Armed Assault Wiki
Register
Advertisement

The BTR-K Kamysh is a tracked Infantry Fighting Vehicle used exclusively by CSAT forces in ArmA 3.

Overview[]

  • Roles:
    • Troop transport
    • Fire support
« The infantry fighting vehicle BTR-K Kamysh and its anti-aircraft cousin ZSU-39 Tigris share the same vehicle platform. Developed by Russia with a pinch of undeniable inspiration from Israeli IFVs, they serve in the OPFOR army as a prime example of a leveling of the technology field with the West. The Kamysh is equipped with a CTWS turret fitted with a 30 mm cannon, coaxial machinegun and 2 guided AT missiles, making the vehicle significant in the infantry support role. The Tigris is fitted with a 35 mm autocannon and 4 Titan AA missiles.
Field Manual
»

Design[]

The BTR-K is a highly manoeuvrable infantry fighting vehicle designed as a troop transport. It can engage armoured ground and low-flying aerial targets while stationary, and also serve as an armoured reconnaissance vehicle.

Armament
It is fitted with a 30 mm autocannon that is capable of firing both high-explosive and armour-piercing rounds at ranges of up to 1,500 metres. In addition to its primary cannon and 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun, the BTR-K has anti-tank guided missiles that are capable of defeating or at least disabling heavily armoured vehicles.

The standard loadout of the BTR-K gives it 280 rounds of multi-purpose (MP-T) explosive rounds and 120 armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot (APFSDS-T) shells for the main gun. Each munition type feeds from either 140- or 60-round "magazines" respectively (MP/APFSDS).

The adjacent launcher pod on the other hand, has 2 infrared-guided Titan anti-tank missiles stored in it, and can toggle between direct fire and top-attack flight modes. The launcher pod can be reloaded once, which gives the BTR-K a total of 4 missiles.

Lastly, the coaxial MMG comes pre-loaded with a single 200-round belt and has a further 7 belts in reserve. In total, the coaxial MMG has access to a combined pool of 1,600 rounds.

Arma3-kamysh-00

The BTR-K's ATGMs can make short work of other armoured vehicles.

Features
Unlike its tracked NATO counterpart, the BTR-K is well equipped to be able to support its dismounts with direct fire and destroy light-medium armoured vehicles. Thanks to its Titan ATGMs, the BTR-K has a significant range advantage over its wheeled NATO counterpart, the AMV-7 Marshall. All the BTR-K's crew need to do is lock-on, fire off a Titan, and then make a dash for cover, denying their NATO counterpart any chance of being able to return fire.

Even tanks like the M2A1 Slammer are not necessarily safe, as the BTR-K's missiles can bypass the former's thick frontal armour by switching to top-attack mode and targeting the tank's turret roof instead. However, the crew will need to be careful and make use of the terrain to avoid being spotted since the BTR-K's armour plating is not capable of withstanding a direct hit from 120 mm shells.

Drawbacks
The BTR-K's turret is completely unarmoured and can be easily disabled by either sustained small arms fire, underbarrel grenade rounds or light/medium explosives. Compared to other IFVs (both wheeled and tracked), the BTR-K is also relatively thin-skinned and cannot resist multiple direct hits from rocket launchers and other anti-tank weapons.

BTR-Ks are also too bulky and heavy to be airlifted both externally and internally. As such, crews must manually drive to their AOs without air transportation; hampering its ability to reinforce allied squads already in battle (a shortcoming which its NATO equivalent does not face). Lastly, BTR-Ks have no amphibious capabilities and are restricted to travelling on land only.

Crew Capacity
The BTR-K has a seating capacity of eleven personnel including the crew. The crew includes the driver, gunner and commander.

Camouflage[]

  • Green Hex: Tropical Hexacam pattern camouflage. This is used in heavily forested and tropic environments. Attached camo netting will use a two-tone woodland camouflage pattern.
  • Hex: Arid Hexacam camouflage pattern. Useful for forested, grass plains, and desert environments. Changes any applied camo nets to use a two-tone desert camouflage pattern.

Protection[]

The BTR-K has a base armour value of 500. It uses Composite Armour plating and can optionally be fitted with addon Slat cages. When fitted, a total of eight individual slat cages will surround all sides of the hull. BTR-Ks cannot be shielded with Explosive Reactive Armour blocks/panels.

