New ways of warfare are constantly being developed while the old ones are constantly being tweaked for improvements. An Amphibious assault vehicle is not something new. It has been in action for quite some time now. However, China just made the world’s fastest amphibious assault vehicle.
The VN18 is built by the Norinco Group and has the ability to travel at high speeds on both land and water. The maximum ground speed is 65 km/h and that on water is 30 km/h. This might not seem as fast but it is the world’s fastest amphibious assault vehicle as of yet.
“On the waters, it’s like a car running at 120kmh on a highway,” said Tan Yongyao, the R&D manager at Norinco, Chinese media reported. Footage of the vehicle was released by the state broadcaster and you can look at it in the video below:
The vehicle weighs 2.6 tonnes and carries a cannon as well as a machine gun. It can accommodate 18 people on board. Rather than conventional steel, aluminium alloys were used to create the vehicle’s body. As this is lighter than steel, it results in the ability to achieve higher speeds.
The vehicle’s engine has the ability to produce 1,600 horsepower. This is fairly high and is usually seen in tanks rather than assault vehicles. To give it the ability to achieve high speeds in water, the tracks and wheels of the vehicle can be lifted up into the body.
