Its employed in southern regions where it is impossible for 55ton tanks to pass. Road performance and adaptability is paramount for the new vehicle.
PLA Next Generation Main Battle Tank
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This is the only photo that has been publicly circulated on the Internet. The poster obviously doesn't want to be invited for tea.
Again nothing shows this tank will have ERAs, M1 has a massive 27 ton turret without all the fancy stuff. This tank has a light weight unmanned turret so much more of the weight can be concentrated on hull armor, I refuse to believe for a 40-45 ton vehicle will not have significant hull armor atleast matching the old 99A if not surpassing it in performance. Even if kinetic protection might not be much of a improvement compared to Type 99A, extreme chemical protection is a must for expeditionary scenarios involving TW.
The tank weighs less than 40 tons and has a KE800 wedge shaped armor protecting the upper part of the chassis. You are so wrong if you believe you can see integrated ERA from the outside.
There is no way the heavy armor configuration will weigh less than 40 tons, it is way too light for a true MBT. Integrated ERAs will need to be replaced in combat meaning you'll still be able to see the seems between blocks(See T-14 and the latest T-90Ms) which are not present on any known pictures even upclose.
PS: War thunder forums are not a source, idk why people here are even quoting lyman2003. The guy sends out overhyped and sometimes completely BS claims.
In principle it's doable, the question is whether it's worth it.
Original t-64 (with thick front and side armor) was 36 with proper turret, and probably you could cut even more with hull shape (like boat-shaped Soviet heavies).
It's just meaningless, the main value is armored volume.
It should just be the model that was photographed in Baotou earlier, won't be much of the changes for the time being.
IMO, I expect this MBT to take a turn from the soviet style sandwich for composite armor but more western style NERA for hull/crew capsule. It is less mass/space efficient but can provide superior chemical and KE protection and since the base model only requires an armored crew capsule I believe it could be done within weight constraints with extra modular composite armor for heavy configuration. Of course if they can provide atleast as much protection as 99A with a sub 40 ton vehicle than thats great but I kinda of doubt it even considering into the fact that the turret likely isnt heavily armored and actual armored area might be less since only two crew.
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Think you underestimate the material science breakthroughs in the last 10ish years.
Both ERA and base armor improvements might make this new 40ish tons next gen tank rival the 99A in protection.
And if you gonna say something about upgrading the 99A as well, then uh, it ain't no longer a 99A but like 99A+ or 99AG.
Not to mention, seems like base version of the next gen is gonna include APS, while that is not the case for the 99A.