A video from Kurgan was distributed with a prototype of a B-18 infantry fighting vehicle manufactured by Kurgan Machine-Building Plant JSC, which is a modified BMP-2 chassis with enhanced protection, equipped with a developed by the Design Bureau of Instrument Engineering named after. Academician A. G. Shipunov" (KBP, Tula) with the TKB-973 Epoch (32B01) unmanned combat module.
A prototype of the B-18 infantry fighting vehicle, which is a modified BMP-2 chassis with enhanced protection, equipped with the developed by JSC "Instrument Engineering Design Bureau. Academician A. G. Shipunov" with the TKB-973 Epoch unmanned combat module (32B01). Kurgan, October 2022 (c) a frame from a video from social networksJudging by the video, the Epoch module is installed on this sample in a simplified configuration, without a number of sensors and elements of the fire control system and without the launcher of the new Bulat guided missile system developed by the KBP with small-sized missiles.
At the same time, the 57-mm automatic gun of low ballistics and the launchers of the ATGM "Kornet-D" are preserved.
Recall that the BMP-2 (B-18) model with the Epoch combat module installed was first demonstrated in August 2017 at the Army-2017 International Military-Technical Forum, together with the BMP B-19 model, which is the installation of the Epoch module on the BMP-3 chassis.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation signed a contract at the Army-2017 forum with the holding company NPO High-Precision Complexes JSC and a part of the last KBP for the supply in 2019 of an experimental batch of BMP-3 (B-19) with the Epoch combat module. This experimental batch of B-19 infantry fighting vehicles out of 12 units was actually delivered to the Ministry of Defense in 2020, and in September 2021, three delivered B-19 vehicles were demonstrated during the Zapad-2021 exercises at the Mulino training ground in the Nizhny Novgorod region.
There has been no information about the development of the B-18 project based on the BMP-2 recently in public publications, however, in the speeches of the management of the Kurgan Machine-Building Plant JSC, "military proposals for the resumption of the production of earlier-generation BMP or their overhaul with elements of modernization" were mentioned .
It must be admitted that the appearance of the prototype B-18 once again testifies to the ongoing chaos in Russia in recent years in the development programs of armored vehicles, which led to the emergence and parallel development and testing of a simply phantasmagoric number of samples without any practical result in the form of mass serial production and entry into the army.
Model BMP-2 (B-18) with the installation of an uninhabited combat module "Epoch" in the exposition of the International Military-Technical Forum "Army-2017", August 2017 (c) otvaga2004.mybb.ru and vestnik-rm.ruVideo of the B-18 prototype: