BM-8-24

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Rank VI | Premium | Golden Eagles
Chinese A-5C Pack
BM-8-24
ussr_bm_8_24.png
GarageImage BM-8-24.jpg
BM-8-24
Purchase:3 850 Specs-Card-Eagle.png
Show in game

Description

The BM-8-24 is premium rank I Soviet tank destroyer with a battle rating of 1.3 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.53 "Firestorm". It is a T-60 chassis carrying Katyusha rocket launcher that can fire 24 rockets towards the enemy. It was also the vehicle that had to be used to unlock the BM-13N in the 2017 Victory Day Event.

General info

Survivability and armour

Armourfront / side / back
Hull35 / 15 / 25
Turret25 / 25 / 25
Crew2 people
Visibility125 %

Armour type:

  • Rolled homogeneous armour
Armour Front Sides Rear Roof
Hull 15 mm (73°) Front glacis
35 mm (24°) Lower glacis
35 mm (22-30°) Driver's port
15 mm 10 mm (65-70°) Top
25 mm (28°) Bottom
13 mm
Rocket Pad 25 mm (1-2°) 25 mm (0-1°) 25 mm (2-11°) 25 mm
Cupola 35 mm (34°) 15 mm (8-11°) 10 mm (26°) 13 mm

Notes:

  • Suspension wheels are 10 mm thick, tracks are 15 mm thick
  • Belly armour is 10 mm thick.

Mobility

Speedforward / back
AB47 / 7 km/h
RB and SB44 / 6 km/h
Number of gears4 forward
1 back
Weight5.8 t
Engine power
AB145 hp
RB and SB76 hp
Power-to-weight ratio
AB25.0 hp/t
RB and SB13.1 hp/t
Game Mode Max Speed (km/h) Weight (tons) Engine power (horsepower) Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton)
Forward Reverse Stock Upgraded Stock Upgraded
Arcade 47 7 5.8 108 145 18.62 25
Realistic 44 6 67 76 11.55 13.1

Modifications and economy

Repair cost
AB1 244 Sl icon.png
RB1 328 Sl icon.png
SB726 Sl icon.png
Crew training2 300 Sl icon.png
Experts15 000 Sl icon.png
Aces115 Ge icon.png
Research Aces320 000 Rp icon.png
Reward for battleAB / RB / SB
Talisman.png 2 × 60 / 80 / 80 % Sl icon.png
Talisman.png 2 × 112 / 112 / 112 % Rp icon.png
Modifications
Mobility Protection Firepower
Mods new tank traks.png
Tracks
Mods new tank suspension.png
Suspension
Mods new tank break.png
Brake System
Mods new tank filter.png
Filters
Mods new tank transmission.png
Transmission
Mods new tank engine.png
Engine
Mods tank tool kit.png
Improved Parts
Mods extinguisher.png
Improved FPE
Mods tank reinforcement ussr.png
Crew Replenishment
Mods new tank horizontal aiming.png
Horizontal Drive
Mods new tank vertical aiming.png
Elevation Mechanism
Mods art support.png
Artillery Support

Armaments

Main armament

82 mm M-8 rocket
Ammunition24 rounds
Belt capacity24 rounds
Reloadbasic crew → aces
10.4 → 8.0 s
Fire rate180 shots/min
Vertical guidance-3° / 40°
Horizontal guidance-13° / 13°
Main article: M-8 (82 mm)
82 mm M-8 rockets Turret rotation speed (°/s) Reloading rate (seconds)
Mode Capacity Vertical Horizontal Stabilizer Stock Upgraded Full Expert Aced Stock Full Expert Aced
Arcade 24 -3°/+40° ±13° N/A 13.2 18.3 22.2 24.6 26.1 10.40 9.20 8.48 8.00
Realistic 8.9 10.5 12.8 14.1 15.0

Ammunition

Penetration statistics
Ammunition Type of
warhead
Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
10 m 100 m 500 m 1,000 m 1,500 m 2,000 m
M-8 Rocket 9 9 9 9 9 9
Shell details
Ammunition Type of
warhead
Velocity
(m/s)
Projectile
mass (kg)
Fuse delay
(m)
Fuse sensitivity
(mm)
Explosive mass
(TNT equivalent) (g)
Ricochet
0% 50% 100%
M-8 Rocket 315 7.92 0 0.1 600 79° 80° 81°

Ammo racks

Ammo racks of the BM-8-24
Full
ammo
Visual
discrepancy
24 No

Notes:

  • Rockets deplete from left to right, top row first and then bottom row.
  • It is not possible to select how many rockets to bring into battle.

