Criticism of Soviet engineering in Cockburn's 'The Threat'

[NicNZ]

I was leafing through the book The Threat by Andrew Cockburn earlier this week. This was a book written in the 1980s that set out Cockburn's criticial assessment of certain aspects of the US and Soviet militaries based on the information that was available at the time.

In the book, Cockburn gives both praise and criticism. I am particularly interested in the following criticisms he levels against Soviet design:

1. Soviet autoloaders frequently harmed crew members (ie. by loading the gunner);

2. BTR and/or BRDM vehicles ran on a pair of underpowered and unreliable engines, rather than a single, more powerful engine, making the vehicles unnecessarily complicated and difficult to operate. Cockburn also speculates that this may be because the Soviets were having difficulty developing powerful engines for their vehicles;

3. The engine (or engine design) common to many Soviet armoured tanks and vehicles broke down so frequently that the Soviets may have been incapable of sustaining a rapid ground offensive into Western Europe. This was based on the US OPFOR units' anecdotal experiences with the vehicles, which they found extremely unreliable. Cockburn suggests that the Soviets would have needed a colossal maintenance force to keep enough vehicles operational to sustain any offensive.

How accurate is Cockburn's assessment on these points in particular?

Presumably, we have board members who can elaborate on their own experiences with this equipment, and since the end of the Cold War, greater information is now available on some or all of the topics numbered above.

[Bongopete]

I remember hearing about the autoloader item back then...cant say I ever heard about the others, especially the engine reliability.

[WarriorMonk]

1. Soviet autoloaders frequently harmed crew members (ie. by loading the gunner);


uhhhhh...ouch? damn.

[IDF_TANKER]

I actually read in some other book (written by a Russian officer) about problems with the BTR engines. In particular he wrote something about the need of both engines being synchronized and that most of the time this synchronization didn't work, basically leaving BTR with the power of only one engine. I also remeber he wrote something about problems of the amphibious vehicle to get out of the water, but I don't remember what vehicle he was referring to.

[Scotus]

I was leafing through the book The Threat by Andrew Cockburn earlier this week. This was a book written in the 1980s that set out Cockburn's criticial assessment of certain aspects of the US and Soviet militaries based on the information that was available at the time.

In the book, Cockburn gives both praise and criticism. I am particularly interested in the following criticisms he levels against Soviet design:

1. Soviet autoloaders frequently harmed crew members (ie. by loading the gunner);

2. BTR and/or BRDM vehicles ran on a pair of underpowered and unreliable engines, rather than a single, more powerful engine, making the vehicles unnecessarily complicated and difficult to operate. Cockburn also speculates that this may be because the Soviets were having difficulty developing powerful engines for their vehicles;

3. The engine (or engine design) common to many Soviet armoured tanks and vehicles broke down so frequently that the Soviets may have been incapable of sustaining a rapid ground offensive into Western Europe. This was based on the US OPFOR units' anecdotal experiences with the vehicles, which they found extremely unreliable. Cockburn suggests that the Soviets would have needed a colossal maintenance force to keep enough vehicles operational to sustain any offensive.

How accurate is Cockburn's assessment on these points in particular?

Presumably, we have board members who can elaborate on their own experiences with this equipment, and since the end of the Cold War, greater information is now available on some or all of the topics numbered above.As an armoured soldier I'll be happy to answer the notions in question. Keep in mind many of these 1980s "Soviet Threat" books were light on fact and heavy on strange theories and wishful thinking (I suspect some forum members keep them on their bedsides judging from some of their ideas). Andrew Cockburn's brother Patrick wrote for the Independant and comically claimed in 1999 that "Chechen Rebels fear Russian Chemical Attacks" although the Russian Army used no Chem/Bio Agents and Jihadists blew up storage tanks of Ammonia and Chlorine in Grozny. Moving on.

