This came off a export exhibit.
The ZH-05 is a weapon that comes closest to fulfilling the the OICW specifications.
Four things plague OICW systems from becoming commonly used.
Weight: Around 5 kg. This weight is not too heavy compared to the 6.1 kg K-11 and 6.8 kg XM-29
Price: Should be much cheaper than previous OICW simply on the merit it is produced in China. Doubtful it'll cost below 3,000 dollars. While cheap compared to the 14,000 dollar K-11 or 25,000 dollar XM-25 it will still be much more expensive than the type 95 or type 03.
Reliability: A core problem with OICWs is the delicate electronic sights. The type 05 looks to have less advanced but more rugged sights.
Deadliness: The 20x28 mm round has doubtful lethality due to it having to in fit electronics as well as explosives. Hopefully miniaturization of electronics has solved most of this problem as well as making a larger round like a 20x32 round.
Worst case scenario: Given to Spec Ops, and other elite infantry like Marines or Airborne.
Best case scenario: Given to one or two soldiers in every squad.
^ Do we know it is a 20x28 mm round? Could it not be 20x30?
I want to talk about the gun's electronics a little too, because the configuration and size is interesting.
It obviously has some kind of targetting and probably fuze setting system -- there's that long rectangular slab under the scope/optics which I think fills that role. But the scope/optics looks far too small, compared to K-11 and the XM25's, to do anything other than act as a scope. Maybe night vision/thermal will be possible though, and we can't see whether there's a laser designator/distance measurer thingy mounted there, but I have a feeling there is.
The small scope/optics mounted on the gun leads me to a number of conclusions:
1 -- the 20mm grenade does not have a laser/fuze setting capability, but I find this doubtful because then the bulk on top of the gun on which the scope mounts on doesn't seem to have much of a use. You don't need something that big just for a 20mm grenade launcher.
2 -- the norinco engineers or whoever developed this, has made massive strides in miniturizing electronics and has got the XM-25 and K-11's targetting set up all in the relatively small scope. Possible, but it just looks too small.
3 -- has anyone noticed the eyesight attachment on the helmet? I think the gun might have a small camera attached on it, and feeds the display into the eyesight, which the soldier uses to do the precision aiming and selecting of airburst distance, etc.
Now this may sound a bit out there, but I think the only limits for this option would be the (presumably) wireless feed between the gun/camera and the eyesight/helmet -- but countries are already developing more advanced full face helmets with HMD for their future soldiers, it's not impossible for a relatively rudimentary capability to exist now.
Then that leads to the question -- why not just make combine the eyesight with the gun mounted scope for a thermal vision scope/targeting display like the K-11 and XM-25? Well I believe maybe the smaller scope allows for easier aiming and shooting of the Type 03 assault rifle part of the weapon and conserving the sheer extra size a thermal/targeting display which would otherwise make your soldier more visible.
In other words, the scope is for assault rifle/impact fuze and "dumb" grenade use, while the eyesight is used for lazing and calibrating the distance you want the grenade to travel before airbursting -- assault rifle/dumb mode vs airburst mode.
I might be getting ahead of myself a little, but I think this weapon has been under development for a while, and the fact that it seems to be shown for export shows that it must have undergone some extensive testing already, and is quite close to possible deployment with the PLA.
Thoughts?
