WHAT IT IS

BMO-T (Russian: БМО-Т, боевая машина огнемётчиков — тяжёлая; Object 564) is a Russian heavy carrier for an RKhBZ flamethrower squad. It is a T-72 hull with the turret deleted and a low casemate in its place. Job: move seven men and a rack of RPO-A Shmel launchers up to contact under tank-level frontal armour, then let them dismount.

Designed at Omsk KBTM (Omsktransmash) in the late 1990s for the NBC / flamethrower troops. Accepted in 2001. Production stayed in the low tens. Army Guide lists about ten. It is the Russian analogue of the Israeli Achzarit idea — tank chassis, no gun, infantry in the hull — built for one specialist section, not a motor-rifle company.

LAYOUT

T-72 running gear kept: six road wheels, rear drive sprocket, torsion bars, rear engine. The fighting compartment and driver’s station become one manned box. Crew two — driver and commander/gunner. Seven dismounts sit in the casemate. Fuel was moved: a 347-litre tank forward, four more tanks in the side sponsons (about 961 litres) so the men and the RPO racks fit.

Exit is roof hatches and rear casemate hatches, not a Western rear ramp. The engine is still in the stern. Two roof ports let a dismount fire an RPO while still partly behind armour. Passenger vision blocks: TNP-165A, TNPT-3, TNPA-65.

PROTECTION

Steel hull of the donor T-72. Glacis carries Kontakt-5 explosive reactive armour. Side screens thickened. Kevlar-type spall liner inside. NBC pack and automatic fire suppression carried over from the tank. Weight 43.9 t. It is protected like a tank from the front and like a casemate APC from the roof.

ARMAMENT AND LOAD

Roof: one 12.7 mm Kord, 360° traverse, −5° to +75° elevation, about 1,000 rounds (50 ready on some cards). Twelve 81 mm 902A smoke grenade launchers.

The payload is the section’s weapons: 30 RPO-A Shmel tubes in three quick-release racks of ten (some cards say 32, including fender stowage). RPO-A is a 93 mm disposable thermobaric rocket, about 11 kg complete, not a hose flamethrower. The Russian arm of service is still called ognemetchiki.

AUTOMOTIVE

Engine: multi-fuel V-12 V-84-1 or V-84M, 840 hp at 2,000 rpm, the T-72B plant (ChTZ). Transmission: T-72 gearbox, seven forward, one reverse. Road speed 60 km/h, dirt 30–40 km/h. Road range cited up to 712 km; cross-country 427–657 km. Climb 30°, wall 0.85 m, trench 2.7–2.8 m, ford 1.2 m. No snorkel in the published card.

Dimensions: length 7,220 mm, width 3,787 mm, height 2,240 mm (one Army Guide line says 2,740 mm; the Russian cards use 2,240).

COMMS AND VISION

Radio: R-174. Commander: TKN-3, TNPO-160, OU-3GKM searchlight. Driver: TNPO-168V, TNPA-65, TVNE-4B night viewer, FG-125 headlight.

SERVICE

Accepted 2001. A 2009 state order named at least two vehicles for unit 91416. Shown at Omsk and later Army forums. Losses and one capture have been reported in the Ukraine war; the fleet was never large enough to be a line APC. Russian press in 2025 floated converting remaining hulls into general heavy carriers by dumping the RPO racks. That is a proposal, not a fielded type.

NOT THESE

TOS-1A — rocket flamethrower on a T-72, a launcher, not a squad carrier.
BMO-1 — earlier BMP-based flamethrower carrier.
BTR-T — Omsk’s other T-55 heavy APC proposal, different hull.
T-15 Armata — later heavy IFV, not this casemate.

CAVEATS

30 vs 32 Shmel tubes, and 2,240 vs 2,740 mm height, are card disagreements. “Flamethrower” in the type name is the RKhBZ title for RPO troops.

STATUS

In service in small numbers since 2001. Not a mass APC.

IN ONE SENTENCE

BMO-T (Object 564) is Omsk’s T-72 casemate — 43.9 t, V-84, 2+7, Kontakt-5, a Kord and thirty RPO-A Shmel — built to deliver a flamethrower squad to contact, and never built in more than a handful.