1. Yes, there were early teething problems with the auto-loaders on the T-64. Interestingly the T-64 was rushed into early service in those simpler Cold War days because we in the Royal Armoured Corps got our hands on the Chieftain with the 120mm main armament. Through technological development, these issues were fixed and by the time Cockburn was writing were past history.

2. The BTR-60/PB, and the BTR-70 to a lesser extent, were underpowered. The BTR-80 certainly is not. BRDMs? Very different vehicles and designs between the BRDM-1 and BRDM-2. Underpowered? Perhaps, for light AFVs they were slightly underpowered but their engines were satisfactory for their own reasons. Nothing mission-crippling.

3. Complete tosh. Also, every army needs a colossal maintenance force to sustain operations. This is why every modern army has large numbers of logistics specialists - for example, the Royal Logistics Corps in the British Army.

[StukaJr]

1. The T-72 (? ) auto-loader trying to load the gunner was a problem and quickly solved by the addition of an additional side protection - that was a problem in the early models and was solved rather early on... So trying to blame that on all Soviet auto-loaders is not correct.

2. Can't say on that

3. That's got to be complete BS - considering that the same tanks are still serving duty today... If it's OppFor anecdotes then it's understandable - if you want to have a weapon badmouthed, then just give it to an opposing force... Drive a tank wrong and it will break down fast - same goes for maintenance personnel.

Mechanical malfunctions did not impede the American advance in Desert Storm much - even with level of maintenance and supplies the Abrams required... It's not much of an issue since tanks rarely make forced marches and go straight into combat right after, now a days... If there was much wrong with T-62 or T-72 engines/chassis, Russian tank constructors would have ditched them long ago instead of building modern MBT's...

[domokun]

Mechanical malfunctions did not impede the American advance in Desert Storm much - even with level of maintenance and supplies the Abrams required... It's not much of an issue since tanks rarely make forced marches and go straight into combat right after, now a days... If there was much wrong with T-62 or T-72 engines/chassis, Russian tank constructors would have ditched them long ago instead of building modern MBT's...

I remember reading that, can't remember where, brits had slow down their advance in gulf war I because americans couldn't supply enough fuel for abrams MBT's.

[NicNZ]

Thanks for the replies.

Regarding the autoloader problem -- I couldnt shake the feeling that Cockburn (and others) have seized upon the terrible image of a gunner's arm or leg being robotically forced into the loading mechanism. It certainly may have happened on a number of occasions but would have been rapidly, and perhaps easily, rectified by design changes.

Regarding the BTR dual-engine design, this remains perplexing. As I said earlier, Cockburn speculated that the reason (perhaps the only conceivable reason) why the vehicles were designed this way was because the Soviets had trouble developing a single, powerful engine for the vehicles. But this seems like an odd explanation, since we know Soviet engineers were capable of solving far more complex mechanical problems. Perhaps other forum members can explain this.

Regarding the engine reliability problems Cockburn wrote about, I too have trouble believing that the vehicles were as problematic as he suggests. After all, it simply would not make sense for the Soviets to mass-produce tanks that, in effect, could not advance, or other vehicles, such as Shilka, that could not stay in service to keep up with the unit they were assigned to. Cockburn seemed conscious of this dilemna in his writing but he can hardly be criticised for basing his judgments on the "real world" experiences of the OPFOR units that struggled with the T-72s in their care. The evidence of reliability problems was, he would have felt, right before his eyes.

[Britboy]

I believe that the Soviets had a system whereby most of their tanks went unused. Say an armoured regiment had an allocation of 64 tanks or whatever, they might get 16 to train with up to squadron level. The others would be centralised out of use.

The way I understand it, tanks are more likely to break down when they've been in continuous use for awhile. This way, they got to train on the tanks and still had the majority as effective as possible for the big drive Westwards.

However, the OPFOR playing the Soviets probably didnt have access to huge numbers of Sov tanks and probably were damned busy, with every unit of the Army coming and going demanding someone to play enemy. So their tanks would get hammered day in day out, and after a little while, would start developing far more in the way of failures. The Soviets tanks would too, at that stage of their lives, of course - but that wouldnt matter because WWIII wouldve been already over with, if theyd driven that number of miles.

