Chinese tank

All i have is a pic of a future tank that the chinese army is to use and would like to know what anyone thinks of it.

Link is dead, this is just for url reference


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[edit on 4-1-2006 by UK Wizard]

any other info apart from the pic
also use the [url =]name[ /url] to shorten it

Thats fan art. It was possible configurations for a upgraded T-99.

yes posable uses are

1- running over sitting people

2- rusting b/c the US is not near china

yes that was a burn

stupid china and there chickens

Originally posted by engenerQ
yes posable uses are

1- running over sitting people

2- rusting b/c the US is not near china

yes that was a burn

stupid china and there chickens

We r talking about a tank r u mad or sth else?
Or any chinese had hurt u before people?? stick to the subject and when have u seen a tank running over sitting people in china and what's wrong with the chickens!?

nonsence!

Originally posted by taobo33

Originally posted by engenerQ
stupid china and there chickens

when have u seen a tank running over sitting people in china and what's wrong with the chickens!?

nonsence!

Agreed.

I may not exactly be Beijing's biggest fan, just ask Chinawhite, but this rubbish hardly adds to the level of debate. I think this sould have been a more apt smiley:

The last time a tank ran over a civilian would have been in South Korea and it wasn't a South Korean or North Korean tank.

As for chickens, if you're worried about H5N1, I suggest you avoid Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Russia, Turkey...

That looks almost like a Bushmaster type gun up by the commanders cupola. Nasty if it is. Although it'll save them the trouble of using the main gun on a Bradley type vehicle.

alright aparently ive ofended some people so im sorry it was a joke.. as for the tank

the top monted MG having quite a but of stabalising so it must be a very high fire rate or a high cal. also by the mounting i bet its fairly hands off in the sence of a remote for the gunner.

the armor looks fairly high tech in the plateing and the abilaty to remove sections. fairly low coverage on the tracks. prob to help min. RPG track knock off's "killing" todays MBT's

the vent in the front right being far from where most propul. are located is most likely a full chem bio rad filter set.

though i doubt it will have the tech armor of the abrams nor the fire controol center of the chalenger. though i havent heard to much from china's tec side of MBT's i bet its fairly decent

I myself like the looks of the Type 99G, and pretty damn interested to see how that JD-3 Dazzler works. Pretty damn creative.

Lobo76,

First off, judging any AFV by it's artistic rendering (not even a photo!) is like buying a house on curb appeal. No inspection, no awareness of the environment (schools, crime rates) makes you terribly vulnerable to fools-rush-in disease.

That said, it appears the Type-99G (aka Type-90G) is an export variation of the Type-98 which itself is an attempt to solve armor and powerplant shortcomings in the Type-96 as a T-72 clone with T-80U elements lumped in. If they can make the next 1,500 (with foreign imagers and probably munitions) for the same 500 grande apiece as they did the first, CATIC or whoever handles their ground sales may have a good, basic, tank for world market. But this is more an indication of mastery in the heavy-automotive mass production field than true armor capabilities.

The very first thing you want to do when designing a tank is determine where you want to use it or where you assume your export base will.

In China's case you are basically looking at four principle theaters:

1. Russia.
Who has improved their nuclear force options for a reason.
2. India.
Another nuke-state. Which you can't hardly project to, let alone sustain, armor warfare in, over the Himalayas.
3. Siam Peninsula.
The sum total of force present in the entire region (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand as well as Malaysia further south) could not beat the Chinese on sheer numbers, even if the terrain model could reasonably be called 'tank country', which it is not.
4. Korea.
Likely to be completley interdicted by air with less than 450nm from Pyongyang to Beijing. If one does not want to eat brilliant top attack AND risk the loss of face inherent to having 'ministry buildings mistaken for embassies' in one's Capital, one will not supply advanced weapons nor attempt to intervene with them when the rabid little client state finally 'foams over', completely.
5. Taiwan.
The CM-11I/12 (M48 clones) and M60A3 are already on the short end of the stick relative to the upgrade M88 (T-54 mod) classes, no need to upgrade. OTOH, the kinds of heavy sea and airlift as well as amphibious beaching systems (LCVP or ACV) are not really in evidence for what remains a fairly hostile environment in the Formosa straits.

