Stone Posted March 20, 2010 Share Posted March 20, 2010 Having a poke around on Wikipedia the other day I noticed that many of the Soviet tracked vehicles fielded by Bulgaria may use rubber track pads, unlike (apparently) every other user... Examples: BMP1: 2S1: MTLB: T-72: Israeli T72 for comparison: Does anybody know if they make these padded tracks themselves for internal use, or were they widely available but not used? It obviously makes way more sense for parading if you can spare the manpower to change the tracks over (they seem to use normal flat links when deployed) but it'd make them a lot more desirable over here if you could ease your passage through DVLA :cool2: Stone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArtistsRifles Posted March 20, 2010 Share Posted March 20, 2010 Problem is the same I had when having pads fitted to the OT's tracks - the pads bolt on and to fit them to the "normal" steel tracks requires holes to be plasma cut fairly accurately for the securing bolts. Id you were buying a Bulgarian piece of kit then not a problem but for converting a vehicles of similar type from any other country look to be paying around £9,000 for that work to be done as the track has to be removed, broken down to individual links, holes cut, pads obtained and bolted into place and then the whole lot reassembled and refitted!! Pads on mine come from the latest BMP variant......... Oh yes - and you will never get an easy ride - or a ride of any sort through DVLA currently as 99% of Warsaw Pact armour is over-width!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steveo578 Posted March 20, 2010 Share Posted March 20, 2010 Looking at the photos of the t72 the tracks have a distinctly German look -ie Leopard 1 style, although difficult to judge on one photo the end connectors look different in size and spacing from the normal T72 track (which would mean a revised sprocket). The Mt-lb additionally seems to have revised wheels although they may be the heavy duty type theat appeared on the repair/recovery version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schliesser92 Posted March 20, 2010 Share Posted March 20, 2010 Must be a purely Bulgarian thing. The BMPs taken over from the east German NVA didn't have rubber pads, and when some were upgraded , they couldn't be registered to travel on German roads (because of the lack of pads), and were subsequently disposed of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Posted March 23, 2010 Author Share Posted March 23, 2010 Problem is the same I had when having pads fitted to the OT's tracks - the pads bolt on and to fit them to the "normal" steel tracks requires holes to be plasma cut fairly accurately for the securing bolts.Id you were buying a Bulgarian piece of kit then not a problem but for converting a vehicles of similar type from any other country look to be paying around £9,000 for that work to be done as the track has to be removed, broken down to individual links, holes cut, pads obtained and bolted into place and then the whole lot reassembled and refitted!! That was part of the masterplan - you'd hope a pair of tracks + shipping would come in less than that! It's obviously way easier to fit a new pair of tracks than to disassemble and modify them link by link. Plus you get left with a set of offroad tracks for when it's snowing :cool2: Not sure if the pads are separate or bonded to the links but wasn't someone on here investigating having rubber-metal bonded items restored? Putting the 'tyres' back on roadwheels rings bells for some reason. Stone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steveo578 Posted March 23, 2010 Share Posted March 23, 2010 schliesser92 Must be a purely Bulgarian thing. The BMPs taken over from the east German NVA didn't have rubber pads, and when some were upgraded , they couldn't be registered to travel on German roads (because of the lack of pads), and were subsequently disposed of. My post was specific to the T72 steveo578 Looking at the photos of the t72 the tracks have a distinctly German look -ie Leopard 1 style The tracks shown are almost certainly from the Croatian M95 Degman, the tracks of which were developed by Diehl GmbH & Co. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Posted March 24, 2010 Author Share Posted March 24, 2010 This isn't going to make Neil any happier but Excalibur Army sell track links with moulded rubber pads for the BMP and T55! linky - see page 43 Now the only question is whether BMP tracks will fit an MTLB. The road wheels look the same... Stone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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