errors of the past.

Hi Utelore

If the design process started 20 years ago and the production orders were placed 15 years ago, then it is not unreasonable to expect the next generation of tank to be in the pipeline now. This is especially true for a rapidly developing country.

Now, I dont know if the operation of modern tanks, differs fundamentaly from the operation of older ones, or whether an Abrams functions pretty much the same way as say a Tiger or a Matilda.( I dare say you do and can advise). If the difference is great, how well would the PLA of 15 years ago have been able to operate equipment that corresponded to Western Levels?

Irrespective, Chinese production capabilities have transformed themselves, largely out of recognition, in this period which means that 15 years ago "a modern" MBT would probably have been outside of their cost-effective production capability, whilst today this is no longer likely to be the case.

China now, probably faces the same problem as all Western Militaries, which is that the rate of increase of civilian technology, is so much faster than the speed of the military procurement process, that actually pinning down a set of working specifications is becoming increasingly difficult.

Initially the PLA was going to develop its new tank on the basis of Leopard 2. The PLA even developed the 120mm smoothbore gun for this project. However, the limitation of China's technology and industry capability at the time made the PLA decide to return to the Soviet/Russian route.

Was this the right decision? From the experience of the Gluf War, maybe not. But there is a school of thought within the PLA believes that you can make a weapon with advantages of both Eastern and Western tanks. For eastern tanks this means small front profile and better mobility, while for western tank it means good protection and advanced fire-control/sight. However, is it possible to develop a tank with the advantages of both sides, and without the disadvantages of either sides?

Interestingly, the PLA has never given up exploring other tank concepts. The PLA is particularly interested in the front-mounted powerpack design.

One unconfirmed report suggested that the Type 98/G will change to a new chassis originally developed for Type 90/MBT-2000 export tank series.

I think it would have be wiser when looking back that the PRC should have adopted the Leo2 design. The Leo2 is a great tank. I think there are to duel keys to tank warfare both are of equal importence
1. To be able to ID and kill a OFOR tank with 1 round to the frontal arc
2. To be able to surive a hit on your frontal arc from a OPFOR tank .

it seems very simple but that is the key to tank warfare based on my experience.....cheers ute.

Personally i do not think that soviet tank design itself is worse than the western one. Also i believe that experience of GW'91 should not be accounted, it was 20-years difference in technological level, and besides, Iraq was already incapable of fullscale military operations. Anyway i do not intend to continue the GW line. My point is that soviet tank design does not have crucial faults. You can have any armor, any FCS, any engine, any gun on both designs. T-64/72 has lower profile, is smaller, is more compact, but still it shares most "things that make tank to be a tank" with western designs. The only difference is in autoloader that
a) is dangerous
b) does not allow long sabot shells due to "separate" loading sequence
I believe we all are aware of russian and ukranian modernisation programs meant to solve these disadvantages.

I totaly and respectfully disagree with your statment that soviet tank design is not worse than western design. It has been proven on all fronts that the modern russian way of making tanks is horrid. The are under armoured and the over all quaility is below the standard of western tanks. I do believe the russians and the PRC are taking those flawed designs and are trying to fix them with the likes of the "Blackeagle T-80 upgrade and the Type 98 which is incorperating more advanced composite moduale armour protection. I think the biggest fix would simply to make their tanks more heavy.

But please let me take a step back and to give credit to the russians for their design of the BTR-T which is going to save the lives of many Mech Inf. I feel it is a great AFV that I would like to see the U.S even move in that direction for its AIFV design.....cheers ute.

The are under armoured and the over all quaility is below the standard of western tanks.

I'd like to continue this line a bit. From my point of view quality is not a fault of the design. And what about armor? With powerfull enough engine you can have any frontal armor. As for rear and flanks... For example, how tough M1's turret flank armor is? I think i know for sure that leo's ammo container could be blown up by the 30mm fire...

As for BTR-T... Probably it would be much better than existing russian vehicles in combat (from infantryman's view especially), but unfortunately i do not have any info regarding vehicle's fielding. This one is for export most likely. Russian military doctrine still counts soldier as an expendable resource. You wouldn't believe the horrible things i've heared back in military faculty.

