Rare photos of Vietnam's BTR-50 in the Southwestern border war
The Vietnam People's Army has a small number of BTR-50 tracked armored personnel carriers provided by the Soviet Union in the early 1970s.
The BTR-50 is a tracked armored personnel carrier modified from the PT-76 amphibious tank chassis. It is also a rare tracked APC of the Soviet Union because they later mainly used wheeled armored vehicle chassis.
The BTR-50 armored personnel carrier has a combat weight of 14.5 tons; length 7.08 m; width 3.14 m; height 2.03 m.
The design of the BTR-50 is very similar to the PT-76 when compared to a motorboat, however the structure of the BTR-50 is completely different with the cockpit in the front, the troop compartment in the middle and the engine at the back.
The BTR-50's armor is equivalent to the PT-76 with a thickness of 13 mm at the front arc, 10 mm at the sides and roof, while the tail is only 7 mm, which is still enough to resist light infantry weapons with a caliber of up to 7.62 mm.
Soldiers would have to enter and exit this APC through its door, which was a major limitation of Soviet battlefield taxis at that time. In return, the BTR-50's capacity was very large, up to 20 infantrymen.
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| Vietnamese BTR-50 armored vehicles land from LSTs at Kampong Som port during the Southwest border war. |
Images of the BTR-50 armored personnel carrier in action in the Vietnam People's Army are quite rare. The most famous is the photo above, capturing the moment when our Marine Corps unit stepped out of the captured LST landing ship's hold onto the Cambodian port of Kampong Som during the campaign to destroy the Khmer Rouge.
Equipped with a 240-horsepower V6-6 turbocharged diesel engine and a water jet engine in the tail, the BTR-50 and PT-76 will combine to become a very formidable combat formation when attacking from the sea.
The basic firepower of the BTR-50 armored personnel carrier is the 7.62 mm SGMB medium machine gun or the 14.5 mm KPV heavy machine gun. Although it faces many obstacles because this APC does not have a gun turret like the BTR-60, it still performs very well on the battlefield.
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| Vietnam's BTR-50 armored personnel carrier in 2017. |
In addition to the basic version, in Vietnam, the BTR-50 is also seen in two other versions: the BTR-50PK communications vehicle with a configuration of installing the ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun on the roof.
After a period of use, Vietnam's BTR-50 armored personnel carriers are said to have been put into long-term storage.
It was not until 2017, in a report about the 201st Armored Brigade's exercise broadcast on the National Defense Television Channel, that the "reappearance" of the BTR-50 was officially confirmed.
Although old, the BTR-50 is still considered capable of playing a role in modern warfare, especially when Russia recently introduced a comprehensive upgrade package for this modified PT-76 tracked APC.