Ukraine’s New Upgunned BMP-1 Fighting Vehicle Shoots Farther

Both sides in Russia’s 22-month wider war on Ukraine have lost a lot of infantry fighting vehicles. Both are scrambling to make good some of those losses by combining whatever old vehicle hulls are available with whatever new turrets they can scrounge or build from scratch.

In practice, that means a rapid proliferation of upgunned BMP-1s. The 15-ton, 11-person BMP-1 might be the most common IFV in the world. Soviet industry produced tens of thousands of first-generation BMPs starting in the mid-1960s. Today thousands of the vehicles are in storage in Russia and Ukraine.

The biggest problem with the basic BMP-1, besides the type’s inadequate protection, always has been its low-pressure 73-millimeter gun. The gun has the benefit of producing minimal recoil, but it also loses accuracy past a few hundred yards.

So when the Russians or Ukrainians upgrade old BMP-1 hulls after potentially decades in storage, they usually start by popping out the turrets and guns and replacing them with new combat modules, often sporting modern optics and 23-millimeter or 30-millimeter autocannons: combinations of fire-controls and weapons that should allow a BMP-1 crew to engage targets a thousand yards away.

The latest Ukrainian BMP-1 upgrade boasts a locally-produced combat module with a KBA-2 30-millimeter autocannon. This upgunned BMP-1 first appeared in a video that circulated on social media on Monday.

This new BMP-1 variant apparently isn’t a BMP-1TS, a similar upgunned BMP-1TS that Ukrainian industry produced in small numbers starting two years ago. All dozen or so BMP-1TSs reportedly belong to the Ukrainian 5th Assault Brigade. The brigade has lost at least one in combat.

The new BMP variant reportedly is easier to maintain than the BMP-1TS is—and shoots more accurately thanks to its improved stabilization. That the Ukrainians continue to refine the BMP-1’s weaponry, and at an accelerating rate, is good news for Ukrainian brigades that never have had enough IFVs.

But a better gun doesn’t do anything to mitigate the BMP-1’s greatest flaw: its soda-can-thin armor, which is vulnerable to anything more powerful than a machine gun. It’s not for no reason that Ukrainian crews are unanimous in their praise for their American-made M-2 IFVs, which are much heavier and better-protected than any BMP is.

An M-2 can take hits and keep fighting while protecting its crew and passengers. When a BMP takes a hit, “the entire crew dies,” one Ukrainian soldier said.