First combat actions involving BA-10 armored cars occurred during the border wars between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan. The Empire sought to increase its holdings and moved into Manchuria. Seeking to tighten its control of the outlying areas, forces moved into the border zones and created tension between the Empire and the Soviet Union that exploded into war. A battle was fought at Khalkhyn Gol between Manchuria (now Manchukuo) and Mongolia involving all parties from May 11th to September 16th of 1939. The BA-10 was called into action and the Japanese were utterly defeated, entrenching itself as the standard armored car of the Red Army force - despite the fact that its appearance and qualities were deemed largely obsolete by the time of World War 2.
As a result, the BA-10 would be featured in the upcoming Soviet campaigns prior to World War 2 including Estonia and Latvia. The type also saw extensive service in the Soviet invasion of Finland during the Winter War. However, Finnish resistance proved fierce and whole lots of BA-10 armored cars were lost to the enemy. In June of 1941, the Germans turned on their Soviet allies through Operation Barbarossa and cut a swathe of chaos through the Soviet heartland, capturing many production facilities in the process as well as destroying or reconstituting BA-10 cars (as well as other vehicles and artillery) for service in the German Army. German BA-10 cars were redesignated to Panzerspahwagen BAF 203(r) - "r" being used to signify their Russian origin. At the time of the German invasion, some 1,200 BA-10 cars were believed to be in service. Those BA-10s in German use were relegated to security and anti-partisan duties where their battlefield usefulness could be further extended in the short-term. Romania was another notable operator of the BA-10, using captured systems in their fight against the Soviet Union.
In these actions, the BA-10 proved highly susceptible to basic elements of warfare. The vehicle was rather lightly armored for frontline combat and its generally high profile did the crew in. The rubber tires could be punctured by bullets and the side armor penetrated by armor-piercing ordnance. The front-mounted engine - while acting as a protecting buffer for the crew to an extent - could be damaged rendering the entire vehicle a stationary pillbox. The front machine gun was given a limited firing arc and vision from the driver's seat through the vision slots was limiting. Weight and bulk of the vehicle certainly factored into the BA-10's tactical success and failures. Where the BA-10 did shine, however, was in its application of mobile firepower and cross-country terrain management (including good operational ranges).
With the loss of BA-10 stocks and production facilities, the BA-10 in Red Army service fell largely out of use after 1941. To replace them in their role, the Red Army took to utilizing its inventory of light tanks which offered roughly the same level of firepower through a more adaptable tracked chassis. The armored car in Red Army service was more or less dropped from future consideration - focus now being given to larger, more capable implements such as the excellent T-34 Medium Tank and like-armored vehicles. The few remaining BA-10 vehicles were stripped of their war-making components (including removal of the turret assembly) and developed into ad hoc armored personnel carriers offering mobility and some armor protection. As the Soviet Union was involved in a bloody full-scale war, all manner of vehicles were put into play to repel the onslaught of German aggression.
While certainly a limited design by World War 2 terms, theBA-10 series nonetheless gave good generally decent of herself in action. Earlier in 1932, the vehicle was developed into the GAZ amphibious car tied to flotation devices, seeing only limited production. Later production models of the basic BA-10 armored car also resided under the designation of "BA-32". A specialized railway version existed as the "BA-10ZhD" and this form could equally ride on roadways as needed. The BA-10 series remained the most quantitative armored car in Soviet Army service prior to the war with Germany with some 3,311 total examples delivered.
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