One thing the war in Ukraine has made clear, pun interned, is that mine clearing with tracked breaching vehicles have a rather short life expectancy. Anything tasked with driving straight into a minefield so the rest of the armor column doesn’t has, let’s say, a high crew turnover rate.
China, meanwhile, is sitting on a mountain of surplus Type 59 hulls, and you can practically hear the NORINCO product managers brainstorming: “What if we just turn these into remote‑control minefield‑breaching drones and sell them? Someone out there will buy it, right?"
The PLA already fields several tracked breaching vehicles. The GSL‑133, based on the Type 96 MBT (link), is the main in‑service system. It’s a proper, modern breacher with the usual dozer blade, line charge, and engineering kit.
Then there’s the Type 84 Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge (AVLB), built on the old Type 59/69 chassis (link). It has a with wide mine plough mounted at the front to get clearing done.
China has exported thousands of Type 59/69/79‑family tanks across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. On paper, that makes those same countries natural candidates for receiving the Type 84 AVLB, since armies usually want engineering vehicles that match their existing chassis fleets.
There’s no confirmed export success for the Type 84. No photos, no SIPRI entries, no parade sightings, no “accidentally leaked” procurement documents. Still, the logic remains: China pushes goods and services wherever a market might exist, and engineering vehicles are no exception. If someone wants a cheap bridgelayer or a remote‑control breaching drone built on a 1950s‑era hull, NORINCO will happily oblige.
This is just another reminder of how China approaches defense exports: If there’s even a theoretical market, they’ll build something to fill it. Whether anyone buys it is a separate question—but the catalog keeps growing.
Type59MBT based Breaching drone (note 5 wheels)
Type 84 AVLB in PLA service. "An assault breacher vehicle fires obstacle-breaching shells to clear obstacles in the way during a barrier-breaking training exercise at a comprehensive military training base on June 5, 2021. This training exercise was jointly conducted by a chemical defense detachment and an engineering detachment under the PLA 73rd Group Army. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Liu Zhiyong)" (link)
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Capitalism with Chinese characteristics of the day: Cheaper to buy new than used.
Over the last two years, China’s Y‑8 tactical transport has kept up
its quiet, steady export run. Yes, this Soviet‑era Antonov An‑12
derivative is somehow still in production, and that’s exactly the point:
in a niche market where buyers can get a freshly minted mid‑size
transport straight off the assembly line, the Y‑8 beats the alternative
of a “lightly used” ex‑Soviet airframe that spent the last decade
dissolving in a leaky warehouse. For a certain tier of customers, new
beats questionable used every time.
Take Myanmar, where budgets
are tight, runways are rough (there's war going on), and Western
procurement channels have long since closed. They can still pick up two
new Y‑8F‑200s and keep their national airlift backbone functioning
without having to gamble on ancient Antonovs.
Sri Lanka continues
to run its Y‑8s for maritime patrol and transport because Western MPAs
are priced into the stratosphere, and China provides support without the
geopolitical fine print.
Kazakhstan’s National Guard is also
expanding its fleet, with three additional Y‑8 Pegasus aircraft arriving
in 2025, bringing its operational total to six.
As with many
Chinese military exports, the Y‑8 keeps winning small orders for three
very simple reasons. First, price and politics: if you’re under
sanctions or just not on Washington’s Christmas card list, the Y‑8 is
one of the few tactical transports you can actually buy. Second,
ruggedness over refinement: it’s not a C‑130J, and it doesn’t need to
be. It’s a medium‑lift truck with wings, and for many militaries, that’s
exactly what they need. Third, China delivers fast and without drama:
no congressional hearings, no export‑control purgatory, no multi‑year
wait times. For some of buyers, that alone is worth more than any
avionics upgrade.
The Y‑8 isn’t glamorous, but it’s
dependable, politically accessible, and still rolling off the production
line. In this corner of the global market, that’s enough to keep the
production line open.
Capitalism with Chinese characteristics of the day: Hawking cheap ATGM (AFT-11E/Red Arrow 11E/GTS9)
The war in Ukraine offers many military lessons to the world, one of
them being that using hard to produce, expensive weapons against,
cheap, easy to deploy OpFor in a static war of attrition does not make a
lot of economic sense. Norinco, being a good communist as they are,
actually listen to customer demand and the ever change marketing
condition now offers. They are now offering an lower cost variant of
the current in service Anti-tank Guided Missile, called AFT-11E/Red
Arrow 11E/GTS9.
This new missile model being offered to export
prioritizes affordability, lightweight design, precision, and resistance
to electronic countermeasures (quoting marketing here). Typically, it
operates in two modes: man-portable or vehicle-mounted. It is manned by
a two-person crew. The entire weapon system features a launch tube,
thermal/daylight sights, a laser designator, and a lightweight tripod
for faster deployment time and foot mobility.
The missile
weighs approximately 14–15 kilograms and has a diameter of 140
millimeters; its effective engagement range from 100 to 5,000 meters.
Utilizing laser beam-riding guidance for high hit probability. It is
equipped with a tandem shaped-charge warhead designed to defeating
explosive reactive armor, with a penetration depth of 1,000–1,200
millimeters of rolled homogeneous armor (RHA)
Capitalism with Chinese characteristics of the day: Hawking fiber optic FPV
With the widespread deployment of fiber-optic FPV drones in
Eastern Ukraine, Chinese entrepreneurs are keen to seize every available
business opportunity. While direct drone sales in that region may not
be viable, numerous opportunities exist elsewhere.
Descriptions
indicate that models ranging from 3KM to 15KM per fiber-optic drum are
being offered, including a mothership variant.
Capitalism with Chinese characteristics of the day: Missile theme pillows
Chinese Capitalism: Because nothing says sweet dreams like spooning a missile-shaped pillow.
Capitalism with Chinese characteristics example of the Day: Warship billboard advertisements
Yesterday, a photo of a fourth batch Type052D DDG under construction
at the Dalian Shipyard leaked on the "China Internet" together with a
series of billboard advertising pushing Sinopec's "X-power" marketing
campaign (link), acting as a great representation of today's Chinese capitalism.
Here are some considerations for advertising (link) on a modern DDG as borrowed from City Bus (link)
Why advertise on a bus errr I meant on a PLAN Naval Major Surface Combatant like a Destroyer?
- The
answer here is simple: Exposure. Based on the location of your
advertisement, you’re appealing to a fixed audience for a longer period
of time than other outdoor advertising media types. If your ads are
inside a bus, you have a captive audience in the passengers for the
duration of their ride
How to select your route? (now change to PLAN's ocean-going route to maximize the commercial impact)
- There
are a few factors that can contribute to how you pick the bus route
you’ll use for advertising and relying on the expertise of an outdoor
media company like Effortless Outdoor Media is a great way to narrow
your choices down. By conducting a needs analysis with each client, we
help figure out the goal of your outdoor advertising campaign and then
work to locate the right places to advertise. Having a partner in ad
placement is crucial because it saves time and money while ensuring a
higher level of success with your campaign, however, some additional
things to consider when selecting a bus route are:
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