The following highlighted positions serve as weak points on the BTR-K:

Arma3-kamysh-hitpoints

LEGEND
Green = Hull
Orange = Engine
Violet = Fuel tanks
Light blue = Treads
Maroon = Turret
Gold = Autocannon barrel

Note that in order to inflict actual damage, a munition must first penetrate through the surrounding armour plates and directly hit the component's weak point. Any strikes on non-highlighted parts will cause little (if any) noticeable damage.


Hull[]

The hull can resist up to 500 points of damage. Will cause a catastrophic kill if fully depleted.

Munition type Damage reduction (%) Velocity reduction (%)
Armour Piercing None 20
High-Explosive 80 50
High-Explosive Anti-Tank 80* 20
Tandem High-Explosive Anti-Tank 80* 10

(*) Reductions only apply to the explosive component of the munition i.e. Tandem HEAT explosive charge

If the hull has been compromised, no reductions will be applied to the velocity/raw damage of incoming projectiles.

Hull Slat[]

Arma3-vehiclearmour-kamysh-slathull

Slat cages shield the entirety of the hull (including the rear compartment hatch). They are able to withstand up to 200 points of damage.

They take 200% extra damage from high-explosive (HE) type munitions, though none of this damage will be shared with the BTR-K's "health" pool. If the cages are destroyed, they must be reinstalled with the help of a logistics vehicle or manually repaired by hand.

Engine[]

The engine can survive 400 points of damage. 20% of incoming damage on the engine is transferred onto the BTR-K's "health" pool. It takes 80% less damage from HE-type munitions.

It will not cause a catastrophic kill by itself unless the BTR-K is critically damaged.

If damaged: Reduces power output, acceleration is decreased and it may become impossible to climb uphill.
If destroyed: Mobility kill; instantly immobilises the BTR-K.

Fuel tanks[]

The fuel tanks can only resist up to 250 points of damage before rupturing. Only 10% of damage against the fuel tanks are shared with the BTR-K's main "health" pool. It has 40% resistance to HE-type munitions.

A destroyed fuel tank will not cause a catastrophic kill unless the BTR-K is at critical "health" status.

If damaged: Gradually leak fuel over time.
If destroyed: Causes it to rapidly lose its entire fuel capacity in just a few seconds.

Treads[]

Both treads can resist 400 points worth of damage. They take 20% less damage from HE-type munitions. No amount of damage inflicted on them will be shared with the BTR-K's "health" pool.

Destroying either one of the treads will hamper the BTR-K's handling but will not prevent it from moving. Destroying both will severely degrade the BTR-K's handling to the point of preventing it from moving altogether on rough surfaces.

Turret[]

The turret can resist up to 400 points worth of damage. No amount of damage incurred is transferred onto the BTR-K's "health" pool.

Munition type Damage reduction (%) Velocity reduction (%)
Armour Piercing None 10
High-Explosive 80* 50
High-Explosive Anti-Tank 80* 80
Tandem High-Explosive Anti-Tank 80* 10

(*) Reductions only apply to the explosive component of the munition i.e. Tandem HEAT explosive charge

If the turret's integrity fails, no reductions will be applied to the velocity/raw damage of incoming projectiles.

Autocannon barrel[]

The autocannon barrel can incur 300 points of damage before failing. No damage inflicted on this component is transferred onto the BTR-K's "health" pool.

Destroying this component will lock the barrel and prevent the gunner position from adjusting its elevation/depression. It should also be noted that unlike the turret, the barrel is only capable of reducing 60% of incoming damage from HE-type munitions.

Commander periscope[]

The commander's optic can only survive a meagre 40 points of damage before it is disabled. The optics are fully susceptible to all kinds of damage. However, no damage is shared with the BTR-K's main "health" pool.

Disabling this component will prevent the commander from being able to rotate their optics independently.

Components[]

NOTE: Cosmetic-only component modules with no gameplay effects are deliberately excluded from this section.

  • Slat Cage (Hull): Attaches slat cages around the entire hull; excluding the turret but including the rear passenger compartment hatch. Slat cages will protect the BTR-K from non-AP munitions but can be destroyed after multiple hits.
  • Camo Net (Hull): Drapes the entire hull with camouflage netting (the turret is not covered). Partially conceals covered sections from thermal sensors.

Armament[]

NOTE: For specifics on the CTWS Cannon 30 mm's munitions, see its related section listed here.

