New Type98/99 MBT thread

[BoraTas]

With the specialization of military equipment happening, I wonder if it's time to rethink the whole tank concept. I think trying to cram more and more things into tanks is a hopeless endeavor as it attempts to defend against an ever increasing array of threats from ATGMs, to drones, to RPGs, to artillery, to mines, etc.

Maybe it's better to just have a heavily armored command vehicle with a myriad of UGCVs around it providing anti-air, anti-ground, and direct/indirect fire support.

I think the opposite to be honest. I think tank vs tank focus and obsession over survivability is pricing tanks out of the battlefield. I wrote about this before:

The recent new tank concepts are pointless designs

Since yesterday I have been thinking about new tank concepts we saw in Eurosatory 2022. These tanks are apparently ultra high-tech designs. Some of them and their common features Nexter and KMW KNDS E-MBT - Trophy APS and GALIX soft kill APS - 130 mm gun - Organic UAV - Acoustic sensor -...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

A lot of fancy things are planned for new tanks but none of these address the three most important realities facing a tank

1- It will get attacked from a distance it won't be able to return fire most of the time. Long range ATGMs, very cheap airpower (AKA drones), and artillery

2- It will fire at infantry, light vehicles, and field fortifications. Tank vs tank is exceedingly rare already.

3- Their own firepower is dismal for their price and logistical needs. A very-limited-elevation 120-130 mm gun is simply no big thing.

The drive to armor tanks against all possible APFSDSes frontally and against RPG-7-like weapons from most angles led to very heavy and expensive tanks. Now, most people talk about even more armor and countermeasures. As I wrote in the thread I linked, at some point we have to ask if it is really worth making a 120-130 mm gun this survivable at this price. Some would say "but troops" and I would say that non-tank personnel don't enjoy a fraction of the said protection and expensive firepower means low firepower at force scale.

IMO a next-gen tank should have a turret capable of higher depression/elevation angles, a rising mast or UAV for recon, more uniform distribution of KE-specific composite armor against artillery. Defense against ATGMs should be handled by the APS, a high elevation-capable automated MG against bomb-dropping drones. No ultra expensive propulsion features (or you become Ajax or Puma) or expensive but limited utility electronic features.

I ignored tank-vs-tank here. IMO killing the magazine depth and adding a lot of weight to penetrate new tanks frontally is a bad trade. Similarly, a very beefy frontal armor is also mostly useless. A 120-125 mm gun would easily penetrate all existing tanks, new tanks non-frontally, and all other armored vehicles. A top-attack gun launched ATGM would enable this notional tank to defeat all AFVs.

This tank wouldn't be very survivable but resist top 3 killers just as good. You would also get a lot of it because of its lower price. Its limited indirect fire capability would also make it more versatile.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

I think the opposite to be honest. I think tank vs tank focus and obsession over survivability is pricing tanks out of the battlefield. I wrote about this before:

The recent new tank concepts are pointless designs

Since yesterday I have been thinking about new tank concepts we saw in Eurosatory 2022. These tanks are apparently ultra high-tech designs. Some of them and their common features Nexter and KMW KNDS E-MBT - Trophy APS and GALIX soft kill APS - 130 mm gun - Organic UAV - Acoustic sensor -...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

A lot of fancy things are planned for new tanks but none of these address the three most important realities facing a tank

1- It will get attacked from a distance it won't be able to return fire most of the time. Long range ATGMs, very cheap airpower (AKA drones), and artillery

2- It will fire at infantry, light vehicles, and field fortifications. Tank vs tank is exceedingly rare already.

3- Their own firepower is dismal for their price and logistical needs. A very-limited-elevation 120-130 mm gun is simply no big thing.

The drive to armor tanks against all possible APFSDSes frontally and against RPG-7-like weapons from most angles led to very heavy and expensive tanks. Now, most people talk about even more armor and countermeasures. As I wrote in the thread I linked, at some point we have to ask if it is really worth making a 120-130 mm gun this survivable at this price. Some would say "but troops" and I would say that non-tank personnel don't enjoy a fraction of the said protection and expensive firepower means low firepower at force scale.

