My three cents on the ZBD-03 and the misunderstanding around BMDs.
"The point" is that they are
air-droppable air-mobile vehicles with autocannons and
not armored personnel carriers. Such vehicle superficially looks like a mechanized infantry vehicle but it isn't one because
its tactical role is different.
Airborne vehicles have to prioritize strategic mobility over tactical mobility, and once deployed they have to prioritize tactical mobility over protection because airborne is a light infantry formation.
Airborne fights as light infantry and
not mechanized infantry and therefore airborne vehicles do not provide protection but mobility. Being able to move troops over rough terrain or water is more important because it allows deployment in infrastructure-poor areas or difficult terrain to provide attacking troops with surprise factor or defensive advantages.
The purpose of airborne vehicles is to provide tactical mobility on the ground and strategic mobility in the air. Range of transport aircraft is limited by the payload so the lower the mass of the vehicle the further it can be carried. Tracks provide better tactical mobility, propulsion in water which lowers mass for amphibious vehicles and also
better stability for gun fire.
On that - most people forget that gun stabilization is a problem of countering momentum which is difficult in vehicles with low inertia due to low mass. Gun stabilization is not just the gun stabilizers in the turret but also suspension and gaps between mechanical elements (bearings in the turret, the tolerances inside the turret ring) that contribute to displacement. Hydropneumatic suspension of tracked vehicles allows for significantly better stability, especially on the move, over the best stabilizers in the turret of a wheeled vehicle, because wheeled vehicles have pneumatic tires and steering wheels both of which are not controlled for degrees of freedom of movement (just one in tracked suspension). Greater stability means greater accuracy of fire and that means out-ranging the enemy with precise fire. Milimeters of vehicle displacement means meters at 1km range. No armor that is available for a viable airborne vehicle will compensate for a well-stabilized 30mm gun. Wheeled vehicles also have fewer elements of suspension counter-acting which means lower resistance to forces so a tracked vehicle of the same mass will handle recoil of a more powerful gun or handle recoil of an identical gun better leading to greater stability.
Furthermore
ZBD-03 was designed as improvement of BMD-3 but people typically misunderstand the main shortcoming of BMD-3. It wasn't it's poor armor but
layout and
width.
The layout of BMD series puts the dismounts around the turret at the front of the vehicle and provides a single hatch for egress over the engine at the back. Any hit that penetrates the armor will affect the entire crew compartment and the dismounting troops have to expose themselves doing so. It was a fatal design flaw that Russians refused to correct because of their institutional limitations. ZBD-03 corrects both mistakes by using BMP-1 layout but at the expense of thinner armor since the only way to achieve greater internal volume was to reduce the armor to minimum. Greater internal volume had the additional benefit of further improving ZBD-03's amphibious capability.
The width of BMD-3 was 3,1m while ZBD-03 is only 2,6 which allows
two ZBD-03 to be transported inside a medium-size military transport plane like Y-8 (cargo bay size: 13,5 x 3,0 x 2,4 m) instead of
zero BMD-3 or one ZBD-03 at greater range. Considering the number of Y-8/Y-9 and Il-76/Y-20s in service as well as the prioritization of payloads it is logical that PLA has no use for an airborne vehicle that is not transportable by Y-8s. ZBD-03 misses the size requirement for CH-53K only by 20cm of height.
The armor is incidental and protects against the most common small arms caliber like 5,56mm or 5,45mm because it makes no sense to provide protection against 7,62mm or more because
while within effective range of such ammunition in hostile territory infantry should not travel inside the vehicle. If you see examples like this one
it is not an example of BMD's flaw but the commander's incompetence and the general poor training of Russian troops. I don't think you would see British light infantry travel in their Jackals (open-top light mobility vehicles) through a hostile area. This is overt violation of fundamentals from tactical manuals. The failure of VDV in the current war is a tactical one, not a technical one. Most fatal mistake is to use airborne units as mechanized units and then drive them under-strength into defended areas.
This is the scenario for which Israel has
60t Namer APC and
never uses them without sizeable MBT escort while reinforcements use 30+ t Eitan 8x8. Regular IFVs and APCs have no place in such scenarios as the war in Lebanon in 2006 demonstrated. Why Russians decided to ignore it? The answer to this question exists but it is not a rational one.
BMD is also not a Russian quirk copied by China - this is what will replace
2,7t Wiesel 1 of the Heer (German Army):
The reason why US military doesn't have such vehicles is because they use helicopters in most tactical roles fulfilled by such vehicles and supplement it with extensive aerial support from fixed-wing aviation. It's a consequence of having a
well developed aerospace industry and
being an energy producer. Anyone else who has to economize in
one or
both of those areas of the chooses the "Russian way" which means greater use of airmobile vehicles to reduce dependency on aerial transport.
All in all ZBD-03 seems like a good airborne vehicle, especially if China managed to improve on parts reliability compared to BMDs and continues to upgrade the sensors and electronics. It seems like all the benefits of a BMD with none of its flaws. Whether ZBD-03 is the optimal direction in the future is an open question that hinges upon the development of China's
aerial logistics.
The airborne vehicle is the mediator between the light infantry and its aerial logistics. Less aerial logistical capability means more airborne vehicle capability and that's where BMD and consequently ZBD-03 comes from.
Mobility and fire is best armor.
MBT's have heavy armor because they punch through enemy defenses and take direct hits. The main defensive tactic for tanks is mobility and fire. Anyone who says otherwise has never read a single manual on tank tactics. An immobile tank is a dead tank because no tank will survive an artillery barrage and that's what the fighting in Ukraine since 2014 demonstrated. There was nothing wrong with tracks. There was plenty wrong with soldiers not using them to move.
When under fire the first maneuver is to disperse so when an airborne unit riding in a ZBD-03 gets under fire and can't maneuver out of it fast enough the troops will dismount and scatter while the vehicle will keep moving around in the area. Losing the vehicle doesn't disable airborne infantry as much as a loss of an IFV to a mechanized infantry unit because the infantry is the primary fighting force and the vehicle is just the mobility/firepower/sensor multiplier. In tactical terms it's even incorrect to seek cover (but not concealment) behind the vehicle because it only draws from heavier weapons.
Tell it to the soldiers in an airborne company. I dare you.
The only thing more vulnerable than a light infantry unit traveling on foot is a light infantry unit traveling on foot weighed down by excess amount of supplies.
The only reason why airborne doesn't have vehicles is because of how introducing vehicles complicates logistics. Every airborne unit wants permanent aerial support but their governments can't afford it. Every airborne units wants specialized vehicles as a substitute but their governments can't afford them either. This is why every airborne unit except for a select few is light infantry traveling on foot with as much supplies that it can carry on its back
and very unhappy about it.
The 100mm serves as additional support for the 30mm. It provides greater stability just by increased mass and rigidity. There are not many HE or HE-FRAG rounds being carried so the risk shouldn't be much greater than it already is due to BMD's flawed layout.