The BTR-K's gunner controls all three of the turret's weapons: the CTWS Cannon 30 mm, Coaxial MG 7.62 mm, and the Titan Missile launcher pod.

Regardless of selected weapon, the gunner's optics feature three fields of view and can toggle a day, night or black-/white-hot thermal vision mode:

CTWS Cannon 30 mm[]

Arma3-vehicleweapons-btrkkamysh-ctwscannon30mm

General-purpose 30 mm autocannon. Can load and fire HE/AP-type shells.

Accuracy and muzzle velocity differs depending on the type of shell loaded:

  • Multi-Purpose (MP): High-explosive damage type, dispersion of 0.0018 rad, muzzle velocity of 1,430 m/s
  • Armour-Piercing Fin-Stabilised Discarding Sabot (APFSDS): Armour-piercing damage type, dispersion of 0.00108 rad, muzzle velocity of 1,070 m/s

Regardless of the loaded shell type, the CTWS Cannon has a maximum firing range of 3,000 metres and is able to attain a fire rate of up to 200 rounds per minute. It takes up to 40 seconds to rearm the CTWS Cannon with another "magazine" or to fully rearm from a logistics vehicle.

The Fire Control System can automatically adjust zeroing on targets moving at speeds of up to ~ 110 km/h. There is a fixed delay of 1 second before the FCS can finish adjustments. The gunner can also opt to manually zero, though it is only available in increments/decrements of 100 m up to a maximum of 3000 m.

Titan Missile[]

Arma3-vehicleweapons-btrkkamysh-titanmissile
Warhead Damage type Base damage value Penetration depth (mm)
Primary Tandem High-Explosive Anti-Tank 150 N/A
Secondary Tandem High-Explosive Anti-Tank 780 900

Infrared-guided anti-tank missiles. Can optionally utilise SACLOS for guidance.

Titan ATGMs have a minimum lock-on range of 200 metres and a maximum lock-on range of 5,000 metres. The gunner can choose either a direct fire or top-attack mode for the missile's flight profile. The pod has a delay of 1 second in-between launches but requires 30 seconds to reload another pair of missiles each time (or to fully rearm from a logistics vehicle).

The missiles use tandem high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warheads, combining an explosive charge with a kinetic penetrator submunition. The explosive charge has a blast radius of 4 metres. The missile has an initial launch velocity of 36 m/s and can reach a maximum speed of up to 180 m/s after 8 seconds of flight time. The secondary kinetic submunition can pierce up to 900 millimetres of armour plating.

Its seekers are infrared-guided, and can acquire targets moving at speeds of up to 126 km/h. They cannot however, lock onto targets that are 50 metres above terrain level (ATL) and have a 50% chance to lose lock against smoke countermeasures. The gunner also has the option to manually guide the missile via SACLOS, but the maximum distance for both forms of guidance remain the same (5,000 metres).


Flight Profiles[]

The BTR-K's Titan missiles can utilise two types of flight profiles:

Direct-attack[]

Missile uses a linear flight trajectory. This is the default flight mode.

Top attack[]

Once launched, the missile will transition between two phases:

  • Initial: Missile will continue to climb diagonally in a 30 degree angle until it passes a height of approximately 200 metres.
  • Seeking: Terminal phase of flight. Missile begins to descend onto the target once it hits an altitude of 240 metres ATL.

The missile has a minimum targeting range of 240 metres in this mode. If the target is not beyond this distance, it will default to direct-attack mode instead.

Lastly, if the missile loses track of the target during the seeking phase it can be defaulted back to manual guidance (SACLOS). Assuming that the seeker was not confused by defensive countermeasures, the missile will act as if it was being guided by SACLOS in the event this occurs.


Coaxial MG 7.62 mm[]

Arma3-vehicleweapons-btrkkamysh-coaxialmg762mm
Base damage value Aerodynamic friction Initial velocity (m/s) Penetration depth (mm)
11.6 -0.001 860 20.64

Coaxial 7.62 mm medium machine gun.

It has a muzzle velocity of 860 m/s, can attain a fire rate of up to 800 RPM, and always has a fixed dispersion of 0.0016 rad regardless of range. It takes 20 seconds to rearm the Coaxial MG with another linked belt or to fully rearm from a logistics vehicle.

