>Early cold war vintage
We're apparently going to see these old hotrods out in Ukraine according to intel reports. They had deployed them a few times in support roles in some smaller numbers, but they're now to be deployed on frontline service again with reservist ad-hoc units being thrown in them.
Fun facts-
>about 10mm armour, bit thicker on the turret face
>carries 11 people
>some kind of PK machinegun in the turret
Bongolian intel report its from
>about 10mm armour
alligator food
a fricking mosin can pen that
doubt it
7N13 certainly could at shorter ranges, around 300m at least. The ball ammo might be able to at almost point blank ranges. It's said to have 6mm rha at 530m
I think MB-LT:s are meant to protect you from 7,62x51 NATO on all sides and a .50cal from the front.
But I suspect that in front lines the Ukies have something a wee bit more punchier than that.
Just like
showed, even a small drone granade from top and it's toast.
>MB-LT:s are meant to protect you from 7,62x51 NATO on all sides and a .50cal from the front.
lol, not even bmp does that, mt-lb is a fricking joke
"Meant". But in very russian/soviet fashion, what was meant was not always what the final product was.
...but I bet that the report they gave for Kreml said that it absolutely does all that.
Which is something most people don't seem to understand when thy look at the specs of russian or soviet equipment or vehicles.
Most full sized rifles could pen that with steel core.
Pretty sure a 30-06 can punch a centimeter steel plate with regular ball, even.
AP ammo from PKM minces it.
armor.. who needs armor anyways
It will be funny if this is chosen to become a drone carrier in the future.
Haven't they been around Ukraine since the start of the war?
There's been a few as arty tractors and stuff but not a lot near the sharp end of the fighting
Pretty sure some were destroyed on the first day
They have, on both sides. But only in rear lines, in support duties. APC's are not meant to be used in direct-fire front line duties.
Still, better than sitting in a Toyota Hiace that has a Z spray-painted on it, I guess.
b-but great roosia has 10 trillion gorillion modern vehicles in reserve, theyre just holding them back in a gesture of good will
Moscow is encircled by glorious azov legion! Putin expected to surrender in two weeks.
Still better than walking, yes?
Probably not honestly. At least on foot your formation is far more tactically mobile and clandestine. In a 70 year old shit box your almost.more vulnerable, considering the array of AT weaponry available to infantry
>"We have not begun to fight."
Would probably save more soldiers if they just cut it up to use as shields.
It's quite impressing how this old platform is still in service. They don't make them as they used to.
Yeah they were old back in the USSR invasion of Afghanistan
>Listening to Wonderful Life right now
sovl
>They don't make them as they used to.
This is a good thing.
It's really not good.
Finnish military tested them in -85 to see if they could be used as battlefield taxis.
The result was a resounding "frick no." Even in the eighties they though the MT-LB's were obsolete tech, required heavy maintenance and had serious issues like "breaks lock for no fricking reason". It was considered too wide to be used in the forest and too loud to be used as scouting vehicle.
It was "OK-ish" when it worked, but they said that "even BTR-50's are better" and that it was unsuitable for even basic infantry squad in Finnish doctrine. In the end, they went for BMP-2 even when it was much more expensive.
I knew something was horribly wrong with this invasion the moment I saw the Russians driving MT-LBs down the highway.
>some kind of PK machinegun in the turret
The MT-LB uses the PKT machine gun. It's literally just a PKM with some modifications for use as a coaxial weapon (mainly a heavier barrel, gas regulator, and 250 round belts). It's the same gun you find on virtually all Warsaw Pact armored vehicles.
>Even in the eighties they though the MT-LB's were obsolete tech
Oh it's worse than that, the MT-LB was almost completely removed from frontline service in the Soviet Army by the 1980s. In 1985, most motor-rifle divisions consisted of three infantry regiments, one mounted on BMPs and the other two mounted on BTR-60/70s, with a handful of MT-LBs only being retained in specialist roles such as field ambulances, SAM launchers, or towing heavy equipment.
So the Russian Army actually BROUGHT BACK a vehicle that its Soviet progenitor considered so badly obsolete that it almost completely removed it from its inventory. The only explanation I can think of for this would be that the Russian Army's existing fleet of serviceable BMPs and BTRs was too small to support the invasion so they resorted to pulling old MT-LBs from the scrapyards to make ends meet.
Side note. The medical MT-LB's that we have pictures of look fricking grim.
Would you mind posting the pictures?
I'm curious to see what it looks like
Can't find the picture it was from start of the war. This one was full of ammo.
