Any speculation on why there's a new IFV design? Significant improvements?
Kind of feels like a huge expense for not much gain if they're planning to replace all the ZBD-08s
According to them the transmission in particular is much better. Back when 08 was designed domestic automatic transmission for heavy duty vehicles was just becoming available and no one trusted them. Nowadays Chinese truck transmissions are as reliable as Europeans so PLAGF would be very confident in using automatic transmission this time around.Shilao and Ahyi talked about the new 8x8 IFV in this video, starting at 58:00.
Main takeaways according to them:
- The new 8x8 provides much better protection to the crew, even close to the 04A tracked IFV,
- wheels have independent suspensions,
- unmanned turret,
- main weapon is a 30mm chain cannon (rumor has it that it is based on the Russian 2A42),
- more powerful engine/transmission because of the heavier chasis/body
- ZBD-08 was designed about 20 years ago. Its specs are limited by the industry and technology capacities of the time.
- PLAGF still has about 1000 type 89 APC and type 551 APC to be replaced.
The barrel looks kinda like bushmaster. China got its hands on Bushmaster M242 during the NFV-1 project. The turret looks like iterations of VN-22's turret, with 2x HJ launcher in pop-up configuration. Similar in concept to CV90MKIV's turret.Shilao and Ahyi talked about the new 8x8 IFV in this video, starting at 58:00.
Main takeaways according to them:
- The new 8x8 provides much better protection to the crew, even close to the 04A tracked IFV,
- wheels have independent suspensions,
- unmanned turret,
- main weapon is a 30mm chain cannon (rumor has it that it is based on the Russian 2A42),
- more powerful engine/transmission because of the heavier chasis/body
- ZBD-08 was designed about 20 years ago. Its specs are limited by the industry and technology capacities of the time.
- PLAGF still has about 1000 type 89 APC and type 551 APC to be replaced.
The coax placement is interesting...
Is that missile rack legit?