Usage in battles

The BM-8-24 only offers 24 rockets as its main armament, the ideal playstyle is use the terrain to hide from the enemies and wait for them to pass you by before you strike. The rockets work best when they are fired in volley, it takes one well placed hit to knock out an enemy tank.

To do this, get close as you can and aim for the sides, you want to aim for biggest surface you can see. The rockets are not accurate as with any rocket tank, so aiming for sides offer your biggest chance to successfully hit the target. You only need one hit to penetrate and detonate inside of the enemy tank knocking it and awarding you the credit for it.

The BM-8-24 is weak, a single HE or APCBC round, in simple terms any round with HE filler which hits the ammo rack which contains all 24 rockets will see the tank explode, like a firework. Even shrapnel or machine gun fire hitting the rockets will destroy them, they may not detonate with some machine gun hits but the rocket will be destroyed, reducing the effective amount.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Rocket launcher vehicle
  • Smallest rocket launcher profile
  • High-velocity rockets (good for medium-long range)
  • Small and agile, allows for quick re-positioning on the battlefield

Cons:

  • No other armaments except rocket launchers
  • Rockets can only face forwards
  • Armour of a T-60 (very low)
  • Extremely long reload time, even with maximum reload rate it still takes 3.2 minutes to reload all rockets
  • Small rocket supply of only 24
  • Very poor depression can cause it to be problematic to hit low targets at close ranges
  • Limited penetration of rockets even on direct hits, being only able to damage open SPGs and SPAAs

History

Development

The concept of a multiple rocket launcher system came about in June 1938, when the Soviet Jet Propulsion Research Institute was authorized by the Main Artillery Directorate to develop such system for the RS-132 rocket in use on their aircraft. A prototype by I. Gvay in Chelyabinsk was tried and fired M-132 rockets on ZiS-5 trucks, though these were unstable and were revised on the proposals of V.N. Galkovskiy to mount the launching rails longitudinally. Testing for the newly made prototype began at the end of 1938, firing 233 rounds in a couple of salvos. The rockets were found to be able to hit up to 5,500 m out, but the system was not looked fondly upon by the artillery branch. It took 50 minutes to load 24 rockets onto the launching rail, while a regular artillery cannon and howitzer can fire about a hundred in the same time at a sustained rate.

Testing continued up until 1940 and with a prototype of a truck with the launch rails on the back. The design was approved for production before Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, and mass-production began after the first month of the war, where the multiple rocket launchers proved very successful. During the war, the launchers were taken with much secrecy and operated by specialized troops such as the NKVD who do not even know its true name. Through the presence of a "K" on the vehicles from the Komintern Factory, the soldiers operating decided to nickname these launchers "Katyusha" after a popular wartime song of the same name. Up to 3,237 of all types of Katyusha launchers were produced from 1941 to the end of 1942, and more than 10,000 were made by the end of the war.

Advantages and disadvantages

Compared to the contemporary artillery systems of the time, the multiple rocket launcher system presented a different kind of artillery barrages used in the field. Advantages the multiple rocket launcher was that they were simple, extremely effective in saturation bombardment, fires lots of ordnance in a small time span, and were usually attached to mobile vehicles that can permit a quick retreat after firing to prevent counter-battery firing. Disadvantages with the system were that the rockets took a long time to reload, less accurate than regular artillery guns, and cannot sustain fire for a long period of time. However, in the battlefield, the multiple rocket launcher induces a greater psychological effect onto the targets on the receiving end due to the heavy amount of explosives able to be delivered in a short time. A battery of only four launchers could deliver their salvos of about 4.35 tons of explosives in a span of no longer than 10 seconds at a 400,000 square metre area.

Designations

Multiple variants of the multiple rocket launcher systems were made in the course of the war as the design is simply the attachment of launch rails onto a variety of vehicles. Each vehicle has different names that follow a template to distinguish their types.

  • "BM-x-y" indicates a ground vehicle.
  • "M-x-y" indicates a towed variant.
  • "y-M-x" indicates a naval variant.

and "x" stands for the missile model while "y" stands for the number of launch rails available for the launcher variant. For example, the BM-8-16 indicates a ground vehicle firing M-8 rockets with 16 rails available to mount on.

Vehicles using the Katyusha launchers range from trucks, cars, and tanks. The production started with trucks such as the ZiS-6, then moving on to STZ-5 artillery tractors, then on Allied Lend-Lease vehicles. The 82 mm M-8 rockets, which saw service in August 1941, was the most popular rocket variant and saw use on the trucks and even tanks, which would make the BM-8-24 rocket launcher tank mounted on the T-60 light tank. Another attempt with tank mounting was with a KV-1 heavy tank as the KV-1K, but as a waste of heavy armour, this was scrapped.

