Meet Bardak, the BRDM and BRDM-2 armoured scout car from the Soviet Union
A nimble reconnaissance asset and carrier of the Soviets’ first generation guided missiles
If you were to ask the average Joe or Jane Public what first comes to mind when naming a reconnaissance platform or method, ‘drones’, ‘special forces’, ‘spy satellites’ and ‘recon team’ will dominate the answers. More knowledgeable folk may nominate ‘LRRP’, ‘Predator UAV’ or ‘U-2 spy plane’. Thanks to the popular movie and TV portrayal of reconnaissance and scouting tasks being performed by men in boonie hats and painted faces infiltrating on foot or high flying aircraft braving air defences, it is easy to neglect nimble ground vehicles racing across bucolic meadows on wheels or tracks to scrounge information on enemies who don’t want to be found. From the end of the 1950s, the BRDM and successor BRDM-2 armoured scout car acted as the eyes and ears of the armies of the Soviet Union and nearly forty other countries.
Scout vehicle designs follow two broad reconnaissance mission profiles: stealthy and aggressive. Stealthy reconnaissance focuses on information gathering while avoiding confrontation with the enemy whenever possible; vehicles…
