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.^[1]

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.^[2] It initially received the NATO reporting name BTR M1970.^[3]