Chinese infantry fighting vehicles

Maikeru

Captain
Registered Member
I always thought of them as infiltration tool for special forces. Using them to launch missiles against armored vehicles seem ill advised.
Using them outside of late -1960s James Bond films seems ill advised!

Edit: The PLA version seems less well armed than the 1968 vintage UK version as well:

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getready

Senior Member
That video had tons of views and comments after only a couple days . Got me curious. about the use of those light helicopter type things, the Comments mentioned special forces too. I suppose their biggest strengths are very maneuverable, small size, speedy and cheap. But they have very little protection.
 

LCR34

Junior Member
Registered Member
That video had tons of views and comments after only a couple days . Got me curious. about the use of those light helicopter type things, the Comments mentioned special forces too. I suppose their biggest strengths are very maneuverable, small size, speedy and cheap. But they have very little protection.
It's a gyro copter. Not a helicopter. It cannot hover.
 

LCR34

Junior Member
Registered Member
I always thought of them as infiltration tool for special forces. Using them to launch missiles against armored vehicles seem ill advised.
Is it possible that the missile slung by the side are not meant for the gyro to shoot at enemy directly? I mean with tandem seats arrangement it has no internal space. They can fly in atgm team behind enemy lines for ambush.
 

tankphobia

Senior Member
Registered Member
I always thought of them as infiltration tool for special forces. Using them to launch missiles against armored vehicles seem ill advised.
Even insertion of special forces seems somewhat dubious? We've seen in the current Ukr-Rus conflict that a large amount of infantry held short ranged anti air can greatly diminish the viability of helicopters in the troop transport role, unless they're basically kissing the ground the whole way to insertion I think they'll be taking heavy casualties just from infantry held anti-air, plus gyrocopters can be quite loud.

Additionally from the video it does not seem that the gyrocopter can carry all that much load, limiting its utility for special operations as compared to say, a mountain cat amphibious transport that is helicopter dropped close to the front. Seems like both recon/light attack role could be better served using similarly sized UAVs.
 

by78

General
Yes, it does appear like the turret on the real thing seems to be nearly as wide as the hull whereas on the VE32A it is quite a bit narrower.
Do we know if the turret on the new 8x8 IFV is actually that wide or if it is merely "offset" to the left side of the hull? I can't recall pictures of the 8x8 IFV from other angles apart from its left side.

edit: yeah nevermind, the turret on the 8x8 ifv is definitely very wide. Similar geometry to VE32A, but much wider.
View attachment 64038


WRT the turret, I couldn't find anything definitive, but this article says the turret is unmanned
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Obviously for actual PLA commissioned vehicles I wouldn't take random articles seriously, but for vehicles and systems shown at zhuhai or tradeshows there's a possibility the author or writer might have actually attended the trade show and seen placards or was able to ask reps some questions.

A rare frontal view of the turret. I wonder what that boxy protrusion on the starboard side of the turret is for. It could well be a (retractable) missile launcher. The 2nd image shows what could be vents on the backside of the box, which comports with the missile launcher theory. It looks like the box takes up quite a bit of space, that and the location of the optical turret ball (?) might indicate an unmanned turret.

52251958685_68d16abbda_o.jpg

8x8-new-copy-jpg.64038
 
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