Combat usage

The Katyusha rocket launchers first saw service during the opening of Operation Barbarossa against Germany. On July 14, 1941, under the experimental battery commanded by Captain Ivan Flyorov, seven launchers were used in Rudnya and were able to cause massive destruction to the Germans in the town before they fled in panic. This success prompted the Red Army to build up more Katyushas in their inventory and raise more batteries and regiments for the vehicle. All these units were under NKVD control for secrecy until the Germans reveal their own multiple rocket launcher systems, the Nebelwerfer. The Germans nicknamed the Katyusha launchers as the "Stalin's Organ" after Joseph Stalin and how the launchers are organized in a way to look like a church organ. This German nickname became widely known in other areas in Western Europe. By the end of 1941, eight regiments and 37 independent battalions were available with a count of 554 Katyushas total.

The rocket launchers continue to become more integrated into the rest of the army as the war continued. Heavy mortar battalions were armed with the newer M-30 rocket launchers with heavy 300 mm M-30 rockets on June 1942. In July, a battalion of rocket launchers was added into the tank corps. The organization and equipment of these mortar battalions equipped with the Katyusha continue to increase and by the end of the war in 57 regiments, about 518 batteries of Katyusha launchers were available.

Legacy

The Katyusha launchers, issued in large numbers in the Eastern Front, was largely successful in the strategic effect of the war, granting the Soviet Union the ability to lay down a very heavy and shocking bombardment very quickly. The success of the system prompted many other countries to pursue such a system as well, such as the modified T34 Calliope based off the Sherman and the Germans Panzerwerfer 42s. Today, the multiple rocket launcher system is still widespread with the implementation of newer technology, rockets, and missiles that make the rocket launcher system a very potent weapon to anyone on the receiving end.


Archive of the in-game description

Based on the T-60 light tank, the first BM-8-24-class self-propelled mount featuring a jet-based volley-fire system on a tank chassis was built in 1941. At first the self-propelled mount was released on the basis of the T-40 light tank, but it was later replaced on the assembly line by the T-60 tank, and production continued on this basis.

The jet-based artillery subdivision of which the BM-8-24 MRLS SPG was a member was subordinate to Supreme Command. Jet-based artillery divisions were assigned to divisions and added to long-range (LR) divisions.

A total of 44 T-40 tanks were re-equipped as volley-fire installations.


Media

Skins

See also

Vehicles equipped with the same chassis
Other vehicles of similar configuration and role

External links


USSR tank destroyers
SU-76M  SU-76M · SU-76M (5th Gv.Kav.Corps) · SU-85A
SU-57B  SU-57B · SU-76D
T-34 Derivatives  SU-122 · SU-85 · SU-85M · SU-100 · SU-122P
Heavy Tank Derivatives  SU-100Y · ISU-122 · ISU-122S · SU-152 · ISU-152 · Object 268
SU-100P and Derivatives  SU-100P · Object 120
Wheeled  YaG-10 (29-K)
Airborne  ASU-57 · ASU-85
Rocket  BM-8-24 · BM-13N · BM-31-12
ATGM  IT-1 · Shturm-S · Khrizantema-S
Artillery  2S1 · 2S3M
Other  SU-5-1 · ZiS-30 · SU-122-54 · Object 775
USA  SU-57

USSR premium ground vehicles
Light tanks  BA-11 · RBT-5 · BT-7A (F-32) · T-26 (1st Gv.T.Br.) · T-26E · T-126 · PT-76-57 · 2S38
Medium tanks  T-34 (Prototype) · T-34 (1st Gv.T.Br.) · T-34E · T-34-57 (1943) · T-34-85E · T-34-100 · T-44-122 · TO-55 · T-55AM-1 · T-72AV (TURMS-T) · T-80UD
  ▂M3 Medium · ▂M4A2 · ▂T-III · ▂T-V · ▂МК-IX "Valentine"
Heavy tanks  SMK · T-35 · ▂MK-II "Matilda" · KV-1E · KV-2 (1940) · KV-2 (ZiS-6) · KV-122 · KV-220 · IS-2 "Revenge" · Object 248 · IS-6 · T-10A
Tank destroyers  BM-8-24 · BM-13N · BM-31-12
  SU-57 · SU-76D · SU-76M (5th Gv.Kav.Corps) · SU-85A · SU-100Y · SU-122P · Object 120
SPAA  ▂Phòng không T-34 · ZUT-37