Chinese military exports to other countries

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
The Chinese Navy will transfer by the month of September two old frigates Type 053H3, hull numbers 521 and 522, to the Bangladeshi Navy.

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SteelBird

Colonel
The Chinese Navy will transfer by the month of September two old frigates Type 053H3, hull numbers 521 and 522, to the Bangladeshi Navy.

DfTAcAIUcAEqR2M.jpg
Quite sometime ago, Cambodia announced that it would purchase a 140 meters Chinese frigate (which I thought should type 053 too) but seems nothing happens since then. Do you know what's going on?
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Light tanks are not normally used on the front lines, there light armor being optimized for speed. They tend to serve as scouts and occasional infantry fire support. in those jobs such a set up would be okay. as it's main job as a scout would be to punch the enemy in the nose then runaway and very good for supporting infantry.
 

jobjed

Captain
Light tanks are not normally used on the front lines, there light armor being optimized for speed. They tend to serve as scouts and occasional infantry fire support. in those jobs such a set up would be okay. as it's main job as a scout would be to punch the enemy in the nose then runaway and very good for supporting infantry.

That's completely not how the PLA uses their light tanks. Scout vehicles are utility vehicles, APCs or IFVs with dedicated reconnaissance equipment like EO sensors and battlefield surveillance radar hoisted on top a telescopic mast. Tanks in the PLA, light or otherwise, never do scouting.

The PLA uses light tanks in scenarios where they're the most heavily armed and armoured vehicles on the battlefield; places where heavier MBTs cannot get to, or cannot get to in militarily meaningful numbers, like the Tibetan Plateau or muddy jungles and rice paddies in Yunnan/Guangxi/Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia. The light tanks then fight like MBTs; leading breakthroughs and drawing all the fire so the IFVs and APCs following them can offload troops to take take enemy lines. If ever light tanks found themselves on the same battlefield as MBTs, something has gone very wrong.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Since this is an export version the VT5 it's hard to keep that line though. Because how it will be used will be based a great deal on the end buyer. Dedicated scout vehicles came in to Vogue as light tanks tended to leave the battlefield or become more specialist.
Some smaller national armies might even treat them as MBT's if all there Neighbors have are T55's.
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
The PLA makes no secret of the fact that they closely study US and other militaries’ actual combat experience. And there is zero point in such close study if the PLA does not then apply what they have learned do potentially radically change how they have operated compared to the past.

That may add a new angle to the PLA’s new fondness for light tanks.

One of the stand-outs of the ground war part of the invasion of Iraq was the effectiveness of US recon in force runs, or thunder runs.

I think that may be what the PLA may wish to use their new gen light tanks for in a far wider range of locations and missions than traditional light tank use by the PLA, especially in urban environments.

The PLA’s new light tanks could be used to spearhead such recons in force; where they won’t force IFVs to slow down or prevent them from taking certain routes as heavy MBTs would; have the protection and firepower to be exploit any holes or weaknesses in the enemy defences such rapid advances might reveal; but also have the speed to run away if they encounter things they cannot handle easily by themselves.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
One of the stand-outs of the ground war part of the invasion of Iraq was the effectiveness of US recon in force runs, or thunder runs
Those thunder runs were more proof of the failure of the Iraqi state and military than actual effective combat strategy.
They were a high speed rampage meant to lay down spot of fire in hopes of everyone panicking and not getting the chance of mounting a effective counter attack. Like Michael Wittmen's tigar one rampage. The success was primary because of violence of action, with a very high chance of actually losing vehicles in the act.
I think that may be what the PLA may wish to use their new gen light tanks for in a far wider range of locations and missions than traditional light tank use by the PLA, especially in urban environments.
range of missions makes some sensealthough I doubt urban would prove to be the best. Amphibious and airborne make sense because of the limiting factor of a 50 + ton MBT trying to swim or be air dropped.

Urban combat is a whole other nut to crack. It's not about the weight or size of the Tank light tanks are not that much smaller then an MBT. It's about the support. In urban the Tank looses the long range stand off and it's critical to support the tank with infantry. That is the biggest continuous lesson from world war 2 onwards. When tanks roll into cities they are surrounded. Chechnya, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, Vietnam, Palistine, Lebenon and more. Drive a tank into a urban area and it's an ambush zone with attacks from above, below,the sides the front and rear no tank can survive that on it's own. Light tanks don't really have an advantage over MBT here as even there speed can be countered with obsticals.
 
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