What abou
about mbt in general? Are they that vulnerable on the sides?
New Type98/99 MBT thread
- Thread starter Dongfeng
- Start date
Oh yes they are
For what are you having a quarrel... If it's about 15's air conditioning then yes of course it has an aircon for the crew but to turn it on or not is none of my business.
Also I see there's a lack in photos these days so why not admire some instead.
Also I see there's a lack in photos these days so why not admire some instead.
Does anyone have info on the Type99 and Type 99A's side armour protection, I've heard that it is bad but never found a source on it, it honestly kinda worrying that it lacks APS and ERA on its sides. PLA tank design seem to be stuck at the 'Good enough' stage.
Engineering is all about compromises
Not many sources are required, just look the pictures posted above. For the side turret there is ERA but the composite turret base armor doesn't extend behind it, so it's likely just ERA + about 80-100mm RHA. For the hull is worse since there isn't any ERA or additional armoring along the side skirts, so it's only the skirts rubber+empty space + about 80mm RHA. In other words, there is practically nothing on the hull sides. However, bad side armoring is common also to Korean and Japanese tanks.
Questionable decision since the Type 99 needs to operate in a large variety of environments and can be expected to perform large armoured thrusts in open terrain and it calls for better all-round protection. I'm kinda making an assumption here since Korean and Japanese tanks are mostly expected to hold mountain/hilly chokepoints and doesn't need to worry about vehicle bound attacks from multiple directions as much.
I've also noticed that the recent Type 99s sent to Sino-Indian border are not of the A variety, which casts doubt on the availability of the A variant imo(maybe it's all in the northeast?).
In January of 2019, the PLA has 1000 Type 96, 1500 Type 96A, 600 Type 99, 250 Type 99A, and 100 Type 15 in its active service.
Considering the Type 99A has been in production since 2007, not a lot of it has been built.
However, the Type 96A, which entered production one year earlier than the Type 99A is significantly greater in number.
Considering how much of the resources have diverged to PLAN and PLAAF, I don't think the production of Type 99As would ram up any time soon.
The data are estimations from "The military balance 2019", but I think it's accurate enough.
Type 99 has been in production since about 2001 while Type 99A was introduced in service around 2017/18. 250 units of Type 99A in about 2 years of production. Your dates are very far off. Wiki has it wrong. I think the source of confusion is the 99A. 99A is the official new large turret version which was introduced just a couple of years ago and there's been at least three main Type 99 variants.
Type 98 is not counted but the first 99 came as some ERA addition to what is basically a Type 98. That's V1 in 2001 where the turret has a very obvious circular curvature just after where the frontal ERA wedge blocks end. The second 99 we can call V2 doesn't have this bulge anymore and is perfectly flush with the ERA wedge block. This second one came around 2007. The third variant V3 circa 2018 is what is now officially called the 99A. It has a distinctly taller turret and a new wedge block geometry. So 600 Type 99 is V1+V2 while 250 units of 99A is V3. I'm pretty sure there's more than 600 Type 99s, I think Richard clarified this before. Anyway production of 99A seems to be all in with at least 250 units already in just two years or so.
I've noticed something Chinese tanks do in all the pictures: What's the deal with having one headlight exposed and one covered?