History
The first mass produced IFV was the West German Schützenpanzer 12-3 which served in the Bundeswehr from 1958 until the early 1980s. The SPz 12-3 mounted a 20 mm autocannon in a small turret and carried a half-squad of five armoured infantrymen.
Western powers were surprised when the Soviet Union paraded the BMP-1, in 1967. The BMP possessed a very low profile and was armed with both a 73mm smoothbore gun and an AT-3 Sagger ATGM. Its steeply-sloped front armour offered full protection against NATO's standard .50 calibre machine gun and partial protection against 20 millimetre Oerlikon cannon both in a 60 degree frontal arc, while its 73 mm gun and ATGM were a threat to NATO APCs and even MBTs.
Since then, all major military powers have developed or adopted IFVs. The German Marder and Puma followed the Schutzenpanzer, the Chinese ZBD-97, the Soviet/Russian BMP-3, the Indian Abhay IFV, the Yugoslavian BVP M-80, the Canadian LAV III, the British Warrior, the American M2 Bradley, the Spanish Pizarro/ASCOD, the Italian Dardo, the South African Ratel, the French AMX-10P and VBCI, the Swedish Combat Vehicle 90 and the Dutch YPR-765 AIFV.
Combat applications in close-combat environments are likely to drive up survivability requirements necessitating the same protection level required by main battle tanks.
Read more about this topic: Infantry Fighting Vehicle
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“Indeed, the Englishman’s history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)