The Russians have gotten a closeup look at an M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle and seem to like it better than their own armored vehicles.
The Bradley offers more protection and can fire more accurately than its Russian equivalent, the BMP-3, according to a Russian report that was leaked onto a Telegram channel earlier this month.
Experts told Task & Purpose that the report appears to be legitimate.
The United States began providing Ukraine with Bradleys in January 2023. The following year, drone video emerged showing two Ukrainian Bradley Fighting Vehicles scoring hit after hit against a Russian T-90 tank with their 25mm cannons.
The captured M2A2 may have allowed the Russians to use live ammunition against a Bradley in testing for the first time, said Steven Zaloga, an expert on Russian and Soviet armor.
Finding out the Bradley is better than the BMP-3 should not have been a surprise to the Russians, as reports about the Bradley’s operational performance are readily available, said retired Marine Col. J.D. Williams, of the RAND Corporation.
“Having an actual vehicle does enable the Russians to confirm those reports (they may have been skeptical of the reporting and attributed some of those reports to western propaganda) and to understand the detailed materials and construction of the various components, in particular the armor protection, optics, and combat systems,” Williams told Task & Purpose in an email.
The differences between the Bradley and BMP-3 represent how the U.S. and Russian philosophies diverge, Williams said. First, the Soviets and then the Russians built their fighting vehicles under the assumption that they would lose many of them in battle, so they emphasized firepower over crew protection.
The Bradley may have a better main gun than the BMP-3, but the Russian vehicle has more weapons available, he said.
“Fielding a large number of vehicles that were easy to operate and had a lot of firepower was more important than having a smaller number of high-end systems,” Williams said. “Other deficiencies highlighted in the report reflect long-standing Russian limitations in development and fielding of technical or precision components like electronics, optics, and combat systems that give the Bradley a huge advantage in battlefield performance.”
However, the Russian analysis of the Bradley vs. the BMP-3 was not entirely one-sided, said retired Marine Col. Mark Cancian, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, D.C.
The Russians did find that the Bradley had more protection against mines, bullets, and projectiles, and they have more space for crews, Cancian told Task & Purpose.
But the report also found that the BMP-3 is better than the Bradley in other areas, such as its ability to float, and the BMP-3s also have more firepower, including a 100mm gun and 30mm autocannon, Cancian said.
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