TAB-71

Alice_In_Chains · July 22, 2023, 2:16am

1. Would you like to see this vehicle added to the game?

Yes
No

0 voters

2. If yes which variant or variants would you like?

Both variants
TAB 71
TAB 71M
I voted no to the first question

0 voters

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Brief Summary:
Before you go “oh this is just a BTR-60PB” this vehicle may look the same the TAB-71 and the later TAB-71M do have their differences from the BTR-60’s to make them different enough from their Soviet counterparts.

History:
Romania had been looking to license and build the new Soviet APC’s the BTR-60’s introduced to the Soviet Union in 1959 which it could use to replace the small amount of BTR-152 and BTR-40’s in service at the time. By 1962 Romania had received the license and documentation to produced the vehicle which they used to build the open top TAB-63 the predecessor to the TAB 71. The TAB-63 was a short lived project as the Romanian Socialist Army asked the Military Industrial Committee of the COMECON to acquired the license of the BTR-60PB a more advanced model of the BTR-60P.

TAB 63

The license to the BTR-60PB was acquired in 1970 and would be called the TAB-71, produced by RATMIL now known as ROMARM the TAB-71 and would be first unveiled at military parade in Bucharest in August 1972. Although looking like it’s Soviet counterpart the vehicle such as the turret and engine which were both improved upon from the BTR-60PB design. Between 1971-1990 a total of 1306-2073 vehicles of the TAB-71 family had been produced depending on the sources with the various TAB-71 vehicles serving in Yugoslavia, Moldova and Romania. 261 TAB-71’s are still in service with Romania with between 600-800 more in storage.

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The TAB-71 is an 8x8 armoured personnel carrier that replaced the 2x GAZ 49 90hp engines with the 2x French Saviem SR-225 gasoline engines with 140hp each vastly improving the power to weight ratio of the vehicle increasing it’s top speed to 95km/h in the process. The same amphibious, NBC systems, front-mounted winch and central tyre-pressure regulation system of the BTR-60PB whilst the one man turret had an elevation that could go to 85-90° in elevation which had ground and anti-air (LOTA) sights. The main differences between the TAB-71 and TAB-71M is the 2x Saviem 797-05 Diesel engines 130hp and a slightly different turret which is also found on the BRDM-2 and OT-64.

Other variants of the TAB-71 included a TAB-71AR 82mm mortar carrier, TERA-71L a recovery and maintance variant and a couple TAB-71A command variants.

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