New Type98/99 MBT thread

[Lezt]

The latest Chinese MBT tank will probably be fielded in Korea, probably against South Korean-US tanks on the Korean peninsula.

Phead, why do you think so? Korea is not ideal tank country with a mountain range on the east side, it does not have much room to maneuver with the whole Korean peninsula being 100 km wide. Definitely not the deserts of the middle east, or the permafrost of Siberia. or the great american plains.

What would face down SK and American tanks in Korea will likely be advanced antitank missiles and munition.

Where the Type 99 will be employed and is currently stationed would be the great northern Chinese flatland in Manchuria and inner Mongolia. If central asia some how miraculously starts rearming, it will likely be deployed in xinjang and tibet.

 

[leibowitz]

Phead, why do you think so? Korea is not ideal tank country with a mountain range on the east side, it does not have much room to maneuver with the whole Korean peninsula being 100 km wide. Definitely not the deserts of the middle east, or the permafrost of Siberia. or the great american plains.

What would face down SK and American tanks in Korea will likely be advanced antitank missiles and munition.

Where the Type 99 will be employed and is currently stationed would be the great northern Chinese flatland in Manchuria and inner Mongolia. If central asia some how miraculously starts rearming, it will likely be deployed in xinjang and tibet.

To be quite honest, I don't anticipate the T99 will see much action, if at all. Most of China's neighbors by land are either friendly (Russia, Central Asia, Laos, North Korea, Pakistan), blocked off by the tallest mountains on Earth (India), or tiny/weak (Vietnam, Myanmar, Mongolia, Afghanistan).

If China is to improve the T99, I'd expect them to field bigger and better C4ISR assets on the tank, since tanks can support a lot of weight and don't have a particular need to be stealthy from an electromagnetic perspective.

And yes, the Korean peninsula is horrible tank country. The tools China will use to attack the South Korean military, if it ever comes to that (unlikely), will revolve around motorized and heliborne infantry supplemented by judicious amounts of air power targeting POL depots and a partial naval blockade involving most of the PLAN. Hope that never happens though, since China would be stuck in a losing situation regardless of outcome in any sort of Korean conflict

 

[Lezt]

To be quite honest, I don't anticipate the T99 will see much action, if at all. Most of China's neighbors by land are either friendly (Russia, Central Asia, Laos, North Korea, Pakistan), blocked off by the tallest mountains on Earth (India), or tiny/weak (Vietnam, Myanmar, Mongolia, Afghanistan).

If China is to improve the T99, I'd expect them to field bigger and better C4ISR assets on the tank, since tanks can support a lot of weight and don't have a particular need to be stealthy from an electromagnetic perspective.

And yes, the Korean peninsula is horrible tank country. The tools China will use to attack the South Korean military, if it ever comes to that (unlikely), will revolve around motorized and heliborne infantry supplemented by judicious amounts of air power targeting POL depots and a partial naval blockade involving most of the PLAN. Hope that never happens though, since China would be stuck in a losing situation regardless of outcome in any sort of Korean conflict

In all essence, I agree. Except, Russia and China are friendly, but can easily shimmer into something else. Russia and China's friendship is more of a necessity than a real liking of each other. The last 1000 years saw the two empires fighting each other on numerous times. There is always that lingering resentment in Russia that China is as powerful as she is today; there is also those nationalistic sentiments that Russia still occupies Chinese territories in the north and had aided in the secession of Mongolia from China; and is undermining China though aids to India and Vietnam.

 

[hardware]

new light tank

 

[Phead128]

Probably against Russia then. Chinese have not forgotten the unequal treaty which ceded large tractions of Manchuria in Tsarist Russia's bid for a warm water port in the Far East. It's the only neighboring country China faces advanced MBT threats from, especially as Russia fears losing resource rich Siberia lands to a rapidly industrializing Chinese Goliath.

