ZTQ-15 and PRC Light Tanks

Broccoli said:

Turret looks a bit too small to have Leclerc style autoloader as the rumor suggests. Four man crew? Commander, loader, gunner in the turret and of course the driver in hull.

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That depends on the caliber of gun, and mechanics of the Autoloader. It might not be Leclerc based based on another design
however there are a number of very small turreted tanks and MGS' systems like The American Stryker Mobile Gun system has a small turret that holds 18 rounds of 105mm. the older SK-105 Kürassier, the M-84AS from Yugoslovia with a 125mm cannon and The Falcon Turret developed for Jordan's Challenger 1 tanks offered a full 120mm cannon in a very tiny turret.

These are just a few with comparitively small turrets.

any news on this tank? i read on military today the pla will produce only 300+ of this tanks??!
i thought they build mutch more for the big areas in west china or to protect the border to india

PanAsian said:

I am not seeing why China needs a light tank. Is it to compensate for having too few IFVs? Is it because China's IFVs are too lightly armored? Is it because certain terrain can't handle MBTs? Is it because they can't afford a sufficient number of MBTs?

For every reason I can think of for China to have a light tank I don't see why it wouldn't be even better for them to improve their IFVs instead.

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simply put: to replace 59 and variants,62s and variants and older 96s....
new LT said to have enough firepower to battle t-72 export variants effectively,and is equipped with very good FCS and NETWORKING packages and hydraulic suspension.
let's not forget there are a lot of wet-land and mountain regions that are not suitable to operate 99s, and a lot of 59s 62s to replace....
as for 96s....96s are the conservative backup plan should 99s development fails or stalls too long....96s are at most 2.5-2.9 gen tank,with virtually no further upgrade potential...so pla decided it does not want more 96s and 96As which cannot be upgraded due to the chassis limitations,and op for a new LT using the latest tools and toys....

postmanishere said:

as for 96s....96s are the conservative backup plan should 99s development fails or stalls too long....96s are at most 2.5-2.9 gen tank,with virtually no further upgrade potential...so pla decided it does not want more 96s and 96As which cannot be upgraded due to the chassis limitations,and op for a new LT using the latest tools and toys....

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Thats an odd statement;

How do you thin that there is no further upgrade potential? what is the chassis limitation you are referring to?

Lezt said:

Thats an odd statement;

How do you thin that there is no further upgrade potential? what is the chassis limitation you are referring to?

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96s/96As are base on wz122 project,a late 2nd-gen design,its chassis desigen does not allow to mount more powerful propulsion,and its suspension are a little bit stretched in the 96As(because new turret and additional armor) which lead to reliability issues,and it does limit 96As' hull armor...


both link is to a article written by the former vice-commander of nanjing MR, in the article he stated 96As suffers noticeable reliability issue,"96As' reliability is only just above required standard or even a little bit under" is the sentence used...

Lezt said:

Thats an odd statement;

How do you thin that there is no further upgrade potential? what is the chassis limitation you are referring to?

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可靠性之所以算及格，是在12天高强度赛程里，发生故障 20多起，应该说可靠性总体上是合格的。T-72坦克中途退赛的有7辆，因为有40多辆坦克参赛，应该说表现良好，可靠性高于96A坦克。96A坦克发生的大多数是轻微故障(轻损)，如前叶子板翘起，潜渡发动机排气管固定不牢等，不影响作战行动。平常在越野驾驶训练中，为了少损坏叶子板，往往把叶子板先取下来，训练完再装上(这次笔者在视频中也看到有些T-72坦克拆下了叶子板)。潜渡排气管在不担负潜渡江河任务时，往往拆下来，与坦克其它附件在后勤车队里运送。履带断裂两次，其中一次是与其他队T-72坦克侧面相撞，随机相撞的位置不好，造成损坏，只是意外事故，不能算故障。据不完全了解，真正影响作战行动的故障有四起。一是一次履带断裂，原因是铸造履带中含有砂眼，属于质量不合格。二是坦克急转弯时，履带脱出，原因除了驾驶员对地质条件不熟悉外，主要是履带强度不够，转向扭矩过大时，整条履带变形脱出，这属于设计问题，当然也就是质量问题。三是发动机过热停车降温。对“发动机过热”我的判断是，在发动机功率不如人的情况下，为了提高车速，把发动机转速提到额定转速之上。如果瞬间或短时是可以的，但较长时间超速运转，发动机肯定吃不消，就会“开锅”。为了保护发动机，车内会发出警告，强制降低转速或被迫停车降温，这是“人为”造成的故障，属于驾驶员不够老练，急于提高车速，反而欲速则不达。四是有一次射击中断，这是由火控故障引起的。系统中有一处节点脱焊，接触不良，火控不能正常工作。原因是对高强度使用预计不足，强烈颠簸造成的，仍属于质量问题。上述故障说明，96A坦克的软肋是平均无故障小时过低，可靠性较差，还需大力提高，否则在战场上要误大事。尤其是在严酷条件下的高强度使用，应增大各部组件(元器件)冗余度，使装备更加皮实、可靠。

i don't have the time to translate there paragraghs to english,i'm gonna to translate the underlined part.
"the reason to say 96As' reliability is only a passing grade is that during 12days of high intensity match,96As suffered 20 malfunctions and problems. T72S are outpreforming the 96As in terms of reliability."

Lezt said:

Thats an odd statement;

How do you thin that there is no further upgrade potential? what is the chassis limitation you are referring to?

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all in all the chassis limitations can be solved by heavy(and somewhat expensive) modification to the chassis(definitely more expensive than just replace the turret) ....however i don't think PLA is going to do so....96As to the pla ground force is quite like 022 stealth missle-boats to the plan....they offered useable hardware when is urgently needed....however the newer and more advanced hardware is now entering service,they may well be in service for a long time...but pla ain't gonna build their army(and navy) around these platforms.

A more close up shot of the turret.



I think the front can offer protection against APDS rounds to some extend but the side attachment is probably only good against shaped charges.

no_name said:

Photo of the new light tank?

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maybe its just me, but the tank looks like someone dropped a 21st century turret onto a Cold War era chassis

usaf0314 said:

maybe its just me, but the tank looks like someone dropped a 21st century turret onto a Cold War era chassis

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Not really a issue, most of the worlds top tanks are based on chassis built in the Cold War, and not just the Leopard1s,T72s and T52s. some of the Worlds premier MBTs are direct descendents of Cold war chassis. The Israelis Merkiva series is based on a tank chasis developed by the British, they turned it around and massively modified it but its still got the base design. The M1A2 SEP, the Russian T90, the Leopard 2 products of the late cold war. When it comes to this class if it ain't broke don't fix it.