Originally Posted by Aluka

I'd like to continue this line a bit. From my point of view quality is not a fault of the design. And what about armor? With powerfull enough engine you can have any frontal armor. As for rear and flanks... For example, how tough M1's turret flank armor is? I think i know for sure that leo's ammo container could be blown up by the 30mm fire...

you can have a heavy armor with a very good engine, but your tank will be very heavy, that mean you need to have larger track for mud, sand, snow, and if you tank are too heavy, are you suren that they can cross bridges ??? For exemple, before the beginning of WWII, all german tank were below 20t because the bridges in this time cannot support vehicule heavier than 20t, heavier tanks start rolling on those bridges only after they built some better bridges, and you'll need to "upgrade" all your tank reparing equipment with better engine so they can tow your heavy tank

From my point of view. The T72s in GW are a far cry from the real T72 used by the russions. what make a tank good is fire power, protection and mobility.
T72 is not bad on mobility side.
The fire power... I don't kown what did Iraq tankies are using, I do recall that Utelore said it can not penaltrate M1's frontal armor. How ever, I do think a hit with a russion/chinese tungsten/DP round will make the life of a M1 tankie very unpleasent.
Like that T98G. additional armor give additional protection.

The variables are complete, and it will make a tank a decent tank.

What really set the difference is the ability to land that freaking round on the target. As utelore said in a post before, iraq T72's fire control system is lousy in any espect. If one can plant the M1's fire control into T72, it will make it a leathal weapon. On a one2one base, it is not the tank desgin that is problematic, it is the software and tech makes a real difference.

Now come to another point. Ex-soviet think of armor combat is big coloum strike deep into enemy territory, It is a number war. Soldier's life is just a number. Both russia and china have too many manpower. like int WWII, german's are far better equiped and trained, but they just don't have the manpower. When a war come to a stale mate, number of "consumerables" is more important than quality.

One company of M1 finds a regiment of 98G, will you standing fight? or pick a better time other day? In Australian doctrine, we will slip in the the deep jungle for sure..

In conclusion, I don't think it is really a griveous decision to go with the T72 chasiss desgin. How ever, my favorite tank is still the Merkava series. Ute, have you got a chance to see one live?

I have not, However my old battalion sgt maj was on the development team with isreal on the merkava. Isreal realy talked to many different states tank crewman on the dev of its MBT. I talked to him briefly about it and he loves it. a little slow but the protection is first rate. He saw vids of a merkava putting a 105mm APFSDS round into a sniper in a building at 1500 meters in lebanon. the sabot took the snipers head off.

That sounds very impressive. The fire control system must be first rate. The system in PLA's tanks are very secretive. I do wonder how accurate the system can be. Even with the 98G, I think the first round hit round will only be about at most 80%. unlike the US tanks, I doubt that we will see the latest Chinese tank in action for a while. The perform of them will be very difficult to judge

I think there needs to be a little thought put into why the Russian tanks are designed the way they are. Every tank has both a heritage and an operational concept it was designed by and it is important to understand the difference between the American and the Russian concept on tanks.

Todays T-80 and T-90 tanks are evolutions of the T-34, now, before you all scream and tear me to peices let me explain why i say this.

The T-34 and the T-34 85 where the tanks that won the war for the Russians. Yes the IS-1/2/3 super heavy tanks where the badasses of the war (wich could prolly still give a modern MBT a run for its money, a 122mm cannon is still a 122mm cannon regardless of the year) they where never available in enough quantities nor did they have the operational flexibility of their smaller brothers.

The argument is that Russia uses numbers over quality but that is not necessarily true. Russia no less wants to fight a war with an obviously inferior tank than the U.S. or Germany. The issue with Russian fighting vehicles is that they are simple to build and use, and as close to the best available tech as possible before they start to become too complex and unreliable for real battle. It just realises that in a long war that rate of production as well as ease of use will ALWAYS win out over a 5 - 10 year technical lead.

In a short duration war there would be no contest against the latest western tanks, they have fantastic targeting systems, advanced engines, and work brilliantly as long as there is a logistics train stretching all the way back to their manufacturer. But lets think on the flipside for a second.

