BTR-70

BTR-70
BTR-70
	BTR-70 on parade in Donetsk, 2015
Type	Armoured personnel carrier
Place of origin	Soviet Union
Service history
In service	1972–present
Used by	See Operators
Wars	Soviet–Afghan War; Angolan Civil War; Afghan Civil War (1989–92); First Nagorno-Karabakh War; First Chechen War; War in Donbas; 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict; 2021 Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan conflict; Russian Invasion of Ukraine;
Specifications
Mass	11.5 tonnes
Length	7.535 m
Width	2.80 m
Height	2.32 m
Crew	3 (+7 passengers)
Armor	9 mm (front); 7 mm (sides)
Main; armament	14.5 mm KPVT machine gun or 12.7 mm DShK
Secondary; armament	7.62 mm PKT machine gun
Engine	2× gasoline ZMZ-4905; 120 hp (88.2 kW) (×2)
Power/weight	20 hp/tonne
Suspension	wheeled 8×8
Operational; range	400–600 km
Maximum speed	80 km/h, swim 9 km/h

The BTR-70 is an eight-wheeled armored personnel carrier (Russian: бронетранспортёр, БТР, romanized: bronetransportyor, lit. 'armored carrier') originally developed by the Soviet Union during the late 1960s under the manufacturing code GAZ-4905. On August 21, 1972, it was accepted into Soviet service and would later be widely exported. Large quantities were also produced under license in Romania as the TAB-77.

The BTR-70 was developed as a potential successor for the earlier BTR-60 series of Soviet wheeled armored personnel carriers, specifically the BTR-60PB, which it most closely resembled. It evolved out of an earlier, unsuccessful project known as the GAZ-50 to design a new wheeled infantry fighting vehicle on the chassis and drive train of a BTR-60PB. It initially received the NATO reporting name BTR M1970.