The new IFV has entered service

China's new IFV, the ZBD 97, has begun entering PLA service since March of this year. Finally, a this long awaited vehicle is here to provide some fire support for the 99s. It will be a while before the vehciel completely replaces the type 86's though.

The new IFV was first revealed in road tests in 2003. The ZBD 97 has entered service with the 1st and 124 Amphibious Mechanized Infantry Divisions. This also suggests that the ZBD 97, like many PLA vehicles, is amhibious and is capable of driving off a LST and swimming to Taiwan.

The vehicle's chasis is what China calls a "universal chasis", so expect to see soem C&C and APC mods of it. The turret is a liscence production BMP-3 turret, with some reduced features. the turret does not have the fancy wester electronics the BMP-3 turret has. The ZBD 97 turret also lacks a thermal imager. This might have been ommited to save development time and costs, but it is well in China's abilities to design thermal and laser equipment, so upgrades will follow soon. The main gun is 2A70 100mm with a 30mm coaxal gun. The gun can fire the Arkan ATGM.

The armor and engine are in question. The IFV may be made fo welded steel, but no evidence exists of any composite armor plates. to power this kind of vehicle, the engine would need to be at least 500 horsepower.

Here are some pictures from its initial delivery in March





and here are pics of it now, in excercises





i hope this page can act as a supplement or even alternative to a sinodefence page.

MIGleader I was thinking that ZBD 97 body was based on BMP-3 not only turret? Did China made indigenous hull design and fitted it whit Bmp-3 turret or is ZBD 97 completely based on BMP-3?
Also do you have any information about FCS? And since you mentioned laser equipment as future update I’m interested how can it currently use laser guided ATGM? I mean gun is clearly capable to use ATGM but without laser designator it can’t hit anything?

yes the chasis is an indigionus design with the engine in the front left hand side of the vehicle. the engine on the BMP3 is in the far back of the hull and results in a very small troop compartment and an akward dismmount from the vehicle. it looks like this new IFV will have signifigantly more interior space because of the engine placment and it also appears to be taller then the BMP3

Alas, I wish I ha the answer to most of your questions. The ZDB 97's hull is not a complete copy of the bmp-3. However, it is claer chinese designers were heavily influenced by the latter. The ZBD 97 's hull hull is taller with greater internal space

China purchased the fire control system and missile laser guidance system technology used on the bmp-3 from russia. Im not sure whether the chinese directed intergrated this technology or made modifications. Oif course, the bmp-3 had a variety of western electronics such as a French SAGEM thermal sight and laser illuminator, BZS1 gunner's sight, TKN-AI commander's periscope. None of this would be on the the ZBD 97, so the chinese must have used indigenous replacements.

Thanks guys.
Since BMP-3 had great problems whit hull design China made significant improvement by changing engine position and increasing height of the main body. As MadMax said engine position in BMP-3 greatly reduced troop compartment and made troop dismount weary impractical…
IIRC on BMP-3 troops had to open rear door and then open the hatches on top to be able to dismount… Under fire this is not most practical way to leave the vehicle… BMP inherited that construction flow from BMD series of vehicles (it has more construction similarities whit BMD series then whit earlier BMP-1 and BMP-2 designs)…

As for FCS do you think that PLA will use simplified tank FCS on new IFV or will they develop new FCS for them? I ask because IIRC during early 1990 Sweden offered modified CV-90 FCS as T-72 modernization package to few countries…

Some more pics~

Claimed photo of new IFV (ZBD 97) turrent under construction:


Close-up pics of IFV:




If above URL's don't work use this:



As for the chasis, I've seen claims that it's an upgraded chasis from Type 63 (YW531) APC. If you compare the two they do look alike:

isthvan said:

As for FCS do you think that PLA will use simplified tank FCS on new IFV or will they develop new FCS for them? I ask because IIRC during early 1990 Sweden offered modified CV-90 FCS as T-72 modernization package to few countries…

Click to expand...

Read what i posted!!! China purchased the Bmp-3 FCS from russia for the bmp-3.

A quote from Armytechnology:

The fire control system is automatic with manual override for both gunner and commander. It includes a 1V539 ballistic computer, 2E52 electro-mechanical armament stabiliser and 1D16 laser rangefinder. The gunner has a 1K13-2 main sight, a combined image-intensified day/night sight and PPD-1 standby day sight. The commander has a 1PZ-10 day sight and TKN-3 combined day and image-intensified night sight.

The French company SAGEM, with Kurganmashzavod and Peleng of Belarus, have developed the Namut thermal sight for the BMP-3. This sight is based on the SAGEM Athos eight - twelve micron three field of view thermal imager and is fitted to the BMP-3 ICV's delivered to the United Arab Emirates.

Click to expand...

Of course, China will make substitues for the ruopean components

Plus, I found the bmp-3 engine has 500 horsepower, so my estimate was prety accurate.

Watch your language!

MIGleader said:

Read what i posted!!! China purchased the Bmp-3 FCS from russia for the bmp-3.

Click to expand...

People at CDF claims that this IFV doesn't have a thermal channel since ealier versiosn of BMP-3 doesn't have it either.

Can anyone comfirm this?

it is most likely since the SAGEM thermal sight was fited to the back of the turret because apperently the turret interior is very cramped and the thermal would not fit

MIGleader said:

Read what i posted!!! China purchased the Bmp-3 FCS from russia for the bmp-3.

Click to expand...

Relax …
I meant as possible future update. Russian FCS is not exactly top of the line and is usually first thing that users change during modernizations…
If we look at amount of firepower BMP-3 turret offers it is quite reasonable to expect some kind of FCS modernization which will enable complete use of weaponry without limitations of Russian FCS…

Modified type99 FCS (if type99 FCS is really good as people on this forum say it is) could provide that and only obstacle I see for that kind of modernization could be cost of such upgrade...

Also I have noticed that ZDB 97 has only one door for troop dismount?

Western army’s uses IFV as infantry support vehicle and at first contact whit enemy troops dismount and provide cover outside of vehicle… Only one door complicates that significantly…
Thus that means that PLA adopted old soviet concept where troops are fighting from inside of IFV? Because that tactics failed miserably in Groznyy…