ZTQ-15 and PRC Light Tanks

FangYuan said:

what are you barking?

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That was a serious question because the source you provided said nothing about ZTQ-15. So do you have another source to back up your original claim? Or do you admit that your claim was baseless?

This is how SinoDefenceForum operates: when you make a specific claim, you need to be prepared to provide a source and demonstrate your reasoning for making that claim. We follow a higher set of standards of information dissemination than fanboy forums.

Peter2018 said:

Are the Indians sending their Arjun to the border with Pakistan?

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What does this have to do with ZTQ-15?

by78 said:

That was a serious question because the source you provided said nothing about ZTQ-15. So do you have another source to back up your original claim? Or do you admit that your claim was baseless?

This is how SinoDefenceForum operates. When you make a specific claim, you need to be prepared to provide a source and demonstrate your reasoning for making that claim. We follow a higher set of standards of information dissemination than fanboy forums.

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@Bltizo @Deino

Clean-up in aisle five!

FangYuan said:

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That's exactly the same article you provided before. Did you not understand that before you shared it?

The only new info is that spec sheet which states RHA 220mm at 66.42 degrees (from horizontal?) at 2km. That translates into RHA 342.26mm in relative thickness at 2km, which is not nearly enough to knock out third-gen MBTs.

ougoah said:

T-90S is a mid 40 tonne tank and T-90 along with T-72s are famously focused more on firepower and mobility and not on protection.

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Erm. Quite the opposite, actually. The whole idea of soviet tank is maximizing protection at cost of any useless volume within the tank.
Until just about now(t-72b3m/t-90m), T-72 family was notoriously slow in tactical sense. Their firepower was also limited by available fire control until 1990s-2000s.
Armor of soviet 3rd gen MBTs, however, was originally(until about mid-1990s) the best among their contemporaries, and, provided with adequate ERA modules, is still in the upper group even now.

We don't know much about new chinese 105 rounds, but it's worth remembering we're talking about the very tanks which killed 105 on MBTs to begin with.

Gloire_bb said:

Erm. Quite the opposite, actually. The whole idea of soviet tank is maximizing protection at cost of any useless volume within the tank.
Until just about now(t-72b3m/t-90m), T-72 family was notoriously slow in tactical sense. Their firepower was also limited by available fire control until 1990s-2000s.
Armor of soviet 3rd gen MBTs, however, was originally(until about mid-1990s) the best among their contemporaries, and, provided with adequate ERA modules, is still in the upper group even now.

We don't know much about new chinese 105 rounds, but it's worth remembering we're talking about the very tanks which killed 105 on MBTs to begin with.

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I should said this instead. The modern T-72 and T-90 have excellent mobility. They were not designed for high mobility per se. It just so happened that Soviet engines could not support a much heavier weight and the Soviet army also didn't exactly want a heavy MBT* and the mid weight MBT they did play with was a turbine powered T-80 with more armour than the T-72, based off some lessons gained from the T-64. Soviet horsepower per tonne was still always matching that of western tanks throughout their development and upgrade cycles.
*Whether the choice for smaller size was caused by a lack of powertrain ability or the other way around I'm not sure.

So no it is not the opposite actually. The whole idea of a soviet tank was NOT maximising protection at the expense of everything else. The soviets CORRECTLY put firepower and mobility ahead of protection. The T-72 and T-80 both had the biggest guns and gun launched missiles (partly to compensate for more questionable quality ammunition) and preferred smaller frame and weight for transport, range, and mobility. Their doctrine was to overwhelm European towns with masses of armour going through countries rapidly. Damaged tanks are replaced rather than pulled back to repair. It was sort of a repeat of T-34's formula. The major downside with Soviet armour has always been protection. Sure you can say that when the T-72 and T-80 just came out, they had superior protection and when you factor in Soviet APS developments and ERA advancements, they had pretty good protection until the Challenger 2, M1A1, Leopard 2s came to the battlefield as new benchmarks for protection.

I say the Soviets correctly put firepower and mobility ahead of protection because tanks by the cold war weren't exactly built for anti-tanking. The chances of a tank hitting another tank were still rather slim. Not every shot results in a hit and when your tank runs faster, can go further, has a smaller profile for detection and hitting, you have far more advantages. The ATGM was beginning to become quite a nasty threat and the Soviets confirmed this in Grozny. APS and suitable modular armour like ERA was beginning to offer huge leaps in protection for relatively low weight and costs. Modular armour is just superior in every way which is why the French jumped right on it with Leclerc's design. Granted we're talking about different approaches to modular armours but the concept is superior. Mobility and Firepower trump protection not just because tank shots hitting another tank in a tank on tank battle is becoming increasingly rare and relegated further behind in a tank's purpose. Also because if you can't get to the battlefield and roam, there is no point to superior protection. If you cannot deliver the necessary firepower to back infantry, destroy bunkers, and take out various armoured vehicles, again there would be no point to superior protection. You need your gun and engine first before layers and layers of ceramic armour otherwise you'd just be a dud sitting behind a box of armour doing nothing and going nowhere.

So you could have a very well protected tank a la M1A1 or Challenger 2 but it will require long and costly repairs every time they take a serious hit. They may be more survivable compared to early T-72 and T-80 upgrades, but they demand high performance engines and drivetrains. Something the Soviet didn't have even if they were capable of. T-80's turbines ran into problems in the field too but Soviet tank mobility was always their more impressive attribute.

ougoah said:

until the Challenger 2, M1A1, Leopard 2s came to the battlefield as new benchmarks for protection.

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Benchmarks of protection...note that Soviet tanks aren't even shown with kontakt-5 ERA. Polish found this the hard way recently, trying to upgrade their 2A4s.
The situation changed in 1990s: leopard really became the benchmark from 2A5 onwards.

P:w ratio of Soviet tanks, on the other hand, remained "in 1960s" for all tanks but ludicrously expensive T-80s, way below western tanks of that era.

Btw, t-80U(somewhat weaker than indian t-90s) frontally is basically immune against m900 round, which is quite comparable to export round shown above. So until and unless Chinese round is specifically designed to work against ERA(which isn't the case as far as i can see, but i can be wrong) - well, engaging MBTs frontally sounds as a bad idea.