https://defence-blog.com/army/u-s-army-discloses-details-convert-m60-tanks-russian-bmp-3-ifvs.html

Not just visual replica, sounds like they ensure it's got a similar profile in the IR and millimeter wave spectrum.

Guess we really are finally moving on from fighting cavemen armed with AK's to a near-peer adversary.

Interesting and thank you for the link.

Another question on the Javelin upgrade story...what is on the back of their helmets? Looks like a plate bolted on?


Photo by Sgt. Paige Behringer, 10th Press Camp Headquarters)Hometown: Chicago, Illinois, Oahu, Hawaii, Greenwich, Connecticut

I guess it could be the latest version of the multiple integrated laser engagement system, or MILES, used by the US Army and other armed forces around the world for training purposes.

H.P.

Far before cavemen in fact: that project was made some 18 years back as first shown on Twitter weeks back...

Shame it's not in 1/35

However the pictures do seem a bit dated, as per the post above.

Even earlier (1997) :

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3301068.html

Looks like they had used the M48 chassis, not the M60 one...

H.P.

Interesting but, nothing will match the real thing. These were borrowed from the Army for Exercise Kernel Blitz in ‘97ish aboard Camp Pendleton. There were more than what I have in these pics, just gotta dig them out of the photo album. The Army later found them to be excess to needs and the Marine Corps took them and stationed them in MCAGCC 29 Palms. They were used as OpFor vehicles for CAXs and other exercises.

So....are the Russians and Chinese doing the same with our vehicles in their training grounds?

At least the Russians used to...













Polish Army OPFOR :

https://shushpanzer-ru.livejournal.com/1345665.html

H.P.

Initial plans for these go back to the late 90s on M48 chasis, yes, but actual build like in the pics was on M60 chasis in 2000+

The vehicle in those pictures is an M60. Three return rollers, shock absorbers, aluminum road wheels = M60

Those all originally were at Ft. Irwin, part of the OPFOR (11th ACR)and were used in every rotation. There was a push to "replace" them with the vismod 113's with the Stryker turret for the longest time by certain folks.
This is going to sound strange, they were originally funded by the 203rd MI, the last CO, a female came in and was told by certain folks that the money currently on the books at that time was available for office improvements, so she did. Unfortunately it wasn't, it was for vehicle maintenance.
So NGIC was brought in to see if they would fund it, right up until the point when they found out how many Km they put on every rotation.
This coupled with the energy cost surge led Irwin to look for ways to cut costs, and someone was stood there telling them they could save $1m/year by getting rid of the Soviet equipment, I will leave it up to your imagination who that was.
So the museum was closed, the equipment sat there, contract cancelled.
No money was actually saved because it was never coming out of Irwin's budget.

A year or so later, an enterprising young Marine, Captain if memory serves, heard about all this equipment just sitting
at Irwin. Somehow or other he arranges for it all to be transferred on simple hand receipts, turns up with lowboy trucks and voila, the Marines have a genuine OPFOR, however finding someone to pay for the maintenance and operation of it proved impossible an the whole project quietly went away.
There was a cover photo of him jumping up on one of the vehicles on the cover of Marine Monthly, or whatever the official magazine was at that time.

I did get a call from the COR at TMO, the folks that actually owned the vehicles a couple of years later asking if I knew what happened to them, passed her along to the folks at Pendleton. Never did hear what happened after that, they may have ended up at YUMA.

While at Irwin CALOSHA demanded the T 72's be fitted with turret safety baskets so nobody would get their feet caught when it rotated, and I had to chase around to have the compressed air bottles certified, originally to DOT rules, however those don't cover Russian air bottles, so finally we all agreed to test them to 1.5 times stamped max pressure, two out of twenty made slight cricking noises, so we ended up with eighteen "Certified" air start bottles.
Side note, the Zsu 23-4 would roll out on the Green Flag portion of the Irwin rotations, operators would turn on the acquisition radar, closely followed by F16/15 drivers yelling to turn it off, quite amusing.
Anyway, the 113 vismods have had a lackluster life at Irwin, they don't look, sound anything like a BMP, in visual or IR. They have been left for long periods of time, revived, used and left again.
Nothing like the real thing.
Sometimes we are our own worst enemy.

Thanks for the research and photos!!!