ZIL-153

The ZIL-153 was a six-wheeled amphibious armoured personnel carrier designed at ZIL from 1957 under N. I. Orlov, with advice from Vitaly Grachev of the SKB. It is the second vehicle to carry the name, after the ZIS-153 half-track of 1952.

Design

The three axles were almost equally spaced, and both front and rear wheels steered. Large 16.00-20 tyres had adjustable pressure. Power came from a new 180 hp V8 driving through a hydraulic torque converter and a five-speed YaAZ gearbox, with each side driven separately. There was independent torsion-bar suspension on all wheels, with hub reduction gears, sealed brakes and propellers for the water. Several components and the side-by-side drive layout were taken from the ZIL-135B cross-country vehicle.

Fate

The ZIL-153 (sometimes wrongly called BTR-153) did well in trials at the end of 1960. A pilot batch of ten was prepared, and armoured hulls had already arrived from Vyksa, but the vehicle was not adopted, for non-technical reasons. The prototype is kept at the Kubinka tank museum. Follow-up projects, 'Object 851' and 'Object 852', were not built.