IMO a next-gen tank should have a turret capable of higher depression angles, a rising mast or UAV for recon, more uniform distribution of KE-specific composite armor against artillery. Defense against ATGMs should be handled by the APS, a high elevation-capable automated MG against bomb-dropping drones. No ultra expensive propulsion features (or you become Ajax or Puma) or expensive but limited utility electronic features.

I ignored tank-vs-tank here. IMO killing the magazine depth and adding a lot of weight to penetrate new tanks frontally is a bad trade. Similarly, a very beefy frontal armor is also mostly useless. A 120-125 mm gun would easily penetrate all existing tanks, new tanks non-frontally, and all other armored vehicles. A top-attack gun launched ATGM would enable this notional tank to defeat all AFVs.

This tank wouldn't be very survivable but resist top 3 killers just as good. You would also get a lot of it because of its lower price. Its limited indirect fire capability would also make it more versatile.

one thing I think is that hybrid propulsion should become the standard. There are some big advantages:

ability to idle at complete silence and low heat production but still with all electronics on for weeks, using tank as a field battery, reduced requirement for transmission since motors can reverse easily, reduced requirement for engine peak power, and being able to take some energy from the local grid.

otherwise I agree, there's no need to overly focus on a hypothetical head on tank vs tank situation.

 

[TK3600]

T-90M still has poor reverse speed just fyi. There is a video that discusses that aspect

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at 0:50.

But in general, it's not so much a "flaw" as it is a cost-saving on T-72 tanks. If Russia wanted to, they could fix it and IMO they should. But it would be a significant expenditure for them. They would have to get an entirely new transmission, which is what some other T-72 variants in Eastern Europe have done.


You might have a point, but I just want to emphasize that while what you say may have been true for the T-72B and earlier, it is certainly not true for T-72B3 obr. 2014 or later. These are essentially new and redesigned tanks that have been significantly overhauled. There really is no excuse for why Russia chose to keep the same crap transmission, other than cost-savings. And T-72B3 is full of cost savings regardless of which model we look at.

And in hindsight, Russia probably did the right thing. I don't think better reverse speed would've saved a lot of those tanks they lost in the first three months of the war. That was just unavoidable due to the way Russia conceptualized their initial operation.

But yes, I agree that it's a real shame that the T-90M, which is a very good tank in most respects, still insists on keeping that awful transmission. Hopefully, after the war, Russia comes to the conclusion that the transmission cannot be kept any longer, and that an overhaul is in order.

Or hell, ask China to design one and produce it. Might as well really.

Well there is a difference of cost-saving when producing the tank versus cost-saving upgrading existing tanks. For Russia staying out of trouble of taking out and replace better transmission of same dimension could make a lot of sense. For Soviet Union putting a shitty transmission there in first place does not save much money and makes poor sense.

Yes T-90M is still not as good at reverse compared to NATO tanks, but something of 10km/h is normal and acceptable relatively to T-72's 4km/h. I can walk faster than that!

I think the opposite to be honest. I think tank vs tank focus and obsession over survivability is pricing tanks out of the battlefield. I wrote about this before:

The recent new tank concepts are pointless designs

Since yesterday I have been thinking about new tank concepts we saw in Eurosatory 2022. These tanks are apparently ultra high-tech designs. Some of them and their common features Nexter and KMW KNDS E-MBT - Trophy APS and GALIX soft kill APS - 130 mm gun - Organic UAV - Acoustic sensor -...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

A lot of fancy things are planned for new tanks but none of these address the three most important realities facing a tank

1- It will get attacked from a distance it won't be able to return fire most of the time. Long range ATGMs, very cheap airpower (AKA drones), and artillery

2- It will fire at infantry, light vehicles, and field fortifications. Tank vs tank is exceedingly rare already.

3- Their own firepower is dismal for their price and logistical needs. A very-limited-elevation 120-130 mm gun is simply no big thing.

