Russia’s Next-Generation Kurganets-25 Fighting Vehicle “Indefinitely Delayed”

On Tuesday, Viktor Murakhovsky, the influential editor of Russian defense publication Arsenal of the Fatherland, wrote a brief post on a military forum regarding the status of the Kurganets-25 armored vehicle, which in 2015 was advertised as a forthcoming replacement for the thousands of BMP infantry fighting vehicles in Russian Army service

“I spoke with specialists at the Army-2020 forum [an arms expo] regarding the Kuragnets-25. It looks like the platform is being delayed indefinitely. The manufacturer failed to deliver both in terms of performance characteristics and in organizing for mass production. For the foreseeable future, there will continue to be procurement of BMP-3s to serve as infantry and weapons carriers.”

Five years earlier, Russia debuted a fleet of advanced new armored vehicles during the Victory Day. While a new main battle tank with a revolutionary unmanned turret dubbed the T-14 Armata attracted the most attention, another showcased vehicle of potentially equal importance was an infantry fighting vehicle (IFV)
IFV
called the Kurganets-25.

This beefy new armored vehicle was intended to replace the thousands of Soviet-era BMPs in the Russian military. The troop-carrying vehicles comes in several different models, all of which are a thinly armored but heavily armed with cannons, machine guns and anti-tank missile launcher. According to The Military Balance 2020, the Russian Army has over 4,000 BMPs in active military formations, and 8,500 in reserve.

The Kurganet-25, to be built by BMP-manufacturer Kurganmashzavod, matches a stripped-down Armata hull with a remote-control turret featuring improved sensors and formidable anti-tank missiles.

However, the money to fund Moscow’s ambitious ground forces modernization effort drained away under the pressure of Western sanctions and crashing oil prices. And a study estimated the Kurganets cost “less than or around 300 million rubles” (nearly $4 milllion), not cheap by Russian standards.

Moreover, the Kurganets was reportedly criticized for being excessively large, resulting in a redesign. In 2017, the defense ministry pushed back the production date to 2022. That same year a designer of the BMP described the Kurganets as a flawed design to the Russian press.

The Kurganets’s problems are emblematic of Russia’s broader struggles to move from the prototype to production stage for its next-generation ground vehicles. For example, while Moscow claimed in 2015 that by 2020 it would field 2,300 T-14s, by January 2020 no production model Armatas had been delivered. The new goal is for 132 Armatas to be delivered by 2022.

Modernizing the BMP

The Red Army revolutionized mechanized warfare when it first paraded the BMP on the streets of Moscow in 1967. This was the world’s first Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV), designed to carry infantry into battle while also providing heavy fire support with a cannon and an anti-tank missile launcher. That meant the BMP could contribute far more to the fight than the machinegun-armed armed personnel carriers that then predominated.

It took Western militaries over a decade to develop and field their own IFVs like the American M2 Bradley, the British Warrior and the German Marder. But these heavier (28 tons or more) and more expensive vehicles tended to much better armored, meaning they were likely to defeat a 14- or 15-ton BMP in a close range head-to-head fight.

Indeed in the 1991 Gulf War, U.S. Army Bradleys destroyed hundreds of Iraqi armored vehicles, including many BMPs, for only a few losses.

In the late 1980s, Russia began fielding the 18-ton BMP-3, a vehicle more heavily armed than any Western IFV because it packs a 100-millimeter gun in addition to a 30-millimeter autocannon. However, the cramped BMP-3 was only marginally better protected than its predecessors.

The concept for the Kurganets-25, then, was for Russia to field a 28-ton BMP replacement with modern sensors and tank-busting missiles, and improved crew and passenger protection found in modern IFVs. As was done for the BMP, the Kurganet’s base hull could then spawn a whole family of specialized vehicles, including a more lightly armed armored personnel carrier variant, and command, reconnaissance, armored recovery, mortar-carrier and anti-tank vehicles.

In 2016 I wrote a profile of the Kurganets and its planned characteristics, including capacity for up to seven dismounts at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour, and ability to swim using waterjets.

Revised armament came from use of a modular unmanned Epoch turret shared with other armored vehicle. This combines the 2A42 30-millimeter cannon introduced in the BMP-2 with four new Kornet-EM fire-and-forget missiles. The laser-guided Kornet penetrates more armor and can be fired more rapidly than the preceding wire-guided AT-5 Konkurs, and thus poses a far greater threat to modern Western tanks.

Kurganets was also to include laser and thermal sensors, a hunter-killer fire control system, and an Afghanit Active Protection System designed to divert or shoot down incoming anti-tank missiles, .

In theory this all amounted to a formidably improved vehicle. But Russia’s economy has suffered significantly in the last six years due to factor ranging from Western sanctions to crashing oil prices and now the COVID pandemic. Those issues, combined with the delays and performance shortfalls Murakhovsky alluded to, probably led to the project’s shelving, at least in the near future.

Russia is by no means unique in experiencing difficulties integrating advanced technologies and improved protection into a new IFV. In January , the Pentagon rebooted its program to develop a successor to the Bradley for the third time in two decades after having spent over $20 billion on prior attempts.

What Next For Russia’s Mechanized Infantry?

Faced with the delays and costs of fielding new ground warfare systems, Russia’s defense ministry is increasingly diverting money to modernizing old ones instead, including procuring hundreds more BMP-3s in particular.

The military particularly appears interested in a modernized variant of the BMP-3 called the Manul, an evolution of the earlier-proposed BMP-3 Dragoon with a different turret.

Billed as a “transitional” vehicle, the Manul features a 32% uprated 660 horsepower UTD-32T engine mounted in the front hull to help shield crew and passengers from penetrating hits. A roomier passenger compartment can carry up to eight dismounts and has a rear door ramp, an improvement over the regular BMP-3’s exceptionally awkward arrangement.

The unmanned Epoch turret with the Kornet-EM missiles, a 30-millimeter gun and a PKTM machinegun is again featured, while the BMP-3’s usually distinctive 100-millimeter gun is absent.

Remote-control systems and sensors developed for the Kurganets are also reportedly integrated. However, the Manul does not appear to match the improved hull-armor protection levels intended for the Kurganets, and lacks major improvements for protection from mines and IEDs, one of the chief threats to armored vehicles today. Still, the Manul does represent an upgrade to anti-tank capability, sensors, mobility, and passenger capacity, ergonomics and survivability.

There are numerous other proposed armored troop carrier programs in the wings aimed at different types of military formations and roles

The most important new design may be the Bumerang 8×8 wheeled APC, intended to eventually replace Russia’s huge inventory of Soviet-era BTR personnel carriers. The Bumerang can mount the same Epoch turret as the Kurganets and Manul, and would replace the troop carriers in Russia’s motorized infantry units.

Another project is the T-15 Armata, a more heavily armored T-14 Armata spinoff intended to be a “heavy IFV” with tank-level armor for use in urban combat and other high-risk combat scenarios.

Reportedly, T-15s may make up around one-third of the order for 132 Armatas, enough to equip a battalion of mechanized infantry to support two battalions of T-14 tanks in an armor brigade.

Russian airborne forces are also receiving ultra-lightweight BMD-4M IFVs that can be parachute-dropped from an airplane while armed similarly to the old-school BMP-3 with both a 100- and 30-millimeter guns.

Its possible the Kurganets program may be revived down the line. However, its current shelving hints at the financial constraints and technical problems which have hampered Russia’s ambitious military modernization project—despite the splash made by impressive new prototypes in the 2015 Moscow military parade.