Plus the maintenance pers couldnt have been best versed in Sov hardware and had all the manuals and such I'm guessing.

I'm a layman when it comes to Sov armour so this is a bit of guesswork. However, even with a comparatively high breakdown rate, I believe they had more than enough tanks to take over from those that fell by the wayside.

Regards
BB

[Andreas]

1. The T-72 (? ) auto-loader trying to load the gunner was a problem


Hahaha oh this had me in tears.. I have seen a couple of documentaries which support this statment..

Cheers
Andreas

[oscarni]

The thing I loved about soviet design was the fact that almost all if not all were designed with duel attachments for their aircraft, so that they would take NATO designed, standardised refuelling attachments, so that once they took our airfields they could use our kit and fuel! Cheeky but smart!

- Phil

[StukaJr]

Hahaha oh this had me in tears.. I have seen a couple of documentaries which support this statment..

Cheers
Andreas

I didn't come up with it - I've read it before on trackpads.net and it stuck...


I remember reading that, can't remember where, brits had slow down their advance in gulf war I because americans couldn't supply enough fuel for abrams MBT's.

Right... But "slow down advance" is not the same as Cockburn's assumption that Soviet armor would break down at the rate that would make it "incapable of sustaining a rapid ground offensive into Western Europe"... Any Army requires its logistics to catch up with the rate of the advance - I was actually hinting at Abrams lower operational range in my original post... However, I don't have to remind the outcome of Desert Storm - because it has actually happened, unlike the Soviet Offensive into Western Europe. Have the Desert Storm have not happened, I'm sure some other Cockburn would be making statements that Abrams' poor operational range and high burden on maintenance troop would have doomed Desert Storm...

[NicNZ]

As I recall, one of Cockburn's specific criticisms was based on the real or imagined Soviet strategy whereby Soviet forces would attempt to advance and occupy a large portion of Western Europe within 48 hours, at which point a ceasefire would be negotiated before the conflict escalated to include the use of nuclear weapons. Cockburn rightly identified that, in such a scenario, the Soviets would have relied on their armoured forces covering long distances in a short space of time. Although Cockburn was critical of the reliability of Soviet vehicle engines in general, he specifically suggested that Soviet armoured vehicles did not seem reliable enough to make the distance in the "48 hour scenario".

[kutter]

The thing I loved about soviet design was the fact that almost all if not all were designed with duel attachments for their aircraft, so that they would take NATO designed, standardised refuelling attachments, so that once they took our airfields they could use our kit and fuel! Cheeky but smart!

- Phil

That's actually a very good idea. I also remember reading that the Su-25's engines were modified to use diesel fuel, presumably in the event of jet fuel suddenly becoming unavailable. I'm sure it wouldn't run at 100% but it certainly makes it a lot easier to operate the aircraft in rough conditions. Anybody else heard about this?

[GazB]

1. Soviet autoloaders frequently harmed crew members (ie. by loading the gunner);


Rubbish. Gunners in Soviet tanks rarely put themselves anywhere near the gun, much like gunners in western tanks. If there was a feed tray problem they were on the correct side to try to correct it, but most of the criticism was directed at the fact that the Soviets used an autoloader and the west didn't so they needed an excuse. When the T-62 entered service with its 115mm smoothbore gun there were lots of calls in the west about how accuracy would plummet and all the things that are wrong with a smoothbore gun. Don't hear much about those problems anymore now that the west uses smoothbore guns too.


BTR and/or BRDM vehicles ran on a pair of underpowered and unreliable engines, rather than a single, more powerful engine, making the vehicles unnecessarily complicated and difficult to operate.

Actually the engines themselves were reliable, it was the transmission and positioning them together that created overheating issues that was the problem.