The drive to armor tanks against all possible APFSDSes frontally and against RPG-7-like weapons from most angles led to very heavy and expensive tanks. Now, most people talk about even more armor and countermeasures. As I wrote in the thread I linked, at some point we have to ask if it is really worth making a 120-130 mm gun this survivable at this price. Some would say "but troops" and I would say that non-tank personnel don't enjoy a fraction of the said protection and expensive firepower means low firepower at force scale.

IMO a next-gen tank should have a turret capable of higher depression/elevation angles, a rising mast or UAV for recon, more uniform distribution of KE-specific composite armor against artillery. Defense against ATGMs should be handled by the APS, a high elevation-capable automated MG against bomb-dropping drones. No ultra expensive propulsion features (or you become Ajax or Puma) or expensive but limited utility electronic features.

I ignored tank-vs-tank here. IMO killing the magazine depth and adding a lot of weight to penetrate new tanks frontally is a bad trade. Similarly, a very beefy frontal armor is also mostly useless. A 120-125 mm gun would easily penetrate all existing tanks, new tanks non-frontally, and all other armored vehicles. A top-attack gun launched ATGM would enable this notional tank to defeat all AFVs.

This tank wouldn't be very survivable but resist top 3 killers just as good. You would also get a lot of it because of its lower price. Its limited indirect fire capability would also make it more versatile.

Remember you are sitting here talking in 2023. All those tanks are designed in the 80s when tank on tank in Germany is very much a thing. If you are in a western tank facing tens of thousands Soviet tanks rushing toward you then you better believe you will encounter a tank soon enough.

 

[dingyibvs]

I think the opposite to be honest. I think tank vs tank focus and obsession over survivability is pricing tanks out of the battlefield. I wrote about this before:

The recent new tank concepts are pointless designs

Since yesterday I have been thinking about new tank concepts we saw in Eurosatory 2022. These tanks are apparently ultra high-tech designs. Some of them and their common features Nexter and KMW KNDS E-MBT - Trophy APS and GALIX soft kill APS - 130 mm gun - Organic UAV - Acoustic sensor -...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

A lot of fancy things are planned for new tanks but none of these address the three most important realities facing a tank

1- It will get attacked from a distance it won't be able to return fire most of the time. Long range ATGMs, very cheap airpower (AKA drones), and artillery

2- It will fire at infantry, light vehicles, and field fortifications. Tank vs tank is exceedingly rare already.

3- Their own firepower is dismal for their price and logistical needs. A very-limited-elevation 120-130 mm gun is simply no big thing.

The drive to armor tanks against all possible APFSDSes frontally and against RPG-7-like weapons from most angles led to very heavy and expensive tanks. Now, most people talk about even more armor and countermeasures. As I wrote in the thread I linked, at some point we have to ask if it is really worth making a 120-130 mm gun this survivable at this price. Some would say "but troops" and I would say that non-tank personnel don't enjoy a fraction of the said protection and expensive firepower means low firepower at force scale.

IMO a next-gen tank should have a turret capable of higher depression/elevation angles, a rising mast or UAV for recon, more uniform distribution of KE-specific composite armor against artillery. Defense against ATGMs should be handled by the APS, a high elevation-capable automated MG against bomb-dropping drones. No ultra expensive propulsion features (or you become Ajax or Puma) or expensive but limited utility electronic features.

I ignored tank-vs-tank here. IMO killing the magazine depth and adding a lot of weight to penetrate new tanks frontally is a bad trade. Similarly, a very beefy frontal armor is also mostly useless. A 120-125 mm gun would easily penetrate all existing tanks, new tanks non-frontally, and all other armored vehicles. A top-attack gun launched ATGM would enable this notional tank to defeat all AFVs.

This tank wouldn't be very survivable but resist top 3 killers just as good. You would also get a lot of it because of its lower price. Its limited indirect fire capability would also make it more versatile.

In limited wars like in Ukraine tank vs. tank may be rare, but if there's full scale total war over land, you could theoretically see hundreds if not thousands of tanks charging at you at a time, then it wouldn't be so rare.

As such, armored assault vehicles that are well protected in front is still IMO useful. The issue is that it can't do that without sacrificing a lot of other things as you mentioned.

