A photograph printed in Thai social media on Could 28, 2021 reveals an Amphibious Gentle Tank or Amphibious Assault Vessel (AAV) mannequin Norinco VN16, whole 3 autos had been shipped by cargo ship from China to Thailand. The Thai navy weblog, AAGTH report that the automobile has a camouflage sample of the Royal Thai Marine Corps which might be the port of Sattahip Naval Base. The amphibious assault automobile VN16 would be the new primary pressure of Marine Tank Firm, Marine Armored Amphibian Automobile Battalion, Marine Division, Royal Thai Marine Corps.
The VN16 is an export model of an amphibious mild tank ZTD-05 stationed within the Folks’s Liberation Military Navy Marine Corps (PLAMC) designed and manufactured by NORINCO, a Chinese language defence trade enterprise. The VN16 Amphibious Assault Automobile 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 VN16 has been in comparison with the cancelled United States Expeditionary Preventing Automobile (EFV) program.
The Royal Thai Marine Corps is the second export buyer for the VN16, following the Venezuelan Bolivarian Marine Corps, provided with the VN18 Amphibious Infantry Preventing Automobile, the export model of the 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 primary tanks lengthy after it was unable to provide 15 LT-105 ASCOD mild tanks from Spain within the Nineties on account of protection funds cuts as a result of financial disaster in 1997.
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 worth 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 kind. Nevertheless, that is understood to be the VN-16, which Norinco displayed in mannequin kind on the Defence and Safety defence exhibition in Bangkok in late 2019.
