Speaking of China’s military modernization, it looks like the PLA is unveiling a whole new family of armored fighting vehicle in its efforts to rapidly modernize its military.
According to the folks at China Defense Blog, the new armored vehicles may be intended to replace the old Type 89 and 86 AFVs. It sounds like no one is quite sure if this is a brand new vehicle or a heavily upgraded Type 89.
The pictures posted on CDB show a traditional armored personnel carrier variant along with an engineering, command post, recon and 120 mm mortar (pictured above) variants.
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What's with the wavy snake pattern above the road wheels? Looks purely aesthetic. Looks like they figured out not to paint the road wheels white.
Oh they will.
When the military parades roll around, you can bet that all rotating circular objects will have their rims painted white.
Which means they'll all be painted white, since the only true purpose of all that Chinese equipment is for parades and endless military exercises.
possibly the wavy line is to help break up the outline of the shadowed area around running gear – after all, straight lines are rare in nature and tend to stick out
just a suggestion
Looks like something hanging. I'm going to take a guess at some camo material side skirts?
On the lowest picture, the wavy pattern has some texture to it. Could it be an flotation curtain for amphib?
It's a dust skirt to control dust, dirt, and mud picked up by the track from being thrown off on the return track strand. Wavy edges just break up the straight line, since straight lines don't occur in nature. Search for pictures of German Leopards to see these on other tanks. US doesn't use them, because our skirts on Abrams and Bradley are part of the armor solution.
The straight lines of the top of the vehicle are probably more visible than those around the tracks. That said, flat hull surfaces would have to broken up by some sort of improvised camouflage material if operating in foliated areas.
No ERA or applique?
That's a darn good point. Couple of comments… the sides are vertical and almost featureless. The old type 89 had sloped side armour with firing ports and lots of strange attachment points.
This has more running wheels (6 vs. 5) and what looks like a lower profile.
Clearly, there's something different going on with the protection here. Be very interesting to go over this with a camera and a tape measure.
Looks Russian design I assume, Not copying our Stryker vehicles any.
Well – if talking about US designs to copy, there are currently three: Stryker, Bradly and its successor and EFV and its predecessor.
It doesn't look much like the first two, but the hull shape looks like it's got amphibious ops in mind to me. No pictures from the back to see if there's any hydrojets or suchlike fitted – can't make out anything meaningful from the engineering vehicle's rear profile.
Yes, it would be interesting to get a good look at the back. There seems to be *something* on both sides of the ramp, and underneath it too.
It feels closer to the BTR and BMP series, though in the latter and the former there is some sloping near the roof of the vehicle, which these do not have (presumably to maximize internal volume and ease disembarkation?) The logic is probably that some neglible sloping of side components has little utilty.
I like the low profile. I wonder how long it will take the troops to unfold themselves after egress?
Not as low as it looks, I suspect. After all, it's clearly taller than the driver? officer? standing in front of it, and the latter two variants appear to have a raised back end
Interesting that the engineering vehicle is built on an APC chassis rather than a tank chassis. Either this is a reasonably amphibious vehicle (so it can keep up) or it's got more grunt in its engine than you might think.
Anyone know how hefty are current PLA tanks are?
There's also the average height of Chinese soldiers versus people in the west.ARVN troops got along fine with the M41 when American tankers did not due to cramped internal spaces.
Full cream diets for the last generation make that less of an issue. They aren't by any means all six foot four, but they're not the midgets of yore, either.
If the hull is v shaped, it could be very tight inside the troop compartment.
I suspect that would be why the sides are the hull are flush and not sloped inwards, to maximize internal volume for egress. They're probably not V-hull as evidenced by picture 2. Probably won't know for sure unless a picture of the APC with a open troop ramp (or doors, whatever they use) is found.
note the waterline markings, though they might just be there for testing
It does not looks like copied Soviet/Russian design
Mock them all you like but at least the Chinese are capable of producing a new armoured vehicel, cough cough Marine EFV…
Next chinese stealth fighter?
http://china-defense.blogspot.com/2011/06/first-p…
The gun variant, as noted, is probably a high–calibre mortar. 120mm mortars are nice fire support at company level – the Warsaw Pact used to love explosives delivery gear – big calibre mortars issued in large numbers, and grenade machine guns issued as squad fire support rather than NATO-style SAWS.
Is there any other way? If there is a mature, proven design existing, what kind of crazy/stupid people will NOT copy that and instead waste time and resource just come up with something "original"?
Especially for armoured vehicles. Given the brief of an amphibious armoured personnel carrier, I can't really see what you can do other than shovel prow, tracks and box; if you're got those elements, why not copy ones that work?
They look more like a upgrade to a Type 86 than a replacement.
I read years back German Nazis build Panther try to make a better T-34. I suppouse it´s more cheap try to make better a vehicle mature design. Other side, Anyone have good to say about it?. And other hand, strategies and tactics make usefull a crap of steel. In the end indeed a M1A1 can be hard hit by "blue fire" incident where a Bradley dissable it, firing in the engine compartiment ( I can be wrong, just I remenber a news about that) with the 25 mm. Luckly crew not was injured, but in logic of others countrys Why I need a survival crew if I don´t have their tank?. Can be other way of thinking.
The DB prototype was closer to the T-34 than the MAN one, but either way Pzkw V was initiated because the KV series and T 34 were shrugging off hits from short-barrel Pzkw IV and 37mm Pzkw III
Not much armor plating on it, I came to this conclusion by the way they have two of these APC on a semi flat bed…. I could be wrong, but ever seen two Bradley's on a single trailer? These things must be kind of light…?
the v.c won the war in viet -nam because the chinnise help them .i never thrust them anyway.
For the second image, it looks like a ACAV turret mounted on top of that vehicle.
looks ancient and out of date. just imagine one of those pitted against a puma or bradley, bye bye
never underestimated your enemies. always be alert. they're always improving and upgrading. the armored vehicles are part of the modernization of the china's military.
The chinese armour vehicle better than stryker.
The chinese armored vehicle better than stryker.