My suggestion is that since tanks already aren't great operating without complex support, why not build that complex support into your unit construction? Armored assault vehicle that returns to the tank's roots would be a part of it, but then you'd also have both short and mid range air defense vehicles defending against RPGs, ATGMs, and perhaps even tube artillery; you can also have dedicated UCAV and small UCGV carriers, followed by IFVs, dedicated EW vehicles, indirect fire support vehicles, etc. They'd all be commanded via a command vehicle whose sole focus is survivability and communications.

 

[tankphobia]

In limited wars like in Ukraine tank vs. tank may be rare, but if there's full scale total war over land, you could theoretically see hundreds if not thousands of tanks charging at you at a time, then it wouldn't be so rare.

As such, armored assault vehicles that are well protected in front is still IMO useful. The issue is that it can't do that without sacrificing a lot of other things as you mentioned.

My suggestion is that since tanks already aren't great operating without complex support, why not build that complex support into your unit construction? Armored assault vehicle that returns to the tank's roots would be a part of it, but then you'd also have both short and mid range air defense vehicles defending against RPGs, ATGMs, and perhaps even tube artillery; you can also have dedicated UCAV and small UCGV carriers, followed by IFVs, dedicated EW vehicles, indirect fire support vehicles, etc. They'd all be commanded via a command vehicle whose sole focus is survivability and communications.

Who has/will commit thousands of tanks in a land battle? Ukraine is already a decent tank country (when it's dry) due to amount of flat lands. Thats why you see employment of thousands of amoured vehicles in that conflict. There's no theatre that China will fight in where heavy MBTs is going to be a decisive or even important factor. Lugging around a bunch of 60 ton MBTs in a island hopping campaign would be a bit of a logistical nightmare.

 

[GeForce]

Fast reverse requires good rear view. Otherwise, it's a good way to stuck somewhere

 

[plawolf]

Who has/will commit thousands of tanks in a land battle? Ukraine is already a decent tank country (when it's dry) due to amount of flat lands. Thats why you see employment of thousands of amoured vehicles in that conflict. There's no theatre that China will fight in where heavy MBTs is going to be a decisive or even important factor. Lugging around a bunch of 60 ton MBTs in a island hopping campaign would be a bit of a logistical nightmare.

Key word is ‘yet’. Tanks are not like drones that you can quickly build up from zero when needed. Just because there isn’t a pressing need right now doesn’t mean you should be neglecting investment in them. In fact, Ukraine is basically a perfect case study in how penny punching on support assets and munitions in favour of having more ‘sexy’ big ticket items is a massive gamble and terrible false economy if you get caught out.

Ukraine is good tank country, but neither side can really use massed armour in their most effective and decisive way because of chronic under-investment in other key enabling areas and training have left them open to easy hard counters.

Modern warfare isn’t a game of top trumps where you compare specs of individual weapons in isolation. Instead all weapons supplement and counter others, and if you leave gaping holes in your force structure, a capable and well rounded enemy will make you pay dearly for that lapse.

Besides, you are lacking in imagination if you cannot see realistic theatres where PLA heavy armour could be decisively deployed in the next 5-10 years, hell, it could be far sooner if someone miscalculates badly. Just off the top of my head there are:
-Western Europe: NATO goes in overtly in Ukraine and/or Taiwan declares independence and NATO jumps in with America.
-Korea: similar scenario, and not ideal tank country, but good luck trying to make any meaningful progress without heavy armour.
-Middle East: US invasion of Saudi Arabia and/or Iran.
-South Asia: Indian invasion of Pakistan or boarder war with China escalates to all out war.

 

[Hitomi]

Who has/will commit thousands of tanks in a land battle? Ukraine is already a decent tank country (when it's dry) due to amount of flat lands. Thats why you see employment of thousands of amoured vehicles in that conflict. There's no theatre that China will fight in where heavy MBTs is going to be a decisive or even important factor. Lugging around a bunch of 60 ton MBTs in a island hopping campaign would be a bit of a logistical nightmare.

I agree China needs only a competitive MBT and not the absolute best because of the terrains of the current expected theatres they are expected to fight in.

