PLA Next Generation Main Battle Tank
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That's pretty BS, what about the thousands of Type 096As and older tanks? Those things are basically death traps if deployed on any battlefield, they need to be replaced ASAP. There is no way China is going to operate what basically is a modernized second generation tank well into the 2030s, it'll be an embracement and irresponsible by quite literally sending all of their crew to certain death if ever deployed.
Unlike consumer products which can easily sell hundreds of thousands per model or even more, complex and expensive capital equipments can hardly reach the scale of economy though. At the best, you can produce more to amortize the cost of R&D better.
I feel that is a hindsight-conclusion due to how the R-U war turned out, not how it should have turned out.
I feel if you let the PLA fight in place it will not have devolved to the state that it is now that you'll need turtle tanks.
So it feeds back to each other, what you eventually need depends on how well situations turned out, which depends on what you had and did with it at the start.
Well, according to that Chinese OP, this DA by design is indeed a sensor node first and foremost.
Who exactly is this OP btw, are they considered credible. If not, then IDK why are we even having this discussion
Because PLAGF needs new tanks. They just made this new tank very good at intelligence gathering to fit in their future land warfare doctrine.
Yes this is unconfirmed. Take it as the OP own opinion. But IIRC Mao Ming the chief designer of 99G once said that the next generation tanks will likely be crewed by only two members.
He is in the online circles of the Guancha trio. I have already given the credibility caution upfront.
Yep, I can see he thinks this way. It's the way everything develops nowadays, be it military or not.
But I don't see it this way; it's sensor suit is normal/within modern trends. Yes, it is sensor node, but in the same way t-14 or euro prototypes are meant to be, just better (it's outright newer than 10-yrs old T-14, and relies on a competitive electronic ecosystem, unlike German/french prototypes...plus there is more than one).
In a way, you can compare it with actual modern attempts at making light maneuver warfare vehicles, they have visibly larger optical heads.
Doesn't mean they're better, but it does mean that designers compromised more to fit them.
It has full frontal armor - quite possibly the best armor bar none for this weight class, and very likely above it, too. Moreover, armor is spread 270 degrees, which is modern trend unlike that was norm for East Asian tanks until recently.
Finally, it goes hard on active intercept. It seems to me this is very much a normal tank for tank coes. Not a "support node"(like bmpt), not "protected control node"(like shturm OMV assault tank platoon). Not sensory node for open/dispersed order of battle node like Ajax the sneaky elephant.
It's normal. Just overall combining them, better(overall) due to being higher tech.
I consider this quite difficult. Firstly, the emergence of "turtle tanks" has distinct local characteristics—Ukrainians lacked direct-fire anti-tank weapons and had severely insufficient access to large-caliber artillery support for the frontlines. These shortcomings were compensated for by using FPV loitering munitions and drop drones. This is why "turtle tanks" retrofitted with mere "WWII-level add-on armor" managed to survive for extended periods.
However, simultaneously, this add-on armor fundamentally conflicts with Active Protection Systems (APS). It blocks the firing arcs and detection fields of APS components. I would argue that add-on armor and APS are mutually exclusive at the same physical locations—installing APS precludes adding extensive armor there, and vice versa. Furthermore, the add-on armor severely degrades the crew's situational awareness, making assault operations far more intelligence-dependent. Worse still, it critically compromises the tank's own targeting systems, which is why most "turtle tanks" carry no ammunition and often lack a dedicated gunner.
Based on these two points, I believe directly copying the "turtle tank" concept is likely not the optimal development path. A more probable evolution would be a vehicle analogous to the Centurion AVRE or Sturmgeschütz III (StuH variant). Such a vehicle would feature:
- Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) on the hull with supplemental add-on armor (since hulls are often concealed by terrain undulations, and hull sides are difficult for drones to hit during movement).
- No overhead add-on armor, relying instead on an APS system with ample countermeasure capacity to protect vulnerable observation equipment.
- A minimized crew or even optionally manned configurations operated via radio/cable link.
As for amphibious capability—I consider this utterly impossible. Even infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) with much lower density struggle with amphibious design. For instance, the BMP-2 requires buoyancy materials in specific compartments to float, and the up-armored BMP-2D variant completely lost this capability. Attempting amphibious operation with this level of armor and weapon weight would likely result in solutions akin to the Japanese Type 2 Ka-Mi's detachable pontoons or the US Sherman's inflatable flotation screen—oh, and I believe a similar concept existed in very early Bradley IFV designs.