New Type98/99 MBT thread
- Thread starter Dongfeng
- Start date
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Deputy Chief designer of Type 99A
China Army - Li Chunming, deputy chief of 99A tank: China's tank has entered the world's first echelon
China Army - Li Chunming, deputy chief of 99A tank: China's tank has entered the world's first echelon
Thailand's order shows VT-4 export is between $5.3M-$5.8M USD. That's ridiculously expensive even accounting for parts. I doubt these purchases are purely motivated by political reasons since Thailand and Pakistan have purchased military equipment from everywhere and anywhere in the past and continue to do so. There's no policy about only buying Chinese although there may exist incentives to. This indicates some promise in the actual hardware if countries are willing to pay nearly Leopoard 2a6 money for a lighter version of PLA's best MBT. It's been shown in the past that Norinco tanks have poor transmission reliability. There are good medium weight tanks out there like K1a1 T-90ms for similar prices.
Qatar bought 62 Leo 2A7s and 24 PzH-2000s for 2.21 billion USD which is astronomical compared to the amount Thailand paid for 49 VT-4s. There is no doubt the VT-4 is significantly more competitive than the Leo 2A7 when it comes to price.
>> Further Upgraded variant of Chinese VT-4 prototype has arrived in , for winter land warfare testing . . .
Do we know what the upgrades are, it was reported Pakistan selected the Opolot instead of the VT4 when the tanks had a face of in the desert, apparently the VT4 had issues with it’s engine overheating from memory.
Have been reading a book on the PLA written by Benjamin Lai. Wanted to share an excerpt in his book about the 98 tank's armour:
" ,the glacis plate ... there is composite armor comprised of a complex mix of steel and glass-fiber... the actual protection level is equal to 600 mm RHA steel. The turret is protected by a still-classified armor composite that has the equivalent of 800 mm RHA of protection. During the trials, one T-98 prototype survived fourteen rounds of APFSDS from a 105 mm gun and six rounds from a Soviet T-72C 125 mm gun."
These figures seem really impressive, and if these are the protection levels of the 98 tank, one would assume that the armour of the 99 tank would be a marked improvement (turret anyway), let alone the 99A with a significantly changed chassis and an all new turret which, would on the face of it, provide significantly more protection.
According to a post translated by @jobjed in the thread 'PLA News, pics, and Discussion (P 48) on a lecture on the 99A tank...
"The 99A tank has 'frontal' protection >700mm of RHA vs KE... As well as >700mm vs top attack CE.". This is rather vague, but whilst an additional 100mm of RHA improvement to the frontal hull from the 98 to the 99A is reasonable, one expecting the 99A with a completely new turret would have significantly more frontal turret protection vs KE than 800mm in the 98 tank as quoted in Benjamin Lai's book...
whilst ">700mm" shown in the lecture is still factually correct... i.e 1200mm is still >700mm, as is 750mm... if this figure is referring to the turret of the 99A, it makes me wonder why the figure shown in the lecture is so low, or whether the protection values of the 98 tank turret have been overstated, keeping in mind that armour values (vs KE) for the M1A2 SEP are approx 580mm front hull and around 950mm for turret front.
If the 98 tank already had 800mm RHAe on turret front, I would love to imagine what the 99A would have for its turret front armour figure. Whilst I would love to think that it would be something ridiculous like 1200mm+, a part of me feel doubtful..
What are everyone's thoughts on this?
" ,the glacis plate ... there is composite armor comprised of a complex mix of steel and glass-fiber... the actual protection level is equal to 600 mm RHA steel. The turret is protected by a still-classified armor composite that has the equivalent of 800 mm RHA of protection. During the trials, one T-98 prototype survived fourteen rounds of APFSDS from a 105 mm gun and six rounds from a Soviet T-72C 125 mm gun."
These figures seem really impressive, and if these are the protection levels of the 98 tank, one would assume that the armour of the 99 tank would be a marked improvement (turret anyway), let alone the 99A with a significantly changed chassis and an all new turret which, would on the face of it, provide significantly more protection.
According to a post translated by @jobjed in the thread 'PLA News, pics, and Discussion (P 48) on a lecture on the 99A tank...
"The 99A tank has 'frontal' protection >700mm of RHA vs KE... As well as >700mm vs top attack CE.". This is rather vague, but whilst an additional 100mm of RHA improvement to the frontal hull from the 98 to the 99A is reasonable, one expecting the 99A with a completely new turret would have significantly more frontal turret protection vs KE than 800mm in the 98 tank as quoted in Benjamin Lai's book...
whilst ">700mm" shown in the lecture is still factually correct... i.e 1200mm is still >700mm, as is 750mm... if this figure is referring to the turret of the 99A, it makes me wonder why the figure shown in the lecture is so low, or whether the protection values of the 98 tank turret have been overstated, keeping in mind that armour values (vs KE) for the M1A2 SEP are approx 580mm front hull and around 950mm for turret front.
If the 98 tank already had 800mm RHAe on turret front, I would love to imagine what the 99A would have for its turret front armour figure. Whilst I would love to think that it would be something ridiculous like 1200mm+, a part of me feel doubtful..
What are everyone's thoughts on this?
SinoSoldier
Colonel
Didn't one of the engineers say in a recent interview (forgot when) that its frontal armor was somewhere between 1000-2000 mm in terms of RHA?
The same lecture I mentioned in my post quotes >1200mm vs CE weapons. With upcoming armour reaching 2000mm RHA vs CE such as HEAT. The figures I quoted above are releated to KE such as APFSDS.
VIA pdf @YuChen
Brand new 99A heading to army.
Do we know how many type 099a are produced by a year?
Are they still producing a type 96a?
Brand new 99A heading to army.
Do we know how many type 099a are produced by a year?
Are they still producing a type 96a?