But I disagree employing the MBTs in an island hopping campaign would be indecisive as shown by the employment of Sherman tanks during the Pacific campaign, where despite having poor armour in the fields of Europe, were shown to be extremely effective against poorly equipped Japanese garrisons even when they are equipped with tanks.

Its true infantry anti-tank options have significantly improved since WWII and that a modern MBT is a completely different logistic burden from a Sherman, but against a well supported tank and even the proliferation of APSes in the near future as well as the corresponding improvements in sealift capabilities since WWII, the odds might have swung back in favour of the tank in an infantry on tank engagement with sufficient logistical support, necessitating at least a tank able to engage what the US can possibly land on an island and also able to withstand infantry anti-tank weapons when on the assault.

I would not include air power in this discussion because I think no current tank can withstand concentrated air support and that would require better supporting elements.

 

[tankphobia]

Besides, you are lacking in imagination if you cannot see realistic theatres where PLA heavy armour could be decisively deployed in the next 5-10 years, hell, it could be far sooner if someone miscalculates badly. Just off the top of my head there are:
-Western Europe: NATO goes in overtly in Ukraine and/or Taiwan declares independence and NATO jumps in with America.
-Korea: similar scenario, and not ideal tank country, but good luck trying to make any meaningful progress without heavy armour.
-Middle East: US invasion of Saudi Arabia and/or Iran.
-South Asia: Indian invasion of Pakistan or boarder war with China escalates to all out war.

Honestly in all of those scenario other than a resurgence of Korean war, I don't see China getting directly involved, sure Chinese hardware will be used, but they are all reasonably far away that China in its current form will have a hard time managing the logistics of delivering sufficient ground force. If China belt and roads their trainworks all the way to Singapore it could also be a front along the entirety of SEA, but I'm uncertain if heavy tanks would be any good in mountainous jungles.

But I disagree employing the MBTs in an island hopping campaign would be indecisive as shown by the employment of Sherman tanks during the Pacific campaign, where despite having poor armour in the fields of Europe, were shown to be extremely effective against poorly equipped Japanese garrisons even when they are equipped with tanks.

Its true infantry anti-tank options have significantly improved since WWII and that a modern MBT is a completely different logistic burden from a Sherman, but against a well supported tank and even the proliferation of APSes in the near future as well as the corresponding improvements in sealift capabilities since WWII, the odds might have swung back in favour of the tank in an infantry on tank engagement with sufficient logistical support, necessitating at least a tank able to engage what the US can possibly land on an island and also able to withstand infantry anti-tank weapons when on the assault.

I think semi-amphibious IFVs and gun carriers have largely supplemented the role that MBTs would serve on a island hopping campaign, you need to remember that Sherman's weight about the same as a T-72, a full 20+ tons lighter than a type 99. I can certainly see type 15s being used, but type 99 esq heavily protected tanks seem too unwieldy to be practically used in islands, they simply can't be off shore deployed like IFVs can.

 

[BoraTas]

In limited wars like in Ukraine tank vs. tank may be rare, but if there's full scale total war over land, you could theoretically see hundreds if not thousands of tanks charging at you at a time, then it wouldn't be so rare.

As such, armored assault vehicles that are well protected in front is still IMO useful. The issue is that it can't do that without sacrificing a lot of other things as you mentioned.

My suggestion is that since tanks already aren't great operating without complex support, why not build that complex support into your unit construction? Armored assault vehicle that returns to the tank's roots would be a part of it, but then you'd also have both short and mid range air defense vehicles defending against RPGs, ATGMs, and perhaps even tube artillery; you can also have dedicated UCAV and small UCGV carriers, followed by IFVs, dedicated EW vehicles, indirect fire support vehicles, etc. They'd all be commanded via a command vehicle whose sole focus is survivability and communications.

Ukraine is not a limited war. In fact, if we were going to see tank duels this should have been the time. Both countries had a lot of tanks and gained more during the war. One of the parties is the biggest producer of tanks on the planet. The other one had hundreds. The terrain is mostly flat. Tank duels have been exceedingly rare even in this context.