Given the buyer-psychology effects of DS T-72s being 'flip the frying pan' blown to pieces as even a residual cultural memory, the use of a similar design style-as-a-shape motif is questionable from a marketing standpoint, no matter how improved it's innards. This psyop propoganda effect is taken a step further by making comments about addon composite horseshoes and 'flipup coverplate' ballistic void technology. The implication being that you are aware of existing shortcomings and feel the need to explain yourself.

The maintube is typical Russian 125mm which is to say a overly long to compensate for lower temp metallurgy effects on high working pressures. Long tubes flex in normal travel motion, spoiling boresight collimation and stabs. Long tubes that get /hot/ tend to droop. All of which effect ballistics reliability. The aft position of the turret also indicates little advantage to reversal in both transport or urban conditions and may effect defilade fire conditions from a fighting position.

If you add the above to problems inherent to the penetrator design and material fabrication, it becomes questionable as to whether you can generate the required 5,500-6,000fps (18-20+MJ) at the muzzle needed to hole a 1A2 Abrahms or Leo-KWS/2A6 type 'world leader' from the front. CLGP, while touted as leveling the field are usually too expensive and/or complex to be seen as truly inventory wide options, especially for the third world, and their guidance complexes add further to the difficulty of firecontrol. Something not helped by the nature of having three different sight packages available (be proud of the ONE you make).

The shape and depth of the bow slope as a function of glacis thicknesses is also not shown which means that not only do you not know how far you can penetrate the enemies hide, but it is difficult to judge how well you can take hits while closing to ranges where you can. Which brings you back to another intangible-from-artwork question: Can your (fullbore, HEAT or EFP based) CLGP see through IR smoke? Can the laser? If not, then you are down to maneuver and ambush tactics which are not 'good tactical choices' to attempt when the threat is predominantly air-centric (i.e. now you must neutralize both within a system-of-systems approach to make the unit inferior in it's own element more able to use select tactics) and you are largely conscript force.

Large bustle overhangs tend to make venting and access to some critical engine bay areas more difficult. If you are worried about smart top attack, the armor-over-heat can somewhat ameliorate thermal signatures but only until you realize most of the operational variations of TGSM use both MMW and IIR which means you have gone from point contrast to mass centroid and with today's processing, the weapon can likely /still/ choose an aimpoint which penetrates the ammunition stowage or crew compartment through the thinnest roof area for equivalent combat kill (vs. mobility incapacitation) damage.

Though I believe the LOMD emphasis on a 'bigger weapon' is overstated in the NLOS missile age, I'm not really fond of hybrid gun platforms because they cannot reliably (CIWS ATGW auto-engage) take care of threats to the vehicle outside the front quarter and horizon level and they require the commander and gunner to each be responsible for servicing targets to truly improve the survivability-through-rate-of-kill for the vehicle overall. Though there can be some advantages to this in dealing with mixed enemy mech teams where your ballistic option overlaps their ATGW (IFV) vehicles, the reality remains that armor targeting systems still do not autotrack or autosort targets, so adding another weapon bore compromises the TC's ability to act as a 'stacker' to the gunners terminal engagement sequence as well as C2 coordinator for the rest of his troop engagement plan.

Obviously, you are also limiting the vehicle's total ammunition storage, though given the new bustle-mag layout and presumed autoloader holdover from the 2A46, it's hard to say much about reliability vs. target servicing factors (muzzle index and reload/round switch rates).

