the combat vehicle has also been increased by installing additional armor in the form of Armox 500T steel panels. The developer claims that this is how the APC is able to withstand fire from small arms and heavy machine guns.
Despite the increased armor and weight, the armored personnel carrier has not lost its ability to move on water. The prototype vehicle has passed water tests and managed to reach a speed of 10 km/h.
BTR-60 will also receive a new communication – Lybid K-2RB digital radio station, as well as SN-4215 navigation system.
Fedik believes that the result of the modernization is the optimal possible option.
“There’s no point in doing anything more with the APC because it won’t be cost-effective,” Fedik said, adding that all the model’s problems have been fixed.
“Nice and timely help”
“Yes, these are old machines, yes, they are not in their best condition, but Ukraine has an opportunity to modernize them,” Fedik said. According to him, this is a “good and timely help”, because equipment during war is consumable, it gets damaged, it is destroyed.
Thanks to Bulgaria and the capabilities of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, good military vehicles will be obtained, which will greatly help the Ukrainian Army, Fedik believes.
“There is a shortage of military equipment and especially of armored vehicles for the transport of soldiers and for use in areas with less intensity of military action than on the front line itself. They can be used. There are constant campaigns to buy vehicles for the Ukrainian army, better mobility is needed,” Igor Fedyk also said.
Acting Defense Minister Atanas Zapryanov said a week ago that support for Ukraine would continue, with the Defense Ministry preparing two more military aid packages for Kiev.
Tags: timely Ukraine Modernized ..
-