BTW the BRDM uses a single engine so we are talking about the BTR-60 and BTR-70 only.


Cockburn also speculates that this may be because the Soviets were having difficulty developing powerful engines for their vehicles;


Rubbish. The BTR series were designed from the outset to be cheap to make. The BMP was rather expensive so the BTR had to be cheap so that all Soviet troops could ride in armoured vehicles. Western troops at that time that would have been in BTR-60s if they were in the Soviet army rode in trucks because APCs were expensive to build and operate... even simple boxes like the M113.
The two engines chosen were chosen not for their power, but because they were widely used in trucks in the East. This made them cheap and relaxed the problem of spares etc.


The engine (or engine design) common to many Soviet armoured tanks and vehicles broke down so frequently that the Soviets may have been incapable of sustaining a rapid ground offensive into Western Europe.

The engine they used was largely based on the WWII engine used in the T-34. It was upgraded from 500hp to about a max of something like 840hp by its final model. It was as reliable as any modern Tank motor and better than some... that is why they didn't replace it with a newer engine.


I also remeber he wrote something about problems of the amphibious vehicle to get out of the water, but I don't remember what vehicle he was referring to.

Most amphibious vehicles have problems getting out of the water depending on the angle and quality of the ground around the exit point. Even a perfect place might not be so perfect after the 50th vehicle has exited from that point...


1. Yes, there were early teething problems with the auto-loaders on the T-64. Interestingly the T-64 was rushed into early service in those simpler Cold War days because we in the Royal Armoured Corps got our hands on the Chieftain with the 120mm main armament. Through technological development, these issues were fixed and by the time Cockburn was writing were past history.

And even after they were fixed the T-64 was stereotyped as the failed Soviet tank because if this. It was explained that it wasn't exported to WP forces because it was a crew eater. Of course the reality was that it was the expensive high tech tank with special armour and the best gun while the T-72 was the cheaper easier to make tank that was going to be mass produced and exported to replace the older models. The replacement for the T-64 was in fact not the T-72, but the T-80, with the T-72 still in production to maintain numbers and for export.


The BTR-60/PB, and the BTR-70 to a lesser extent, were underpowered.

Having said that a US soldier... can't remember his name or rank has been quoted as describing the BTR-60 as the ultimate RV vehicle... it will bounce across country and is fun to drive. On roads it is excellent, and where mines are expected it has better chances of maintaining its mobility than a tracked vehicle. It certainly lacked the firepower and armour of the BMPs but it was also much much cheaper and was much better than a truck with a bit of armour which is what the BTR-152 was that it replaced. Compared to the contemporary M113 the BTR-60 had less mobility over rough ground, similar armour, but it had a turret that protected its gunner and the 14.5mm gun plus 7.62mm mg it had more firepower. (the 14.5mm was more like a 20mm gun than a 50 cal in power...)


Regarding the autoloader problem -- I couldnt shake the feeling that Cockburn (and others) have seized upon the terrible image of a gunner's arm or leg being robotically forced into the loading mechanism. It certainly may have happened on a number of occasions but would have been rapidly, and perhaps easily, rectified by design changes.

To work out how often it might have happened you'd have to start with the question how often did the autoloader fail, because the gunner in a T series tank does not load the gun unless the autoloader fails.


Regarding the BTR dual-engine design, this remains perplexing. As I said earlier, Cockburn speculated that the reason (perhaps the only conceivable reason) why the vehicles were designed this way was because the Soviets had trouble developing a single, powerful engine for the vehicles. But this seems like an odd explanation, since we know Soviet engineers were capable of solving far more complex mechanical problems. Perhaps other forum members can explain this.


As I said above they didn't want to develop a new more powerful engine specifically for this armoured vehicle so they looked at the engines available at the time. Note this is not the first dual engine vehicle in history... even the Soviets had light tanks that were too light for normal tank engines but too heavy for a car type engine... the solution is two car type engines. The other end of the spectrum is with super heavy tanks where the biggest engine is not powerful enough so they put in two of the biggest ones they have. The Soviets didn't do this, but didn't the Germans have a heavy tank with two engines?