The sponsons do not appear to be drawn to scale or feature equivalency from the side elevation to topside plan views so I must question the overall geometry of the hull. That said, the overall weight class remains low at 52 tons (max load) with no apparent modification to side skirts and only limited changes in frontal slope to indicate material/thickness modifications. 'Heavy means more survivable' in the generalist sense of armor comparisons and when you have fully loaded Western tanks pushing 60-65 tons with all the mod gear, you have to question where the lighter vehicles skimped (propulsion, reliability, RHAe) that their national leadership deemed acceptable. Something that is all the more 'interesting' when you realize that small tanks are easier to bring to bear in offensive wars but China has of yet, not declared itself anything but neutral vs. anybody but Taiwan. And that only conditionally.


CONCLUSION:
'It's pretty' in a way. But if I wanted to take on the West, even as a function of commercial sales and technologic nationalism on a 'pride of place' basis, I would either go lightweight with a high energy 30-50mm on a robotic platform that can MOVE (60-70mph cruise, 90mph dash) to get to the flanks without care for losses before embarrasing the wester /tactical/ model for frontal arc emphasis at massive cost.

Or I would make a Konigs Tiger if not Maus (dare I say Bolo?) for the 21st century with hybrid electric double band track drive and a real monster of a 152mm or better unmanned turret so that all the armor+engine+magwell (3,000+mm RHAe) could sit in front of a paired TC/driver combination with the maximum amount of onboard sensorization to detect fires and prioritize counterengagements at distances from 500m to more than 6km. In this, the ability to go with a remote pedestal turret would itself achieve most of what the old FSU design methodology intended in reducing silouhette and cost while allowing you to still emphasize survivability 'by overt stylistic change' in a 60-70 ton baseline vehicle that actually outclassed the Western full-turret equivalents for protection.

If you aren't going anywhere with wicked intent, you might as well OWN what you sit on. Though I might break it into propulsion/weapon/command segments to allow for easier transport.

To continue the marketing overkill theme, I would also want a STACK of customizable aftermarket addons ranging from Barracuda MCS to RFLO composite cube equivalents (multispectral EO and mobile vs. static radar protective compartmentalization) options. To go along with a 10:1 signature emulators 'fill' on decoys for maximum C3D protection of a limited inventory.

An urban uparmor system like the TUSK+ with the British heavy skirt appliques would also be important for those times when I felt the need to take a field tank into a city.

Masted sensor/command tank options on a company or platoon level (IFDL equivalent) LINK would let me tailor the onboard capabilities without necessarily losing NLOS or depending on air for wide-battlefield conditions.

At least two different NLOS/LOS CGLPs would be requried (one autonomous) though I might take a CKEM or PAM type (Flip Up Forward Fire vs. VLS) alternative if I could not support barrel launch (30,000G/sec) electronics specializations.

Active hard kill whether intercept or explosive based. Which means you need high speed bus driving MAWS type sensors and preferrably some kind of EWS managerto select and functionally deconflict active decoys, smoke and RBC from your terminal defense systems on a 'see it first to kill it second to blind the terminals' basis of threat classification and response zones.

An EBC equivalent digital battlefield linkup. At which point, you are probably looking at mixed artillery and special mission capabilities in support of traditional armor movements and may need to consider changes to the turret mount to support high SE angles if you don't switch outright to a missileer multi-box.

As with high end automotive engineering 'it's all in the gadgets' and so addon packages must be present, /fromt the start/ to differentiate buyers in regional competition with each other as well as a 'perceived threat' (U.S. technology baseline). Gotta have the gadgets.

The fact that the Chinese have chosen to stick with a dated an poor-rep design (one which is not even rightfully their's to call 'original') with a lot of '2nd best looooozer!' baggage attached. While not adding /any/ modern features to physically differentiate the still-low armor weights (think Black Eagle), indicates that they are still interested in becoming one of the top producers rather than BEING the chief paradigm innovator in the world in advanced armor design.

And in tanks as in sledding, if you ain't the front dawg, the view never changes.