It's sad that China needs to lease Rajin port in North Korea just to get warm water port in Sea of Japan and he dongbei region is landlocked all thanks to Russian imperialism

 

[leibowitz]

Probably against Russia then. Chinese have not forgotten the unequal treaty which ceded large tractions of Manchuria in Tsarist Russia's bid for a warm water port in the Far East. It's the only neighboring country China faces advanced MBT threats from, especially as Russia fears losing resource rich Siberia lands to a rapidly industrializing Chinese Goliath.

It's sad that China needs to lease Rajin port in North Korea just to get warm water port in Sea of Japan and he dongbei region is landlocked all thanks to Russian imperialism

It barely matters who owns the Russian Far East, China can get those resources through trade anyhow. I've actually visited Vladivostok, Blagoveschenk, and Khabarovsk, and the locals like Chinese people a lot. There's practically no enmity, jobs are plentiful, and the military presence is minimal at best. It's what a border should look like. If China could get that sort of border across all its 14 neighbors then Chinese foreign policy would become as comparatively easy and flexible as US foreign policy.

 

[Lion]

To be quite honest, I don't anticipate the T99 will see much action, if at all. Most of China's neighbors by land are either friendly (Russia, Central Asia, Laos, North Korea, Pakistan), blocked off by the tallest mountains on Earth (India), or tiny/weak (Vietnam, Myanmar, Mongolia, Afghanistan).

If China is to improve the T99, I'd expect them to field bigger and better C4ISR assets on the tank, since tanks can support a lot of weight and don't have a particular need to be stealthy from an electromagnetic perspective.

And yes, the Korean peninsula is horrible tank country. The tools China will use to attack the South Korean military, if it ever comes to that (unlikely), will revolve around motorized and heliborne infantry supplemented by judicious amounts of air power targeting POL depots and a partial naval blockade involving most of the PLAN. Hope that never happens though, since China would be stuck in a losing situation regardless of outcome in any sort of Korean conflict

I expect China to take up lots of peacekeeping role left by the US. Type99A2 will be deployed like USN M1A2 abram tanks in hostile area like Iraq and far from homeland where heavy opposition fire may encounter and that is where the heavy armour is useful.

If I am not wrong, China will pick lawless Somalia for peacekeeping. Routing out pirates on their land based and protect their shipping route.

 

[leibowitz]

I expect China to take up lots of peacekeeping role left by the US. Type99A2 will be deployed like USN M1A2 abram tanks in hostile area like Iraq and far from homeland where heavy opposition fire may encounter and that is where the heavy armour is useful.

If I am not wrong, China will pick lawless Somalia for peacekeeping. Routing out pirates on their land based and protect their shipping route.

That would be a nice mission for the PLA to shoulder. A success there would also give the PLAN bases near Chinese shipping routes to Europe and the Persian Gulf. However, if the PLA were to take such a mission, it should tread carefully, so as not to end up in a guerrilla war like Afghanistan or Vietnam.

The Type 99 would be perfect for such a mission though, given that most of Somalia is either flat highland plateau or quasi-desert Sahel. Also, it has some of the best C4ISR equipment I've seen on a modern tank, easily comparable to M1A2 level wideband networking.

 

[no_name]

View attachment 7383
new light tank

Someone said it was for Tibet highlands.

 

[MwRYum]

all thanks to Russian imperialism

And thanks more to the kind of weaklings and fossils China degenerate under Qing's rule - had their effort of modernization went as successful as the Meiji's Japan, things might turn out differently.

Anyway, barring a wind shift of policy change that drive China to turn into something we see in "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2", you'd never see China operate anything heavier than wheeled APCs and not under UN colors - remember, China is actively selling themselves as the different kind of "big boys", the kind that offer more favorable terms than the West...that said, tanks have next to no place in any UN sanctioned ventures, too many red tapes.

To make use of tanks as they should be, not just a 60-ton road block, the army needs to be the unshackled beast, not bogged down by strict ROEs...that means Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom grade of ops, which we won't see China do that anytime soon.

In any case, China's prima delta concerns are just across its borders, almost all are hostile, unlike the US which has pretty much the entire continent as their backyard, that translate into vastly different priorities, primary China doesn't have much to spare to operate beyond the borders; besides, who else on this world can match US when comes to sealift capability?