BTR-70

The BTR-70 is an eight-wheeled, amphibious armoured personnel carrier developed in the Soviet Union in the late 1960s under the manufacturing code GAZ-4905 and accepted into Soviet service on 21 August 1972. It was meant to succeed the BTR-60 series, above all the BTR-60PB it most resembled, and grew out of an unsuccessful wheeled infantry fighting vehicle project known as the GAZ-50. It is powered by two petrol engines, first 115 hp six-cylinder units and later mostly the more powerful ZMZ-49-05 V-8, and is propelled afloat by a single rear water jet. Its flammable petrol engines and poor means of entry and exit showed up in the Soviet-Afghan War, and the BTR-80 replaced it in 1984. Romania built it under licence as the TAB-77, and the Soviet Union exported it to only four other states.