So it seems that they essentially put all their eggs in this basket, hoping to present themselves as strong and still boasting "we have thousands of MBT's still in storage, this is just a fraction of our strenght".
They hoped to snatch Ukraina with easy victory to boost their crumbling industrial base and some political points for Putin's strongman image.
But the Ukraina actually fought back, and others decided to call Russia's bluff. And the bluff was... this is all they had. The rest is just rust buckets. They don't even have the logistical ability to gather a larger army than this even if they could find some reserve equipment in storage. Russia really is a paper tiger.
Womp womp.
Yeah, they really were gambling everything on the Ukrainians just rolling the frick over and surrendering, all while at the same time planning to commit straight up genocide and bringing literal cremation vans along to get rid of the evidence. The fricking idiots.
We do know that the invasion was ordered to be prepared on extremely short notice (initial plans being drafted at some point last summer as the American presence in Afghanistan was falling apart). If they were lucky, the Russian Army's motor-rifle troops might've had 90 days' notice to prepare, but more likely it was under 30. Since it seems that even senior officers were being kept in the dark right up until days before the invasion, even these preparations were wholly inadequate. If they were under the impression that the whole thing was an exercise, it makes sense that Russian commanders might decide to bring the MT-LBs they were already using for training/towing instead of attempting to reactivate their BMPs and BTRs, which would have suffered even worse from lack of maintenance/theft of parts than the MT-LB because they use considerably more complex components.
The difference is that the Finns have a larger fleet of over 700 modern IFVs (BMP-2MD and CV9030) and APCs (mainly the Patria Pasi) to back them up. The MT-LB would basically be used either for towing heavy equipment or running men and equipment between barracks and the frontline, not used to assault Russian positions head-on.
My guess is they had maybe a few 100 MT-LB's in service to the point they're either runners or at least ran at some point recently enough for training, supply and general tractor duties. So they might be quick enough to bring up to speed in a hurry for readiness. The worst case scenario is that all their stockpile of BMP's and BTR's are in such bad condition they're either so fricked its not possible to bring them into service or there's a time-money-manpower crunch that can't happen in the timeline needed.
Sort of the old ruse that yes, Russia does have a stockpile of 20k BMPs and BTR's but they're all fricked and really only serve as landfill and squirrel habitats
meanwhile Funland has 400 mt-lbs, mostly bought for almost nothing from Germany after the unification.
We still use them for evacuating casualties, towing some artillery pieces etc. We've got around 450 of them
Honestly it seems like they WOULD make excellent tractors. Wide footprint, low center of gravity, big ass tracks, and pushing high horsepower numbers. Probably pretty good at towing shit, just not great at doing it quickly or while being fired upon
I've seen plenty of videos of them being used as quick and dirty recovery vehicles pulling tanks and ifv's and the like. Wasn't there a photo of a farmer using one on his farm?
They'd be good tractors if they weren't gas guzzlers from the 50's.
If I had a farm and was on a tight budget I'd probably try to pick one up honestly. It would probably be really handy.
I guess the fuel solution is to get one, strip the engine out and machine an adapter plate for a modern komatsu diesel or something, or just convert it to run on straight potato ethanol you make on the farm.
>"breaks lock for no fricking reason"
Well yes but as per the logic of Russian reliability, it's very easy to fix. You can basically keep it running with just a wrench and a hammer.
>Even BTR50 are better
Kinda want some source on that considering BTR50 is longer, taller, wider, heavier, worse hp/ton and only has hatches on top. Also especially Mt-LBv variant has very good tactical mobility thanks to those wider tracks.
But yeah it ain't no IFV and it never was meant as one. Sure you can stack it up like a clown car, but still it's a support vehicle as its russian name suggests (multipurpose towing vehicle)
I doubt there's a source, since MT-LBs are still in use while BTRs have been scrapped a long time ago. Finland even went out of its way to purchase MT-LBs from Sweden.
> Finland – 389 MT-LB/v, 50 MT-LBU
They're a lightly armored vehicle (frag protection) with good off-road capabilities. They're perfectly fine as APCs.
>Perfectly fine as APC
I agree, yet ofc it's obsolete, as is BTR50. I just found the comparison and statement that Mt-lb is worse, odd.
Isn't the ällitälli in use still?
So what are these things replacing, bmp's?
Meanwhile in reality.
Twitter.com/Blue_Sauron/status/1545357054918918146
Man, that's like running over a pensioners dog. It was just sleeping in the forest, resting its tracks!
MT-LB, outside of not being the peak of ergonomics and such, is completely fine for what it was meant for. A battle field taxi or supply vehicle with low track pressure. You put in stuff, and maybe the stuff will be protected from not-too-close arty hits or some long range rifle fire. Try to use it as IFV and sure, it will get fricked instantly.
