Battleships are bad example - they were abandoned not for the reason and not at the point of time most people think of. Which is ironic, because both points are really simple to track.
This is my initial view on the matter as well. If a good share of offensive capabilities is offloaded to networked close air support assets then ground fighting might increasingly favor tank forces that can be transported more quickly and execute faster maneuvers. After all a critical dimension of advantage in systems centric warfare is speed.
I don’t think of this as indexing on drone warfare in Ukraine so much as adapting to new technological and tactical contexts. The point of the argument isn’t to only to depend on light tanks, but rather how a different kind of light tank might fit into the context of new thinking on broader ground warfare doctrine. The thinking is organized not around counteracting the prevalence of drones but around how to leverage available new capabilities to best achieve the primary objectives of ground warfare (which is generate maneuver advantages to take and then hold territory). This new tank needs to be seen in the context of other potential future platforms around it. If the thesis for the thinking behind this tank is correct this is but one piece in a whole system of new ground warfare doctrine. That at least would be the case for this tank being the primary mainstay of the future tank force (which to be clear we don’t in fact know to be the case currently).
But medium tank isn't exactly light. It's passive protection is better than absolute majority of mbts in Ukraine, quite possibly even all of them.
Type 10 is heavier, it is 48 tons fully loaded while this tank is probably a little over 40 tons with all the addon packages.
What is "Double Absurd" about the tank?
Yeah, but no heavy turret, smaller gun, and much more efficient use of internal space.
Well, this is just a playful nickname coined by the Chinese observer community for this tank. Its original meaning was "absurd when viewed horizontally, absurd when viewed vertically," which later evolved to "absurd protection and absurd cost."