I believe that the Soviets had a system whereby most of their tanks went unused. Say an armoured regiment had an allocation of 64 tanks or whatever, they might get 16 to train with up to squadron level. The others would be centralised out of use.


Often it was more extreme than that... for learning to drive and general practise a T-72 Unit might have T-62s to drive around it normally. In afghanistan this might have been useful because older tanks were the tanks used. For a major European war I would expect the T-72s would have been taken out for a spin to see the differences occasionally just so they knew the differences.


Hahaha oh this had me in tears.. I have seen a couple of documentaries which support this statment..

Verbally support, or do they have the secret hospitals with all these hundreds of thousands of dismembered gunners... :)

The funny thing is that the snorkelling equipment is known to be a bit dodgy and units have refused to use it for some rivers. You'd think of the risk was dismemberment then there would be a huge revolt.

From what I understand the autoloader of the T-72 is different from the autoloader of the T-64 and T-80. The company that made the T-72 is not the same company that made the T-64 and T-80.

The Russian AF withdrew all their single engine fighters because they "lacked twin engine safety". It seems the Russian Army has not withdrawn the T-64 and T-80 or the T-72 and T-90 so one can assume the problem has been solved.

Perhaps a T-72 crewman can help... where is Jippo when you need him... :)

[GazB]

That's actually a very good idea. I also remember reading that the Su-25's engines were modified to use diesel fuel, presumably in the event of jet fuel suddenly becoming unavailable. I'm sure it wouldn't run at 100% but it certainly makes it a lot easier to operate the aircraft in rough conditions. Anybody else heard about this?

The gas turbine engine is a wonderful thing... the Su-25 can be flown on diesel or kerosene, while the T-80s GTD-1250 can operate on diesel, kerosene, petrol, or mixtures of any or all of these materials.

[NicNZ]

Thanks for your input Gaz.

The dual engine design still seems peculiar. BTRs were produced in large numbers. That being the case, it is surprising that Soviet engineers did not go to the effort of producing a single engine design. If the vehicle had been produced in smaller numbers, the decision to use a dual engine design would be more understable. Instead, there seems to be general consensus that using the dual engine design made the vehicle considerably more difficult to operate. This would be contrary to the more typical Soviet emphasis on simplicity of design and use, making the dual-engine design even more aberrant. As noted, Cockburn attempted to explain the design by speculating that the Soviets may have been struggling to produce a suitable single engine for the vehicle.

[Britboy]

The gas turbine engine is a wonderful thing... the Su-25 can be flown on diesel or kerosene, while the T-80s GTD-1250 can operate on diesel, kerosene, petrol, or mixtures of any or all of these materials.

How amazing - I read this on another thread about Abrams too, and couldn't quite believe it. I thought GTs were accompanied by a massive concern in fuel quality. In hindsight that might be appropriate with helicopters where you don't exactly want them falling out of the sky, whereas in tracked vehicles you can 'get away with more' without the same disasters happening.

T80s must have great mobility and great fuel demand then - although I suppose you could siphon anything to top up with...

[TheArmenian]

The T-72 autoloader problem is just BS. I have spoken to a few Tank crews who laughed at those allegations... They showed me their intact limbs... They also showed me their middle finger rofl

I have even read in some places that the tanks autoloader will load the gun loader's arm if he is not carefull....Helloooo! there is no loader in the tank as it has been replaced by an autoloader rofl

The BTR-60/70 dual engine layout problems have been extanded out of proportions. Some third world armies like Syria, Afghanistan etc are using these machines, some of which are well over 30 years old... Of course, the single engine layout on the BTR-80 is the better way to go.

