page_title: Military engineering vehicle
section_title: T-55/54
hierarchical_section_title: Military engineering vehicle / Tank-based combat engineering vehicles / T-55/54
caption_attribution_description: MTU-20 bridgelayer in Yad la-Shiryon Museum, Israel.
context_page_description: A military engineering vehicle is a vehicle built for the construction work or for the transportation of combat engineers on the battlefield. These vehicles may be modified civilian equipment or purpose-built military vehicles. The first appearance of such vehicles coincided with the appearance of the first tanks, these vehicles were modified Mark V tanks for bridging and mine clearance. Modern military engineering vehicles are expected to fulfil numerous roles, as such they undertake numerous forms, examples of roles include; Bulldozers, cranes, graders, excavators, dump trucks, Breaching vehicles, Bridging vehicles, Military ferries, amphibious crossing vehicles, and Combat Engineer Section Carriers.
context_section_description: T-54 Dozer - T-54 fitted with bulldozer blades for clearing soil, obstacles and snow.
  ALT-55 - Bulldozer version of the T-55 with large flat-plate superstructure, angular concave dozer blade on front and prominent hydraulic rams for dozer blade.
  T-55 hull fitted with an excavator body and armoured cab.
  T-55 MARRS - Fitted with a Vickers armoured recovery vehicle kit. It has a large flat-plate turret with slightly chamfered sides, vertical rear and very chamfered front and a large A-frame crane on the front of the turret. The crane has cylindrical winch rope feer between legs of crane. A dozer blade is fitted to the hull front.
  MT-55 or MTU-55 (Tankoviy Mostoukladchik) - Soviet designator for Czechoslovakian MT-55A bridge-layer tank with scissors bridge.
  MTU-12 (Tankoviy Mostoukladchik)- Bridge-layer tank with 12 m single-span bridge that can carry 50 tonnes. The system entered service in 1955; today only a very small number remains in service. Combat weight: 34 tonnes.
  MTU-20 (Ob'yekt 602) (Tankoviy Mostoukladchik) - The MTU-20 consists of a twin-treadway superstructure mounted on a modified T-54 tank chassis. Each treadway is made up of a box-type aluminum girder with a folding ramp attached to both ends to save space in the travel position. Because of that the vehicle with the bridge on board is only 11.6 m long, but the overall span length is 20 m. This is an increase of about 62% over that of the older MTU-1. The bridge is launched by the cantilever method. First the ramps are lowered and fully extended before the treadways are forward with the full load of the bridge resting on the forward support plate during launch. The span is moved out over the launching girder until the far end reaches the far bank. Next the near end is lowered onto the near bank. This method of launching gives the bridgelayer a low silhouette which makes it less vulnerable to detection and destruction.
  MTU-20 based on the T-55 chassis.
  BTS-1 (Bronetankoviy Tyagach Sredniy - Medium Armoured Tractor) - This is basically a turretless T-54A with a stowage basket.
  BTS-1M - improved or remanufactured BTS-1.
  BTS-2 (Ob'yekt 9) (Bronetankoviy Tyagach Sredniy - Medium Armoured Tractor) - BTS-1 upgraded with a hoist and a small folding crane with a capacity of 3,000 kg. It was developed on the T-54 hull in 1951; series production started in 1955. The prototype Ob.9 had a commander's cupola with DShK 1938/46 machine gun, but the production model has a square commander's hatch, opening to the right. Combat weight: 32 tons. Only a very small number remains in service.
  BTS-3 (Bronetankoviy Tyagach Sredniy - Medium Armoured Tractor) - JVBT-55A in service with the Soviet Army.
  BTS-4 (Bronetankoviy Tyagach Sredniy - Medium Armoured Tractor) - Similar to BTS-2 but with snorkel. In the West generally known as T-54T. There are many different models, based on the T-44, T-54, T-55 and T-62.
  BTS-4B - Dozer blade equipped armoured recovery vehicle converted from the early -odd-shaped turret versions of the T-54.
  BTS-4BM - Experimental version of the BTS-4B with the capacity to winch over the front of the vehicle.
  IMR (Ob'yekt 616) (Inzhenernaya Mashina Razgrazhdeniya) - Combat engineer vehicle. It's a T-55 that had its turret replaced with a hydraulically operated 2t crane. The crane can also be fitted with a small bucket or a pair of pincer type grabs for removing trees and other obstacles. A hydraulically operated dozer blade mounts to the front of the hull; it can be used in a straight or V-configuration only. The IMR was developed in 1969 and entered service five years later.
  SPK-12G (Samokhodniy Pod’yomniy Kran) - Heavy crane mounted on T-55 chassis. Only two were built.
  BMR-2 (Boyevaya Mashina Razminirovaniya) - Mine clearing tank based on T-55 chassis. This vehicle has no turret but a fixed superstructure, armed with an NSVT machine gun. It is fitted with a KMT-7 mine clearing set and entered service around 1987 during the war in Afghanistan.
  Improved version of BMR-2 that has been seen fitted with a wide variety of mine roller designs.
caption: MTU-20 bridgelayer
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot G5", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2006:05:03 10:51:58", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2036", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5349", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1000", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:05:03 10:51:58", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:05:03 10:51:58", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "319/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "115/16", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1253", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "809", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2592", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1944", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1578", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "2592000/283", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "486000/53", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}