BMP-1 Infantry Fighting Vehicle

BMP-1 is a Soviet amphibious tracked infantry fighting vehicle. BMP stands for Boyevaya Mashina Pekhoty (Russian: Боевая Машина Пехоты), meaning "fighting vehicle of infantry".The BMP-1 was the world's first mass-produced infantry fighting vehicle. It was a revolutionary design combining properties of an armoured personnel carrier and a light tank.

The Soviet military leadership saw any future wars as being conducted with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, where unprotected infantry would soon be either killed or incapacitated by radiation or chemical and biological agents.

A vehicle like the BMP would allow infantry to operate from the relative safety of its armoured, radiation shielded interior in contaminated areas and to fight alongside it in uncontaminated areas. It would increase infantry squad mobility, provide fire support to them, and also be able to fight alongside main battle tanks.

General Specifications

Armour and Armament
Crew	3 + 8
Length	6.73 m
Width	2.94 m
Height	2.06 m
Weight	13.25 tonnes
Armour	8 – 20 mm
Main weapon	73mm canon 2A28
Secondary weapons	1× 7,62mm machine gun PKT 4×PTŘS 9M14M Maljutka
Engine and Mobility
Engine	UTD-20, 6-cylinder 4-stroke V-shaped airless-injection water cooled multifuel 15.8 litre diesel 221 kW (300 hp)
Suspension	individual torsion bar with hydraulic shock absorbers of 1st and 6th road wheels
Max. speed	65 km/h on road 40 km/h off road 7 km/h in water
Weight / power	16.7 kW/t
Operational range	550 – 600 km

More information about the vehicle

Production

The BMP went into production with the Soviet Army in 1966. The BMP of the first series (Ob'yekt 765Sp1) was produced until 1969 and was replaced by the improved production model, the BMP-1 (Ob'yekt 765Sp2) which was produced from 1969 until 1973. It was replaced by Ob'yekt 765Sp3 which was a modernized and 200 kg heavier version. This model was produced from 1973 to 1979. A number of improvements were made to the reliability of the chassis, the engine and the transmission during mass production. The last produced version of the BMP-1 IFV (BMP-1P, Ob'yekt 765Sp4), armed with a more powerful ATGM launcher 9P135M-1 for ATGM "Konkurs"/"Fagot", was produced from 1979 to 1983. The main manufacturer of BMP-1 IFV and its different variants was Kurgan Machine Building Works (Kurganskiy Mashinostroitelyniy Zavod). More than 20,000 BMP-1s and vehicles based on it were built in the USSR. BMP-1s were produced under license by Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania and India. Since 1986 the People's Republic of China has produced its own unlicensed copy called the Type 86. Czech BVP-1s were produced by ZTS Dubnica nad Váhom.

The BMP-1 is operated by:

Abkhazia, Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Côte d'Ivoire, Cuba, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Mongolia, Morocco, Moldova, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nagorno-Karabakh, North Korea, People's Republic of China, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Ossetia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan,Tamil Eelam Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Western Sahara, Yemen.

BMP-1 Infantry Fighting Vehicle

BMP-1 Infantry Fighting Vehicle

BMP-1 Infantry Fighting Vehicle

BMP-1 Infantry Fighting Vehicle