The Coaxial MG's FCS can only zero against targets moving at speeds of up to ~ 110 km/h. It has an imposed delay of 1 second before it can finish adjusting. Unlike the CTWS Cannon, the Coaxial MG is restricted to a maximum automated and manual zeroing of 1500 m (even the FCS is not able to exceed this limit).

FFV[]

Main article: Firing from vehicles (mechanic)#BTR-K Kamysh

Trivia[]

  • The Kamysh's chassis is loosely based on the Belarusian-made "BM-2T Stalker" but is combined with a "Samson RCWS-30" turret, which is also used by the real-world "Pandur II" IFV that is represented in-game as the Gorgon.
    • The overall design and armament loadout of the Kamysh is also similar to that of the "BMPT Terminator". However, its name and use of the BTR acronym most likely draws from the "BTR-T", a Soviet tracked heavy IFV whose development was also inspired by an Israeli IFV.
  • The Kamysh was not originally available in the Alpha and was only added after the Beta's release (as part of Game Update 0.74).[1]
  • Prior to Game Update 1.50, a PhysX-related issue would cause the Kamysh to roll over at very high speeds. This was especially prevalent if the Kamysh was making hard turns on sloped hills.[2]
  • Before the Tanks DLC's release, the Kamysh was armed with a 6.5 mm coaxial machine gun. This was up-gunned to a 7.62 mm MG with the DLC's platform update (as part of Game Update 1.82).[3]

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. van 't Land, J.J. 2013, SPOTREP #00008, Arma 3, viewed 24 March 2023, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00008>.
  2. van 't Land, J.J. 2015, SPOTREP #00047, Arma 3, viewed 24 September 2023, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00047>.
  3. Kovařič, V 2018, SPOTREP #00079, Arma 3, viewed 2 September 2023, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00079>.

External links[]

See also[]

Variants[]

Vehicles of comparable role and configuration[]

Vehicles of ArmA 3
Wheeled AFV-4 GorgonAMV-7 MarshallHatchbackHEMTTHunterIfritKartMB 4WDMSE-3 MaridOffroadProwlerQilinRhino MGS (UP) • StriderSUVTempestTractorTruckQuadbikeUGV StomperVanZamak (MRL)
Tracked 2S9 SochorAWC NyxBTR-K KamyshCRV-6e BobcatED-1D Mini UGV (ED-1E) • IFV-6a CheetahIFV-6c PantherFV-720 MoraM2A1 Slammer (A4 UP) • M4 ScorcherM5 SandstormMBT-52 KumaT-100 Varsuk (X Futura) • T-140 Angara (T-140K) • ZSU-39 Tigris
Rotor-wing AH-9 PawneeAH-99 BlackfootAR-2 DarterCH-49 MohawkCH-67 HuronDemining DroneMH-9 Hummingbird (M900) • Mi-48 KajmanMi-290 TaruMQ-12 FalconPO-30 OrcaUH-80 Ghost HawkUtility DroneWY-55 Hellcat
Fixed-wing A-143 BuzzardA-149 GryphonA-164 WipeoutCaesar BTTF/A-181 Black Wasp IIKH-3A FenghuangMQ-4A GreyhawkTo-199 NeophronTo-201 ShikraUCAV SentinelV-44X BlackfishY-32 Xi'an
Aquatic Assault BoatMotorboatRHIBSpeedboatSDVWater Scooter
(Parenthesis) denote variants.
Karts DLC | Helicopters DLC | Apex DLC | Jets DLC | Laws of War DLC | Tanks DLC | Contact DLC
Arma3-factionicon-csat CSAT - Vehicles (ArmA 3)
Wheeled IfritMSE-3 MaridQilinQuadbikeTempestUGV SaifZamak
Tracked 2S9 SochorAkinaka ED-1D (Sayyah ED-1E) • BTR-K KamyshT-100 Varsuk (X Futura) • T-140 Angara (T-140K) • ZSU-39 Tigris
Rotor-wing Jinaah AL-6Mi-48 KajmanMi-290 TaruPO-30 OrcaTayran AR-2
Fixed-wing K40 Abalil-3KH-3A FenghuangTo-199 NeophronTo-201 ShikraY-32 Xi'an
Aquatic Assault Boat (Rescue) • Speedboat HMGSDV
Parenthesis denote variants.
Helicopters DLC | Apex DLC | Jets DLC | Laws of War DLC | Tanks DLC | Contact DLC
Advertisement