According to the American portal Defense News, when trying to counterattack the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Nikolaev and Kherson, they used the YPR-765, which carried out an infantry attack. This was also reported by the French television channel TF1 and the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.
The YPR-765 infantry fighting vehicles, delivered by the Netherlands to Ukraine, became the first NATO tracked military equipment that can be conditionally classified as heavy weapons (its mass reaches 13 tons). True, at the time of delivery – mid-May – these infantry fighting vehicles came without standard weapons: 25 mm Oerlikon-Burle KVA-VO2 automatic gun and 7.62 mm MAG machine gun.
“This is the main problem of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the supply of Western weapons, when the calibers do not match and the required amount of ammunition for them is not available. A military expert, reserve colonel Gennady Alekhin, we must put something of our own in socialbites.ca. – Allied forces note that the Ukrainian army sometimes abandons foreign equipment directly at positions due to the inability to use it and the lack of ammunition. The officers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces say that the same M777 howitzers are very difficult to use.”
At the same time, the expert doubts that the YPR-765 came from the Netherlands.
“It is a dubious question whether these infantry fighting vehicles are part of deliveries by the Netherlands to Ukraine – there are not so many YPR-765 infantry fighting vehicles of various modifications in Amsterdam that would supply such combat vehicles in significant quantities.
These are either units or not from the Netherlands. Maybe from Australia or France. Even from Turkey. And yet from Holland, we are talking about ancient examples, from which the armed forces of the kingdom wanted to get rid of, ”says Colonel Alekhin.
These BMPs were developed by American specialists in the late 1960s on the basis of the M113 armored personnel carrier. In the US Army itself, the YPR-765 was not in demand because of its poor performance characteristics.
Washington began to actively offer them for export as command vehicles, in fact infantry fighting vehicles, installations for mortar systems. The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Australia, Asian countries – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Turkey and a number of other countries have accepted such proposals. The new version did not receive the popularity that the M113 armored personnel carriers had, for which more than 88 thousand units were produced.
“The YPR-765 BMP was relatively good in itself, but 20-30 years ago. They have no real experience of participating in full-scale military conflicts under the influence of enemy aircraft, artillery and tanks. Now it has a very mediocre performance. This Belgian armored vehicle is significantly inferior in all key characteristics to the same Russian BMP-3s that took part in special operations in Ukraine, ”says Sergey Belousov, member of the Board of Military Experts.
Thus, the BMP-3 is equipped with a 100 mm cannon with a rate of fire of 10 rounds per minute (much more powerful than the 25 mm YPR-765 automatic cannon), which can also be used as an ATGM launcher. Also, a 30-mm automatic twin gun with a rate of fire of 330 rounds per minute.
“The YPR-765 is a weak car. The USA did not buy it for itself, but sold it to others. Even while studying at the Armored Forces Military Academy, and this is the 70s of the XX century, this car was given to us as an example of a bad decision. ” The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Reserve Major General Maxim Leontiev, told socialbites.ca. – The concept of this vehicle was to carry infantry, not support it with fire. It’s too weak a caliber for serious support. This hasn’t been for a long time. Overall, the YPR-765 is a car. It’s a little more armored and very heavy.”
The general emphasized that NATO countries using the YPR-765 have repeatedly tried to abandon them. “For example, Turkey tried to buy M2 Bradleys from the USA in the early 2000s to replace their YPR-765s. But the deal did not happen,” Leontiev added.
Source: Gazeta
