Heavy tanks used by non-fully equipped armies don't have good record against neither light, medium or heavy vehicles from modern armies. On paper, T72 eats Bradley for breakfast as well, but with no air cover, no working artillery or air defense support, heavy tanks are just pillbox targets for CAS and drones, light tanks/ifvs alone can mop up the survivors easily. Something like this 40-50t 2 man tank likely with similar or better firepower than a T99A will simply wipe the floor with unsupported old heavy tanks.
Not heavy tanks. Heavy tanks haven’t been a thing since the 1950s. We are talking MBTs which are derivative of the Medium Tank class.
Bradley does so as it has 2 ATGMs and better optics allowing it to take decisive action.
Also you are making a lot of assumptions that are just that assumptions.
Much of the failures we have seen of MBTs in the last few years have been them used in a manor where they are not operating in accordance with the Doctrines by which they were designed. Unsupported as you describe. But any vehicle used by such is a victim waiting to be destroyed. Light or heavy or an MBT.
Rheinmetall 120mm has struggled with front plating on "modernized" T72s and T80s. Its age shows. I don't reckon it will do much to a tank that weighs the same as a T90M but only needs to protect 2 people, which furthermore has like 30 yrs+ of tech advancement and better material science than the original T72 and Abrams.
Yes it has however that’s the norm for all MBT of comparable generation. The best armor of an MBT is always at the frontal plates of the turret. So gunners aim for thinner parts of the vehicle.
Next again you seem to be focusing in I can only assume you are referring to my comment on Taiwan. However Taiwan is getting M1A2T a state of the art Abrams replacing the very very old M48 and M60 MBT which are already obsolete.
By the time this vehicle enters service M1A2T will be in delivery along side large quantities of modern IFVs, drones, missiles, artillery and military Aircraft.
We don't even know for sure the new tank is 105 or 120 or what type of tech the gun uses. But it's promising for the role it would be designed for, which is offensive type operations rather than defensive ones like the 99A.
Finally something we can agree on!
We don’t know. Yet we have now almost a page going back to the assumption of a 105mm.
This second line of your argument is just weird. MBT are designed for both offensive and defensive. There are almost no weapons single role. Though if you want to claim a more offensive doctrine then Type 99 is already more optimized for offensive use. When the Soviets designed their concept of MBTs they focused to make the tank as small as possible with the intention being to more easily cross damaged bridges and amphibious capability to cross rivers. When the Chinese designed the type 99 it inherited much of the same features and flaws of the design. A light weight, degrees of amphibious capability and shallow angles of gun elevation and depression.
In recent times tanks are much more often used in an anti fortification role rather than a tank on tank role. Majority of tank kills in Ukraine are done through artillery fire/FPV/ATGM, in decreasing range. To get within cannon range they would have to survive all three of those categories, plus ground launched NLOS missiles which both NATO and China is equipped with.
With such threats present a general 105mm gun with an anti-air auto-cannon that also doubles as anti-material/infantry would not be such a bad idea.
That’s not a recent thing. It’s a fact that tracks all the way through the history of the tank. It’s like the fighter pilot myth. That fighter only fight fighters and bombers. That’s most missions of such are actually CAS is lost on Top gun fans.
Farther Ukraine has shown MBT used especially in the fire support role using 125mm, 120mm.
Farther Said cannons have ranges that rival most ATGMs and ranges that rival most infantry level artillery.
Well just as an assault gun role a 105mm is good enough. Larger tank guns are just as good if not better in the role due to increased HE payloads. Whole families of shells designed for anti material, anti fortification roles in the 125mm and 120mm.
