ZTQ-15 and PRC Light Tanks

free_6ix9ine said:

Any tank can be upgraded to operate in a low oxygen environment by adding a turbocharger. I assume tibet is fairly mountainous terrain with poor infrastructure which makes it more difficult to operate large MBT like the T-90 or ZTZ99. Hence why India is also scrambling to buy light tanks as well.

Click to expand...

No, certainly not enough.
How do you think 15 achieved a power reduction of only x% while on altitudes of 5000? Obviously not just a turbocharger, the compression of turbochargers also lower when you've got lower environment pressures. 75% is a rough number applicable to virtually all tanks including the T-90 and 99A, which has a turbocharger, when on plateaus. 15 makes use of a second stage conpressor and inlet air heating to achieve the higher numbers. www

Also, your claim of any tanks can be upgraded isn't true at all since you can also say we can add anything to a tank to make it better in any extent. Given the time and the technology, you can modify a T-54 to make it as good as Armata. www

RichardGao said:

15 makes use of a second stage conpressor and inlet air heating to achieve the higher numbers.

Click to expand...

This doesn't make sense. For reasons of thermodynamic efficiency, you never want to heat inlet air - the colder the better since it takes more work to compress the same volume of hot air vs. cold air. I think what you mean is staged intercooling where the compressed air output from the first turbocharger is cooled before before being fed into the second turbocharger, which is itself then cooled before being fed into the engine.

Three images of an exercise maneuver + two images of the armored recovery variant.

Take a look at this! A full introduction of the VT5 tank, the export version of ZTQ-15.
You can even witness the GL-5 hardkill active protection system at work!

Plenty of nifty features not found on the ZTZ-99 like Remote controlled Mg and modular armour, it would unironically have better side armour than the ZTZ-99. The closest foreign tank to it would be the Japanese Type 10(It is not a heavy MBT on the levels of M1A2 and T90) imo, both incorporate modular armour and sacrificed considerably in terms of armour in order to reduce weight.

Given how secretive PLA equipments are, a lot of info can be gathered from export equivalents.

Breadbox said:

Plenty of nifty features not found on the ZTZ-99 like Remote controlled Mg and modular armour, it would unironically have better side armour than the ZTZ-99. The closest foreign tank to it would be the Japanese Type 10(It is not a heavy MBT on the levels of M1A2 and T90) imo, both incorporate modular armour and sacrificed considerably in terms of armour in order to reduce weight.

Given how secretive PLA equipments are, a lot of info can be gathered from export equivalents.

Click to expand...

The ZTQ-15 definitely doesn't have better side armour than the 99 series. Both are modular and can take upgrades.

Closest foreign tank isn't the Type 10, maybe the Indonesian/Turkish Pindad light tank. The Japanese Type 10 is nearly 50 tonnes in heavy load and uses a 120mm.

Two clearer images of the armored recovery variant.

The thing about the design of Type 15 is that while it does have a weaker firepower and armor protection than heavier MBTs, it can go to places where normally a heavy MBT couldn't go, like high up on the Tibetan plateau or in the hilly and watery regions of Southern China. Just as the Chinese military strategist Fang Bing once said about the Type 15: "Those that can defeat it can't go to places where it can go, and those that can go to the places it can go can't defeat it".

Brief display of commander's location at 0:20

Making a splash...