At least in the eyes of the world which sees not the environment or operational approach, but evaluates each vehicle only relative to it's opposite, in a vacuum of conditional modifiers.


KPl.


LINKS-
Type 96 Basics
www.deagel.com...

China Set to Field Worlds Most Advanced Tank
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk...

Armor Matchups
www.emeraldesigns.com...

Perceptions of a Chinese Armor Threat
www.crisscross.com...

T-72 Variant Reference Point (note Shtora has been around quite awhile...)
www.inetres.com...

Originally posted by ch1466
The maintube is typical Russian 125mm which is to say a overly long to compensate for lower temp metallurgy effects on high working pressures.

Actually the development of the T-98 went like this. Two plans

One was to make a western 120mm design similar to the leo II and the other design was the T-98 which was a russian approch(auto loader, 3 man crew) with western technology.

The chinese choose to go along with the Russian approch. First off china had already designed a 120mm gun which has comparable power to the M256 but the chinese leadership wanted the capability to fire tube lanuched missiles and the west did not have any designs or such for that so the only approch was to upgun the 120mm. So the basic gun on the T-98 uses the breechlock of the 120mm and a 125mm tube.

And the autoloader type?. Its not carousel type anymore but a belt fed(something like that) type according to forum talk. because if the T-98 was using russian style carousel autoloaders it would be impossible to fit in the 30:1 rounds the T-98 is using. compared to russias 20:1 and 25:1

well. the T-99 are up to speculation

Originally posted by ch1466
The aft position of the turret also indicates little advantage to reversal in both transport or urban conditions and may effect defilade fire conditions from a fighting position.

Merkava IV doesn't exactly seem to be a miserable failure and its spent enough time crawling through the alleys of Gaza and the West Bank...

Originally posted by engenerQ
yes posable uses are

1- running over sitting people

2- rusting b/c the US is not near china

yes that was a burn

stupid china and there chickens

Originally posted by engenerQ
alright aparently ive ofended some people so im sorry it was a joke.. as for the tank

Why dont you make the same joke about black people? Yea, I thought so. Then why the f**k did you make such a stupid and offensive joke about Chinese people?!

Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV

Originally posted by ch1466
The aft position of the turret also indicates little advantage to reversal in both transport or urban conditions and may effect defilade fire conditions from a fighting position.

Merkava IV doesn't exactly seem to be a miserable failure and its spent enough time crawling through the alleys of Gaza and the West Bank...

oh yeah thats a real test of a battlefield tank! lol We know it can stop bottles and rocks oh yeah be time threats to a tank, until the Merk takes on something a little bit more deadly it will be vast overtkill to me.......makes me wonder who the real terrorists are in the region.

Originally posted by Char2c35t

Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV

Originally posted by ch1466
The aft position of the turret also indicates little advantage to reversal in both transport or urban conditions and may effect defilade fire conditions from a fighting position.

Merkava IV doesn't exactly seem to be a miserable failure and its spent enough time crawling through the alleys of Gaza and the West Bank...

oh yeah thats a real test of a battlefield tank! lol

Ask any tanker what the most dangerous terrain for a tank is and he'll tell you it's city streets. That 5,000m range doesn't do you much good when RPGs are hitting you from 20 metres away and you can't traverse your gun in time.

And Merkava IV was designed with crew survivability at the top of its criteria, that's why the engine is up the front, not down the back. And given that the IDF has more tank experience than anyone in the region, in British, French and US tanks, I'm willing to assume they know their stuff.

Go LOL somewhere else, after all, how many Merks have the Israelis lost in Palestine and how many M1A1s have gone down in Iraq? I know which ones have been where longer...

Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV
Go LOL somewhere else, after all, how many Merks have the Israelis lost in Palestine and how many M1A1s have gone down in Iraq? I know which ones have been where longer...

Thats irrelevant, for the Israelis have not encounter the type of resistance and tactics used by insurgents in Iraq. Send some in Iraq and you be surprise how many Merks are disabled or destroyed.