танковый биатлон

The tradition & historical record

The tank biathlon is a mechanized military sport event held by the Russian military as a part of the annual International Army Games. Inspired by the winter sport of biathlon, the sport emphasizes the complex training of tank crews including their rough terrain passing skills combined with the ability to provide accurate and rapid fire while performing maneuvers. ¹

Participating tanks drive a three-lap route of 6–10 km (3.7–6.2 mi). During the first lap, crews fire at tank-size targets positioned at distances of 1,600 m (5,200 ft), 1,700 m (5,600 ft), and 1,800 m (5,900 ft) (crews aim by optics, without any modern fire-control system). In the second lap, different targets imitating an anti-tank mortar (RPG) squad and an infantry unit are fired upon. These targets are at a distance of 600–700 m (2,000–2,300 ft), and must be engaged with a 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun. In the third lap, the tank crews fire at targets shaped like an anti-tank gun and ATGM unit using the turret-mounted heavy machine gun at a distance of 1,200 m (3,900 ft). One or more misses leads to an extra penalty lap 500 m (1,600 ft) long. On the final lap, tanks have to go through various terrain obstacles; an obstacle missed or improperly traversed adds 10 seconds to the crew's final timing. ¹

The United States received an official invitation in 2013 and an unofficial invitation in 2017. In 2014, 41 countries received the invitation. ¹

The first international tank biathlon competition was held at the Alabino proving ground in the Moscow Oblast on 12–17 August 2013. Four teams took part in the competition: Russia, Armenia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. ¹

The 1st Tank Biathlon World Championship took place at the Alabino proving ground on 4–16 August 2014. Out of 41 nations that received invitation to the tournament, 12 sent their representatives. Every competitor (except Teams China and Russia) received a T-72B tank in the biathlon color scheme. Team Russia piloted the newest modification, T-72B3, and Team China brought their own Type 96A. Russian preliminaries for the event ran in several of military districts of Russia. Each district sent its top crews to compete for the Cup of Russia, and 3 finalists from that event formed the national Team Russia for the World Championship. Participating nations also held preliminaries on their own, sending 3 top crews and a reserve crew accompanied by maintenance and repair personnel to Russia. Random selection placed teams under following colors: ¹

First legs of the tournament consisted of: ¹

Individual race Sprint Pursuit Athletic stage ¹

The final competition was a relay race, the top 4 teams fielded all their crews taking turns. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Tank biathlon”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

tank biathlon is military sports, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. ²