Those are AFV/APC, China also had APS on such vehicles since years ago. For IFV this should be a first.
Chinese infantry fighting vehicles
- Thread starter Broccoli
- Start date
APS is a good Idea ,but added armor plating though , isn't that a weird direction to go with an airborne IFV ?
Is contact with other enemy IFV is expected ? Wasn't it already protection against Infantry small arms up to 12.7mm ?
At the very least Hungarian Lynxes already have APS. CV90035NL MLU are also apparently already operational.
(1)12.7 is a stretch for such light vehicles, I wonder if it's achievable even with visible ceramic panels. Reliable 7.62 is already a good call.
(2) The new IFV has an unmanned turret, which, together with the frontal engine(unlike Ru), makes them clearly superior infantry carriers.
(3)whole idea of air-droppable armored vehicles (a very questionable and controversial concept due to huuuge impact on carrying capacity) is to drop away from the objective and then rapidly seize it while mounted. Armor matters everything and then sone.
(4)China can finally afford larger airborne IFVs(more like Russian ones) due to Y-20.
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The difference between an IFV and AFV/APC are so minor that I don't think this is something worth touting this new vehicle for.
The fact this is the first PLAGF in service IFV with APS is noteworthy itself.
Literally it belongs to PLAAF.
True. I automatically think land warfare falls PLAGF even though this is airborne -- the correct term should be "this is the first PLA in service IFV with APS which is noteworthy itself".
So having studied the picture a bit there’s a few things of interest that I wish to point out and share my opinions on. I may very well be wrong with my takes so take the following with a pinch of salt.
Imo the picture shows at least 2 (possibly 3) variants based on the same chassis. Front right in the picture we see a chassis with APS system and no visually discernible turret, either because it lacks one altogether or because the parachute packs on top of the front fuselage blocks it from view. Interestingly this is the only vehicle in the picture equipped with an APS system, and the way the launchers are mounted directly on top of the fuselage doesn’t make a lot of sense if it has a full-sized turret (quite possibly interfering with turret traverse since the launchers will be in the way of the main gun barrel). I have no concrete proof but these details indicate to me that this particular vehicle most likely has no turret. So based on this chain of logic we have a turret-less vehicle with APS, indicating that it’s not supposed to directly join the fighting while being highly valuable… command vehicle maybe? Just a wild guess.
To its left in the picture we see another chassis with a pretty sizable turret and a large caliber gun, the muzzle of which reaches the front of the vehicle and necessitates rearranging of the parachute packs. The turret seems a tad too large for an air-dropped IFV imo, especially compared to the BMD-4 which also has a pretty large caliber gun. This leads me to speculate that this might be a howitzer or mortar of some sort, akin to Russia’s 2s9 Nona.
The third vehicle behind the first one is mostly blocked but what we can see shows that it doesn’t have an APS system and it has a turret with a small-caliber gun. Not a lot to go off on but if I had to guess this might be the standard IFV version of this chassis? After all ZBD03 also uses an autocannon so having the same weapons load out for the new vehicle isn’t too far fetched.
by78
General
The new Airborne IFVs. They appear to come in two different variants. One has active protection system built in, as indicated by the MMW radars built into the front corners of the hull.
