PLA Ground Forces news, pics and videos
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Next generation MBT
That's a drastic change in design. Whats currently known about it?
It looks like there's actually additional side protection for once. The large blocks of them lead me to think they are some type of composite blocks instead of ERA. There are also weird extended covers over the wheels which makes me think it will be hard to clean or repair the tracks. I cant imagine thin sheets of metal being that protective. Maybe the side sections were designed to easily lift off to make maintenance easier.
The highly sloped upper front plate lacks ERA. I would have to assume that the lower frontal plate must have thick composite armor sort of like an Abrams hull, but you can see a line separating the crew compartment from the frontal armor, and it doesn't appear to be particularly thick. I cant tell if no ERA is installed yet or if they don't plan on installing ERA on the frontal hull.
It looks an APS was integrated into the initial design. I would assume that this would be better than current vehicles which are modified to mount one. (Better sensor panel coverage, better angles, more organized electronics integration or something)
Looking at the shrouded barrel, I wonder if efforts have been made to reduce the overall thermal signature?
There's an extended turret bustle so I'm thinking it has a bustle auto-loader with blowout panels.
Your post made me imagine the following cartoon/comic-book sequence:
1. J-20 pilot walks past his/her bird, sees ground crew sitting/squatting eating hotpot under one of the wings near a PL-15 on an ordnance cart. The rear of the missile is partially disassembled.
2. J-20 pilot's thought bubble: ?
3. J-20 pilot on a combat mission the next day, locks onto an enemy bird, triggers a PL-15 launch. Instead of engine ignition, the missile simply falls like a brick.
4. Pilot's thought bubble: ?!
5. Pilot suddenly recalls ground crew eating hotpot next to the partially disassembled PL-15.
6. Pilot's thought bubble: 我操!!!
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I swear if this is related to WarThunder...
Maybe the new watertight flight suits?I don't recall seeing these flight suits before.
I'm wondering why China is sticking with the two shot APS, modern threat environment necessitates deep magazine depth for APS systems, adding an extra two tube seems fairly straightforward.
Looks like the APS could be retracted inside the turret, there's probably reloading mechanism inside them.
