The most modern equipment is being supplied to the armament of the engineering troops
They do not make exciting TV series about them, they do not become heroes of military adventure novels, boys do not dream of serving in these troops. We are talking about one of the types of special troops of the Russian Federation - engineering troops, which people who are far from army realities consider something paramilitary. However, these ideas are infinitely far from reality. Today, the engineering troops of Russia perform a fairly wide list of very difficult tasks, and directly on the battlefield.
It is they who mine and form passages in enemy minefields, provide military groups, units and divisions with operational overcoming of water barriers and wetlands. And even participate in the storming of buildings during the conduct of hostilities in urban conditions. And this is not a complete list of the functional capabilities of the engineering troops.
Both the shvets and the reaper
"The designers managed to combine a three-axle high-terrain wheeled chassis, a crawler, a trencher and a bulldozer on one platform”
It is obvious that the combat potential of any kind and type of troops depends to a certain extent on the level of their technical weapons. The head of the Engineering Troops of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant General Yuri Stavitsky, justified the relevance of permanent technical improvement of the formations and parts entrusted to him in this way: "We are entrusted with a wide range of tasks, the most ambitious of which should be considered the equipment of fortifications, mine clearance, preparation, arrangement and maintenance of crossings, engineering barriers and routes of movement of military groups. It is precisely this diversity of the tasks being solved that explains the vastness of the list of engineering weapons that are being provided. In the units and divisions of the troops positioned as the most technically diverse and saturated, there are more than eight hundred of them today. Therefore, the work on improving the technical and operational characteristics of samples of military and special equipment that have managed to prove themselves positively is carried out by us on a permanent and systematic basis. In addition, fundamentally new equipment, equipment and weapons are being created on the basis of breakthrough innovative technologies."
In the context of this statement, it would be logical to refer to the statements of the Chairman of the Military Scientific Committee of the Engineering Troops of the Russian Federation. In his fairly regular communications with media representatives, Colonel Maxim Krivosheev widely announces the "premiere" samples of equipment coming to the disposal of Russian military engineers, developed, among other things, taking into account the combat experience acquired in Syria.
As you know, without water…
Last year, in the interests of the engineering troops of the Russian Federation and with the active participation of specialists of the military innovative technopolis "Era", the development of an installation for obtaining water from snow (ice) – UPVS-5 was started. The relevance of this project is due to the intensification of the development of the Russian Armed Forces in the Far North and the Arctic in general and the solution of the tasks of engineering support of the Arctic grouping in particular.
In a region whose climate is characterized by year-round negative temperatures and scanty precipitation, water problems exist, as they say, by default, and the productivity of previously accepted installations has ceased to meet the permanently growing requirements. UPVS-5 should radically solve this problem. Its functional purpose is to provide divisions and units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation with the necessary amount of desalinated drinking and industrial water from snow or ice, as well as high-quality purification of water obtained from surface sources.
The estimated performance of the developed installation will be several times higher than the same indicator existing today in the supply of the engineering troops of the Russian Federation, but morally and technically obsolete installation UPVS-1.5 with significantly less time for its deployment. As a platform for placing containers with UPVS-5 equipment, they plan to use a two-link tracked tractor, for example, the DT-30 Vityaz snowmobile.
In addition to the power plant that ensures the functioning of the melting element, the composition of UPVS-5 includes an effective system of purification and mineralization of the resulting water.
The key structural elements of UPVS-5 are:
- metal containers (KM 6.2.30 and KM 2.2.30) used for the placement of technological equipment;
- modules of power supply, melting of snow (ice) and purification (desalination) of water;
- RDV-5000M - water storage tanks;
- mechanical, electrified and hand tools for ice and snow harvesting (motorcycle and electric saws, crowbars, shovels);
- insulated tent for the radio station (R-168) and RDV-5000M;
- winter camouflage kit (MKT-2C).
In addition to the two-link tracked tractor DT-30 "Vityaz" already mentioned above, the KamAZ-53501 automobile chassis with a trailer is also considered as the base platform.
Engineering Intelligence Boat
More recently, the supply of engineering troops received samples of fundamentally new equipment for this type of troops - engineering and reconnaissance boats. This is a multifunctional hovercraft of very small dimensions, first presented to the general public at the exposition of the international military-technical forum "ARMY-2016". According to Maxim Krivosheev, none of the types of troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation has compact boats with similar functionality.
The uniqueness of the range of combat capabilities of the IRK is provided by a wide range of technical means included in its on-board equipment. These are echo sounders that determine the bottom relief, and numerous means of reconnaissance, and an effective combination of lateral and directional sonar.
An amphibious engineering and reconnaissance boat is capable of forming a real-time characteristic of a water barrier based on determining the direction and speed of the current, measuring depths, analyzing the bottom relief, and shoreline parameters. By the way, for this unique watercraft, the condition of the shoreline of the reservoir does not matter, thanks to the air cushion, it is equally easy to reach a hard, sandy or swampy shore.
Developed by the staff of JSC "Central Design Bureau "Neptune" (St. Petersburg) and having no world analogues, the amphibious engineering reconnaissance boat is designed for round-the-clock reconnaissance of terrain and water obstacles. As the main operators of this equipment, units of pontoon-bridge units and engineering intelligence groups are considered, both in the course of independent actions and as part of reconnaissance units of other types and branches of the armed forces.
What is fundamentally new in this development. First of all, this is the possibility of successful movement by land and water, as well as the exploration of not only the water barrier as such, but also the approaches to it, sections of the coastline, fords and ice crossings.
The boat is armed with a 7.62 mm machine gun. It is transported on public roads by means of an all-terrain automobile chassis KamAZ-63501 (wheel formula 8x8).
Another novelty with a promising future and a successful combat past was presented at the international military-technical forum "ARMY-2021". We are talking about a set of checkpoint equipment tested in the conditions of military operations on the territory of Syria. The structure, consisting of three modules (for living, cooking and placing electric generators), is covered with gabions around the perimeter – cloth hollow cubes with a steel mesh frame. A sand-gravel mixture is poured inside the gabion, which protects personnel from being hit by small arms and RPG. The deployment of the checkpoint takes only 38 hours. These are the checkpoints used by Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh today. And in conclusion, one more "sensational" and very unusual exhibit of this forum.
PZM-2M
Despite its monumentality, this machine, placed on the KAMAZ-65224 platform, does not belong to the category of combat or even transport.
At the static site of the MVTF "ARMY-2021", a prototype of the PZM-2M or a regimental earthmoving machine was presented. Its futuristic appearance alone aroused the genuine interest of the guests and participants of the exhibition. The designers managed to combine a three-axle high-terrain wheeled chassis, a crawler, a trench digger and a bulldozer on one platform.
Currently, parts of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation operate the morally and technically obsolete PZM-2, developed in the sixties of the last century on the basis of the T-150K, produced by the Kharkov Tractor Plant. This tractor has a whole range of significant operational disadvantages. These include unsatisfactory mobility characteristics, low average and maximum speed. By the way, the powerful diesel power unit of the novelty presented at the ARMY-2021 MVTF, in combination with the KAMAZ base, allows it to easily accelerate to a speed of 90 kilometers per hour (against 45 km/h at the PZM-2), which helps it to move organically as part of army automobile columns.
It can be stated that the main directions of development of modern engineering troops have become the development and adoption of fundamentally new means of engineering weapons, the technical and operational characteristics of which fully correspond to the tasks facing the Armed Forces in general and military engineers in particular.
Vitaly Orlov
The newspaper "Military-Industrial Courier", published in issue No. 10 (923) for March 22, 2022
