The Royal Thai Marine Corps (RTMC) Marine Assault Amphibian Battalion demonstrated the sea-to-shore operation capabilities of its Chinese language-made NORINCO VN16 gentle amphibious tank was additionally delivered to reveal amphibious operations along side the 12 US-made AAV7A1 amphibious assault autos of the RTMC Amphibious Automobile Battalion that has been modernized by Chaiseri Steel & Rubber Co. Ltd. 1st-year navy preparatory college students, class 64, AFAPS (Armed Forces Academies Preparatory College), found the operation capabilities of Royal Thai Marine Corps Autos Krom Luang Chumphon Camp, Sattahip District, Chonburi Province, on December 16, 2021. The
The Royal Thai Marine Corps is the second export buyer for the VN16, following the Venezuelan Bolivarian Marine Corps, equipped with the VN18 amphibious infantry combating automobile, the export model of Sort 05 (ZTD-05) Amphibious Assault Automobile that the Chinese language Marines have. Which the Marine Corps Royal Thai Navy there was a necessity for a brand new tank to exchange 5 Sort 69-II major tanks lengthy after it was unable to produce 15 LT-105 ASCOD (Austrian Spanish Cooperation Improvement) gentle tanks from Spain within the Nineteen Nineties on account of protection price range cuts as a result of financial disaster in 1997.
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The Thai authorities’s public procurement service mentioned in a discover on 10 September 2020 that Norinco has been chosen by the Royal Thai Navy for the acquisition, with a bid value of THB398.1 million (USD13 million). The autos Procured from native firm Chankasem Worldwide, which can act as an importer. The service didn’t verify the platform sort. Nonetheless, that is understood to be the VN-16, which Norinco displayed in mannequin type on the Defence and Safety protection exhibition in Bangkok in late 2019. Anticipated within the close to future Three Chinese language VN16 amphibious assault autos shall be deployed within the Tank Firm, Amphibious Armored Battalion Marine Corps.
The VN16 is an export model of an amphibious gentle tank ZTD-05 stationed within the Folks’s Liberation Military Navy-Marine Corps (PLAMC) designed and manufactured by NORINCO. The VN16 amphibious assault automobile is armed with a 105mm low-recoil rifled gun, a 7.62mm coaxial machinegun, QJC-88 12.7mm anti-aircraft machinegun, and banks of 76 mm grenade launchers. The ZTD-05 assault automobile variant replaces the out of date Sort 63A amphibious tank launched within the late Nineteen Nineties. The VN16 has been in comparison with the canceled United States Expeditionary Preventing Automobile (EFV) program. The amphibious gentle tank was designed for China by the Russian Tula KBP bureau.