Most european armies would benefit from having 500 MT-LBs in storage.
Battlefield taxis aren't that great of an idea though. Not in this context, I mean. Sure, apc's have their role but they're not really meant for assaults
>is completely fine for what it was meant for. A battle field taxi or supply vehicle with low track pressure
I thought they were built as artillery tractors
I serve on the southern front, near Kherson. MTLB is their main armored vehicle on this frontline for a couple months now
Kherson just flew over my house
That was Mykolaiv
>w-we are just holding back! if western nazis keep supplying the kiev fascists, tesla tanks starts rolling!
If used only as a taxi or supply vehicle, it should work out. Other than that, it's a waste of fuel and oil to deploy those things.
They used on the defence lines on the southern front
Would have helped them in the early war. It can drive in extreme swamps with ease.
They've been using them for awhile.
You don't quite understand- this is frontline service to replace things like BMP-2's and so on, which can arguably take a few hits
>Frontline
>In the equivalent of a small pantech-truck but less room, worse suspension and reliability that's your grand dad's age
>that time in depot when they drank a slab and decided to chop-saw something to be cooler
>I bet you won't do it
>fricken watch me
Well over 200 MTLB losses, but It doesn't even come close to the BMP-2 though, which has lost 321, and dozens more unable to be identified between the 1 and 2. We also have at least 104 BMP-1 losses, with more being unidentified. This doesn't even account for unphotographed losses.
I always assumed they were using BMP's and BTR's in place of the MTLB, but does this mean they're actually running out of BMP-2's, hell even BMP-1's for squad transport? What the frick?
Can't wait to see how they will pimp them.
But the russians have been using the MTLB extensively already
That's thinner than the armor you get on a modern level IV plate.
Cut off the back and turn her into a ute, mate. Much larger cargo capacity and effectively the same armour
why not use a normal truck at this point?
They ran out of trucks.
Yes this is the absolute state of russia.
Please tell me they're at least using the variant with the 30mm on the back
Some of those have already been destroyed per Oryx, so yes, they are
there is
Imagine being put into shitbox three times older than you and being send to frontlines assault with it
>MT-LB is back!
Finally, some fricking ällitälli kino.
10 mm? So basically a cardbox on modern battlefield. Fukcing hell.
It's over westoids, two more weeks till Berlin.
I remember studying this in AFV recognition. My way to remember this was by its giant hull, slack track and duck nose and MTLB=my team loves balls
Chornobaivka Time Anomaly active again apparently.
the biggest threat by far in ukraine is artillery
mt-lb has good protection from artillery
>good protection
On a STANAG 4569 it'd be about a '1' in that it would keep fragments out of a 152-155mm round going off 100m away
If you are close than that, you're going to eat a lot of shit
Got to remember, that's the thickest on the main body of the vehicle, there's plenty of places it drops down to 3mm which is barely able to keep grenade shrapnel out from 10m away
>there's plenty of places it drops down to 3mm
No. At it's thiccest vatnik MT-LB's are 14mm and 10mm at thinnest - they couldn't make it thinner cause the welds won't hold and the vehicle will buckle.
Fun fact: Bulgarian MT-LBs are 16mm all aounrd cause their engineers realised it would be much easier/cheaper to weld plates of the same thicness.
At last I truly see...
My only question would be why they never showed more then three T14 at the parade when they have hundereds of them.
was a feint
The idea that Russia can burn through thousands of people in their best age is kinda absurd.
They were already planning to leave from Russia, why not use them in the firing line before they flee?
I don't think Russians consider Buryats, Kalmyks and Dagestanis as people.
LMAO, that guy is an unironic tankie and absolutely fricking moronic even by tankie standards.
It better be a troll. Even by those numbers, that is 7 years of tank production.
eeeh mt-lb never quite left
just like m113s haven't
obviously using them in roles where BMP2s would be used just a couple of months ago reeks of serious desperation, but to act as if these were some extremely rarely used ancient museum pieces that are only now being taken out of storage is disingenuous
i mean even fricking finland still actively operates literal hundreds of them
>We're apparently going to see these old hotrods out in Ukraine according to intel reports.
That intel report is full of shit because you could see heaps of burned out MTLB's in early march already, they've been a staple of Ukraine fighting even back in 2014. Most of them are probably in Donbabwe militias but you could 100% see them in Bucha and the whole northern axis. Dunno why they tort this out now, it was plain to see for everyone who's paying attention that they've been using them a lot already.