Russell Phillips's Blog, page 7
November 11, 2017
Remembrance Day 2017
Today is Remembrance Day in the UK. I have a red poppy, and I shall be observing the two minute silence at 11:00. For me, Remembrance Day is a time to remember everyone that has been harmed by war. Any war, any nationality, civilian, military, whatever. That’s a lot of people, and so each year I focus on a particular group during the silence.
This year, I’ll be thinking of the unsung heroes. In every war, there are people that selflessly help others. A few get official recognition, in the form of a medal, commendation, or promotion. Most do not. Obviously, such people are largely unknown, but I’d like to share the stories of a few that I know of.
During the Second World War, the UK formed “Auxiliary Units” under conditions of great secrecy. In the event of invasion, these units would remain behind German lines, providing intelligence and disrupting supply lines. Their life expectancy would have been very short. After the war, it was decided that members of the Home Guard would be awarded the Defence Medal, but the men of the Auxiliary Units would not.
During the Korean War, the British cruiser HMS Ceylon sent a landing party ashore, ostensibly to look for North Korean guerillas, but with the primary purpose of finding a Christmas tree. They discovered an orphanage, with children and adults close to death from hunger and cold. The crew sent gifts of clothing and food, and as a result of their generosity, many of the children survived.
Stanislav PetrovEarly on a September morning in 1983, at the height of the Cold War, alarms went off at a Soviet nuclear warning centre. Satellites had picked up US nuclear missile launches. Stanislav Petrov was on duty, and he should have called his superiors to warn them. If he’d done so, they would probably have launched a counter-strike, and so a nuclear war would have begun. Instead, he picked up the phone and reported a system malfunction, and in doing so saved countless lives. He died in May this year, in such obscurity that western news outlets didn’t report it until September.
These stories are not well known, but the acts and the people involved deserve to be remembered. At 11:00 today, I will remember them. Who will you remember?
The post Remembrance Day 2017 originally appeared on Russell Phillips.
November 7, 2017
Combat Engineering Equipment of the Warsaw Pact now available
On this, the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution, I’m happy to announce that Combat Engineering Equipment of the Warsaw Pact, the second book in my Weapons and Equipment of the Warsaw Pact series, has been released.
Combat Engineering Equipment of the Warsaw Pact is a factual reference of the combat engineering equipment which was used throughout the Cold War period and the important roles each piece played.
Buy the ebook or paperback now.
The post Combat Engineering Equipment of the Warsaw Pact now available originally appeared on Russell Phillips.
October 17, 2017
Ghosts of the East: Soviet AFVs that never existed
During the Cold War, both sides did what they could to hide the capabilities of their military equipment. As Sun Tzu advised, “A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective“. Naturally, both sides also tried to discern what the other side was hiding, with variable results. This article discusses some Soviet AFVs that were reported in the Western media, but which did not actually exist, or were not as reported. The reader should bear in mind, however, that even now it can be difficult to obtain reliable information regarding Soviet weapons of the Cold War era. That holds doubly true when it comes to non-existent vehicles.
Artist’s impression of the NST (Next Soviet Tank)NST (T-80B)
In the early 1980s, the US Department of Defense published an artist’s impression of the NST (Next Soviet Tank). This depicted a vehicle similar in design to western tanks of the time such as the US M1 Abrams. It would have marked a radical new direction in Soviet tank design, and was said to be armed with a 135mm main gun.
When the new Soviet design, the T-80B, was spotted, it was found to bear little resemblance to the artists’ impression. It was in many ways an evolutionary design, building on earlier designs, although the gas turbine engine was a radical departure. The main armament was not a 135mm gun, but a 125mm gun like the T-64 and T-72, with a similar turret shape. It is left to the reader to decide how much the artist’s impression was influenced by a desire for increased funding, rather than intelligence on future Soviet tank design.
IT-122 and IT-130
The existence of these two vehicles was “revealed” to the West by a defector, the former GRU agent known as Viktor Suvorov (real name Vladimir Rezun). The IT-130 was claimed to mount a 130mm gun in an armoured superstructure on a T-62 chassis. It was eventually discovered to be completely fictitious, although Suvorov’s motive is unknown. He may have been trying to spread disinformation, or simply trying to please his investigators.
Confusing matters further, there was a self-propelled 130mm gun design, the ISU-130. Mounting an adapted 130mm naval gun, development started towards the end of the Second World War, and completed after the war ended. There were several problems with the design. The gun’s performance was found to be no better than the standard 122mm, especially with newly improved ammunition. The ISU-130 did not go into production, and the only prototype is now on display at Kubinka tank museum.
Another design named by Suvorov was the IT-122, mounting a 122mm gun in a similar arrangement to the IT-130. This is now generally believed to be false too. Photographs said to be of the IT-122 actually show the SU-122-54.
M1977 ARV
Contemporary books listed the M1977 armoured recovery vehicle as in service with the Soviet army. This was said to be based on an IT-122 or IT-130 with the gun removed. As late as 1988, the Jane’s entry for the M1977 stated that it was basically a de-gunned IT-130 tank destroyer. As already stated, the IT-130 did not exist, so these accounts must have been mistaken. Close examination of photographs show that the chassis was not that of a T-62, which the IT-130 was said to be based on. It appears to have been a de-gunned SU-122-54. Since the SU-122-54 was sometimes wrongly identified as the IT-122, this may explain why the M1977 was thought to be based on an IT-122 or IT-130.
BREM
Some sources state that the Soviet Union developed an armoured recovery vehicle (ARV) based on the wheeled BTR-70 armoured personnel carrier (APC). This vehicle is listed with the designation BREM. The Soviet, and later Russian armies produced a range of BREM (Bronirovannaya Remontno-Evakuatsionannaya Mashina — armoured repair and recovery vehicle) series vehicles (e.g. the BREM-1 based on the T-72). This one is notable as never being listed with a suffix. Nor have I ever seen a photograph or even drawing purporting to be of the vehicle.
In an article published in the February 1993 issue of Red Star (the official Russian Ministry of Defence newspaper), Major Aleksandr Yegorov heralded the arrival of the new BREM-K. This was an ARV based on the BTR-80 wheeled APC. In the article, he mentioned that this was the first ARV in Soviet or Russian service to be based on a wheeled BTR series APC. Previously, wheeled APCs would be towed by other vehicles such as BMPs or tanks. Yegorov stated that “Urgent repair under field conditions was a problem in general, the solution of which, as a rule, depended on a soldier’s native intelligence and his muscles.”
Despite the obvious usefulness of an ARV based on a BTR-60 or BTR-70 chassis, such a vehicle was never built by the Soviet army during the Cold War.
The post Ghosts of the East: Soviet AFVs that never existed originally appeared on Russell Phillips.
