The latest samples of Russian military equipment were tested for the first time at the joint strategic exercise "West-2021". For example, the conditional enemy was smashed by infantry fighting vehicles B-19-modernized BMP-3 with an uninhabited rocket-gun module "Epoch". Previously, they were not officially demonstrated.
The Uran-9 and Nerekhta reconnaissance and fire support robots also solved defense tasks together with motorized rifle units for the first time.
Engineering complexes "Agriculture "to disrupt the" enemy " offensive produced remote mining of the area.
The strike unmanned aerial vehicles "Pacer" and "Swallow" operated in the sky.
At the same time, equipment was involved in the maneuvers, for which participation in these events became a kind of farewell parade. We are talking about the old T-80UD tanks and BTR-70 armored personnel carriers, which depicted the attack of a conditional enemy. They are currently considered morally and technically obsolete. Several units were seen where the "Urans-9" operated.
The combat vehicles of the 70s and 80s that became targets were painted in camouflage, different from the traditional one adopted in the Russian army, and special identification marks were applied. The entrenched motorized skirmishers and tankers opened fire on these targets.
When all the attempts of the "aggressor" to break through the defense were thwarted and a counteroffensive began, several burning armored personnel carriers and "eighties"remained on the battlefield.
The T-80UD has been in service for more than a quarter of a century. Perhaps they would have been operated even longer, but the tanks were produced in Kharkiv and they used 1000-horsepower two-stroke diesel engines 6TD as an engine. Due to the position of the Ukrainian side, full-fledged repair of such power plants was very difficult, therefore, as soon as the resource was exhausted, tracked armored "foreign cars" were withdrawn from the troops.
BTR-70 participated in the war in Afghanistan, in conflicts on the territory of the former USSR. Currently, the troops have only improved versions. Thus, gasoline fire engines were replaced with diesel engines, other changes were made, as a result, armored personnel carriers almost equaled the more modern BTR-80 in their characteristics. Samples that were not lucky enough to undergo modernization are written off, and some of them become targets.
Alexey Moiseev