Sudan has acquired Chinese FTC-2000 combat training aircraft
http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2235067.html
http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2235067.html
zardof likes this post
GarryB wrote:I suspect you mean the shareef-1 is a BTR-82 like upgrade, not an upgrade of a BTR-82...
Interesting they are following Russian practice and including an automatic cannon with a heavier low pressure cannon to combine high velocity light shells, with lower velocity heavy HE rounds.
Personally I would have put a Vasilek 82mm mortar with a belt feed instead of a clip feed instead of the 73mm weapon... the former has better range and a better rate of fire if you want to use that, but automatic ammo handling means the gunner is the gunner and not the gunner/loader.
You should be able to make a BMP-3 like turret arrangement for the ammo as the smaller ammo would require less space... which the BTR has... ie a BMP-3 turret would offer the best of both worlds but the turret would probably be too big an heavy and expensive... a lighter smaller turret with just an 82mm weapon would be smaller and cheaper and lighter and still rather effective I would think.
In fact you could use it as a mortar carrier and have extra ammo in the rear too.
To be honest... I would not keep the BTR-70s with their twin engines and funky transmissions... I would just go for the BTR-80 arrangement with one bigger engine and a much simpler transmission...