[Jippo]

Perhaps a T-72 crewman can help... where is Jippo when you need him... :)

Hehe, it's so neat when someone misses me. :)

1. Autoloader in the T72: If it works as intended there is no way for the gunners arm to get in to into the breach. If there is some problem with the system with loading (never happened to me during my service), the commander may endanger himself if he misses the SOP of cutting couple of circuit breakers (stabilator and autoloading systems). But that can be hardly blamed on the system. If he cuts the power of these systems, as he is supposed to, before trying to clear the malfunction there is naturally no way to get an arm into the barrel.
Fighting in a tank is a bit dangerous as there is heavy equipment in cramped space moving about, but I wouldn't think tanks with autoloaders are anymore dangerous than other tanks given the crews have similar training standards.

2. Heard from the guys who actually served with BTR60-PB there was one good part in that APC, and that was the turret with KPV and PKM.

3. Maintenance of the Russian equipment is somewhat more time consuming, but in general the equipment is sturdy. Tanks break down a hell of a lot more than your average car, but they work in difficult environment and most of the time they are driven is really pedal to the metal. At least I have not heard of any significant difference in maintenance when Finland switched to Leo 2A4's.

[bullpuppy]

Keep in mind that Cockburn was a leftist and anti-military. So he tried to make the Soviets look like much of a threat to support his position for cutting military spending.

[GazB]

The dual engine design still seems peculiar. BTRs were produced in large numbers. That being the case, it is surprising that Soviet engineers did not go to the effort of producing a single engine design.

As I thought I mentioned the only reason the BTRs were made in large numbers was because many of their parts were not new... they were off the shelf and already made in large numbers.
They also made rather large numbers of BMPs that weren't cheap... if the BTRs were not going to be very cheap then they likely wouldn't have bothered making BTRs and just made a few more BMPs and transported the rest of the troops in trucks.


If the vehicle had been produced in smaller numbers, the decision to use a dual engine design would be more understable.

If they didn't need as many they could simply have made a few more BMPs.


nstead, there seems to be general consensus that using the dual engine design made the vehicle considerably more difficult to operate.

In afghanistan it operated OK as long as it was properly maintained. It wasn't so much unreliable, but maintainence intensive in some environments.
I have plenty of photos of BTRs with their engine bays open for maintainence. A lot of them from the period near the end of the Soviet occupation where they were about to pull out and the BTR-80s with 1 engine have their bays open along with the BTR-70s in the unit that had two engines.


As noted, Cockburn attempted to explain the design by speculating that the Soviets may have been struggling to produce a suitable single engine for the vehicle.

I disagree. I would suggest that his exaggeration of the reliability of the engine arrangement makes it sound worse than it really was and that the fact that the Soviets didn't rush to introduce a new single engine arrangement is proof of this. The 260hp engine of the BTR-80 was hardly an uber engine that took years to develop. If they really wanted to they could simply have fitted the diesel engine from the BMP-1 to it, it was a 300 hp engine and could have done the job. However the BMP engine was largely only usd by BMPs at the time while the 260hp engine finally used in the BTR-80 was widely used in trucks too.


Hehe, it's so neat when someone misses me.

:) I respect your opinion generally, but in this case you have direct relevant experience that carries rather more weight than just my opinion... :)

And Mongo is taking a bit of a shine to you... :)


2. Heard from the guys who actually served with BTR60-PB there was one good part in that APC, and that was the turret with KPV and PKM.

Keep in mind that when the BMP-1 and the BTR-60-PB started operations an American soldier would either be in an M113... in which case the gunner would look in envy at both the BMP-1 and BTR gunners because they didn't have to expose their entire upper bodies to enemy fire to fire their weapons... or in a truck... in which case even the minimal armour of the BTR and better armour of the BMP probably looked pretty good.

The BTR certainly wasn't perfect... apparantly it was found that the wheel arches were made of mild steel instead of armour steel and a long burst from an AK would shred the tire and hit the driver in the head. Of course a burst of AK fire into a truck and everyone can get injured too.