Chinese infantry fighting vehicles

BoraTas said:

Possible. If sophisticated fuses are involved, 20-30 mm rounds really have low volumes available for the explosives. The illustration is below. The 30 mm does have an advantage though. Magazine depth... The 40 mm cartridges are much larger. Telescoping solves some of problem but may not be enough. I would not be surprised if both remain in service.
View attachment 168521

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Though from this, assuming the figure is to scale. 40x180 isn't actually noticeably larger than 30x173, while sure the 30mm necks down but that doesn't really matter in a ammo chain.

Tomboy said:

Though from this, assuming the figure is to scale. 40x180 isn't actually noticeably larger than 30x173, while sure the 30mm necks down but that doesn't really matter in a ammo chain.

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It is the medium-energy 40 mm with almost half the projectile weight. The common 40 mm for the Bofors L70 gun (40 x 365 mmR) looks like the ones on the left photo. I wonder what energy level the Chinese telescoped 40 mm is at. If it is like the Western one, it would be about the same length as the Chinese high-energy 30 mm (30 x 165 mm) while being much fatter. The Western 40 mm CTA equals the 40 x 365 mmR in energy. Look at the right figure for that one.

Out of curiosity I looked at the explosive masses of NATO high-energy 30 mm munitions. The 30 x 173 and 30 x 170 mm seem to have HEI loads around 40 grams (HEI, non-tracer, standard fuse). The 40 x 365 mmR has around 95 grams in the same configuration. 2.5x difference... A bulky smart fuse would increase the difference even more.