The chinese government has repeatedly
threatened taiwan and has been
conducting aggressive military drills to
merge what they call a renegade province. The type of invasion beijing is planning
would surely include amphibious vehicles
and fighting forces apart from military
airborne troops. These amphibious landings will require
amphibious vehicles, capable of ferrying
troops from their motherships to the
land.
The type 05 amphibious fighting vehicle
was developed for the same purpose by Norinko. A video of the amphibious
vehicle has got the netizens to mock
chinese aspirations. However the clip is said to be of the
year 2002 when the vehicle was
undergoing testing and development.
According to the video engineers have
overcome this problem. The clip shows the
tank cruising in the waters of Yangtze
river when suddenly water began treading
on its front end as it accelerated. Leading its nose to plow underwater and
the entire contraption lurched downward.
The vehicle sunk within seconds, leaving
its crew to bail out in the river. The outside world recently became aware
of the video after it was posted on
cctv's youtube channel. On saturday twitter user Hiro Hamakawa
posted a 38 second clip of the tank
showing the last of the crew members
abandoning ship at the 27 second mark.
Nevertheless the vehicle has since then
performed admirably and developed into a
potent platform, being one of the fastest
amphibious platforms in service having a
top on water speed of 28 kilometers per
hour. Its armament includes 105 millimeters
rifled cannon, a 30 millimeters cannon
and 12.7 millimeters anti-aircraft
machine gun mounts all depending upon
the variant. It also has computerized fire control
systems, light spot commander site with
laser rangefinder input and light spot
gunner site with passive night vision.
For all weather amphibious assault
operations the vehicle is equipped with GPS navigation in a thermal imaging
system. The assault vehicle variant is operated
by a crew of four, with the driver
positioned front left of the turret and
loader, gunner and commander occupying
the turret.
