PLA Next Generation Main Battle Tank

Tanker_MG · 2025-08-05T12:23:33-0400

People have just got it in their heads that armoured formations are over from the Ukraine experience without really critically drilling down to the root cause of why to see if that is a truly universal paradigm shift in armoured warfare, or just a Russian case special issue.

Yes it is the thinking that the small UAS(sUAS) [whether FPV or fiber optic] is the paradigm shift akin to the entry of the machinegun is not fully thinking this through. Just like the Machinegun in WW1 and trench warfare, the sUAS is the weapon that allows sides to remain statis. The sUAS (and a a well entrenched combined arms team) has allowed the smaller force (Ukraine) to prevent the larger force (RUS) from mounting any break throughs attacks. Russia it appears does not have the Operational capability or capacity to mount a break through of the Ukrainian defensive lines. sUAS work very well in the defense, but currently the sUAS is just a long range form if guided weapon.
Plawolf is correct in that the counter-UAS is not a mounted Platform (tank or IFV) requirement (meaning a requirement for a tank to engage and destroy the sUAS) but this is a formation requirement, so the formation moves under a protected posture.
Think about all of these uncoordinated counter-UAS defensive engagements trying to protect the individual platforms, that would lead to confusion.

The Tank requirement is for layering forms of defense (that others have talked about) that includes sUAS attacks from above. The PLA have APS for ATGMs. I don't want to advocate for the PLA, it is up to them to figure this out.

Bottom line is Plawolf is correct in IMHO.

Another point, the fallacy of inexpensive FPV sUAS is just false. They do not cost a couple hundred dollars. That is just hype, even with 3D printing and Chinese sources motors and controls. They are more in line to $1000 and when you add the cost of the attack payload the cost is much higher. I agree it is still cheaper that an ATGM, but they are not a couple of hundred dollars. Another factoid is optics, adding

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, outside of using Chinese parts of course.
Don't get me wrong in the current conflict

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there that provide constant surveillance and attack.

Final note - moderators (or other members), if I posted this in a incorrect fashion with the links to other information, please let me know (via PM) so I can correct the post. Thanks!

Wrought · 2025-08-05T15:07:31-0400

plawolf said:
Sure jamming will play a part, it already is in Ukraine, but already FPVs are adapting with fibreoptic guidance.

It is perhaps telling that you are trying to make this into a pick one from the list kind of deals when the correct response is to pick every kind of counter drone option available and then create even more brand new methods and options. The reason why unintentionally needlessly boxed yourself into thinking you can only pick one solution is because you are still thinking of countering drones on an individual vehicle basis.

You can’t tick the ‘select all’ option for countering drones if you limit yourself to having to be able to retrofit your solution into a single tank or IFV.

This is why I keep hammering the point that the best strategy to deal with FPVs and other future cheap drone swarms is to use dedicated entirely new platforms. That way you can largely free yourself of many of the constraints that limit your imagination and solutions.

You can have a tethered duct fan heavy drone armed with AESA radar, options and lasers acting as persistent over-watch to armoured spearheads to massive extend your detection and engagement horizon against enemy drones; You can have mobile lasers to snipe drones; You can have microwave vehicles that can fry drone swarms en mass; you can have interceptor drones flying a CAP perimeter around your armour; you can have airborne jammer drones disruption enemy satellite comms to drones; you can have EW hunter-killer drones homing in on enemy control signals to go after the pivots; you can have similar optics based hunter killers with optics specially tuned to spot fibre option cables hunting pilots. You can have gun based air defence vehicles and others carrying swarms of interceptor drones. That’s just on a completely different level to defences you can realistically fit on a single vehicle in terms of the scale and scope of countermeasures available, and that’s before you even get to the most killer issue of cost.

Having dedicated systems will be a big capital outlay, but even a modestly priced solution for individual vehicles will cost vastly more if you look to outfit it across your entire armoured vehicle fleet.

The reason the Russians are reduced to individual vehicle level solutions in Ukraine is because of their systematic and chronic under-investment across the board in support assets has meant that they only have a vast fleet of tanks and IFVs. They lack basically everything else needed to allow large armoured formations to rapidly punch through enemy minefields and other obstacles, and they also lack effective rapid counter-battery capabilities and most critically, air superiority to allow them to suppress Ukrainian mobile artillery.

It is Ukraine’s NATO supplied artillery that is the reason Russia has been forced to abandon massed armoured formations and instead use their armour piecemeal, which in turn is what is making FPVs so disproportionately effective there.

People have just got it in their heads that armoured formations are over from the Ukraine experience without really critically drilling down to the root cause of why to see if that is a truly universal paradigm shift in armoured warfare, or just a Russian case special issue.

You are completely missing my point. When I say "disrupting their ability to communicate and coordinate," that doesn't mean jamming. It means degrading the enemy system by which they are transmitting orders and strike packages and so forth, for example by kinetically targeting brigade HQ. Which focuses on the complete opposite of the hardware on individual vehicles. Deep strikes might mean investing more in say, multirole fighters or GLCM, not anything directly related to drones. Because when your system is degraded to the point where you are fighting as scattered and isolated units instead of a cohesive military, the specific type of drone is irrelevant. The reason the Russians (and Ukranians for that matter) are reduced to quibbling over platforms is because they simply don't have the organizational sophistication to fight systems warfare.

I am talking about systems. Everything you focused on is about platforms.

tankphobia · 2025-08-05T15:24:50-0400

Honestly fpvs will just be part of a larger web of systems used to defeat armoured formations. The real game changer is mass proliferation of recon UAVs. They are now cheap enough that they can simply saturate the entire front lines. Rus/Ukr might not have the industrial background to do it, but both China and the west can wipe out entire formations using drone corrected artillery with SMArT/bonus shell analogues, those kind of fire and forget anti tank artillery shells combined with high mobility truck mounted artillery will be far more reliable than fpvs, even if fibre optic controlled just due to speed differential.

Tanker_MG · 2025-08-05T15:42:20-0400

There is a lot of discussion on drone warfare or systems warfare and the discussion is drifting off the Thread topic of "PLA Next Generation Main Battle Tank".
Or am I off-base here?

PLA Next Generation Main Battle Tank

Tanker_MG

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Wrought

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tankphobia

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Tanker_MG

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