Its two years into a full scale war, both sides have been mauled over the last two years, the elite unites are all but gone, the rate of supply for the computer targeting systems, depleted uranium armour, e.t.c is nowhere near the rate of loss, and the gps, glonass and galileo sattelites are all sitting in the bottom of the pacific ocean.

The western powers are trying to repair as many of their tanks back at depot as possible because it is simply not possible to produce M1A2's at a wartime capacity whereas the Russians or Chinese are pumping out their 'obsolete' t-80's or T-96 tanks like gangbusters.

Sounds a little far fetched i know but the Russians dont design tanks to run over camelherders in the desert, they design tanks to fight major wars, wars that go into years not just weeks or months.

Other countries just dont have the willpower or manpower to fight the type of war the Russians and to a lesser extent the Chinese excel at. Therefore they try to fight a fast sharp war against western powers using equipment that is just not designed for that kind of battle. AND LOSE MISERABLY

As for the t-80 and t-90 being descendants of the t-34 well we can all agree that the T-55 to the t-90 series tanks where basically evolved from the previous design.

The T-44 was the link, the stepping stone between the t-34 and the t-54, look it up, it never made significant service yet was to be the stopgap that wasnt needed. It shows the evolution very well, it looks pretty much in between a t-34 and a t-54.

thanks guys

The trace of soviet MBT development doesen't stop to T-34. The "sotka" as we finns call it is itself development of the Bt-7 series fast tanks which are in effect a soviet improved version of american Christie tank.

But to the issue. Chakos got a point there. Most of the time when soviet/russian equipment are critized in the west, people tends to forgot that those machines are designed in different missions and operational philosofies in mind. This apllyes in all aspect of military. Soviet warship classifications are good example of it, hardly any soviet naval vessels have a direct counterpart in the west and vice versa.
As Chakos said russians tends to design far more simpler systems in order to achive quantitical edge. Thats true. There is also another reason for this kind of thinging. Soviet army was (and also other Warsaw pact states) a coscription army. That ment that there wasen't resources nor time to give all the units similar leght and sophistigated training as can be done in western type proffesional army. This however dosen't mean coscripts being anyway inferior soldiers, as one of myself i have strong belive in coscription system and its benefits and genreal possipilityes to execute the task given to these units.
The soviet "low sophistication" thinking came clear to me several times when i did my service time. I got a change to get familiar to several soviet weaponsystems, most notably the Kalashnikovik type assault riffles and D-30 howitser. I've also got great opportunity to compare soviet philosofies to western ones as i operated both western and soviet artillery pieces. Now i've told about the benefits and down sides of these two systems about million time, so i wont do it again. But few things can always be mentioned. As i've stated above and also told several times, the soviet artillery system was very simple and easy to use (meaning theoreticaly, it always worked as it should, tough it required enourmoss ammount of swet) and train with. Ofcourse there was some irritating features in russian logig, like not providing an handles to ammunition cases and all the tools were single purpose; you had to use five different openers even to properly maintanence the breech.
The finnish artillery system, representing western thinking was far more complex and sophisticated system. It required foar more comprehensive training and adjusment. Of course the sheer ammount of automaticy and the precence of APU eased the muscle workload of us all, but the "prainwork" was much bigger (we finns have this saying, dum, dummer, artillerymen...so they don't ecpect much from us in the iteligense field...). Dupped whit the fact that the gun was still bran new and suffered many minor "childs ilnesses", we propaply have to learn the basic things all over again when our refress training comes. Also the limited timeschedule ment that only one guy in the gungroup (me ofcourse...) actually knew all the little secrets of the gun so if i was to went down..the whole team would be in trouple...The finnish system is clearly designed proffesional use in mind so the whole system is bit contradic to our current conscription policy...a climpse of future? Who knows but this isen't the thread for speculating that.

Lets drift back to china and her choises in military philosofies. China is already rapidly transforming it's armed forces into more western style proffesional style which is in my obinion a vise move from country as big as china. This is evident in many major new weapon system aqustions, but is it in the MBT filed? (as this topic orginally was about the erros of chinese MBT program)
The new ZtZ-99 (or what ever should it be called) is far more sophisticated that the previous chinese tanks but it's orginal concept remains that of a soviet "coscription style". Tough this may be sole due the overall capapilityes of chinese MBT development industry, but is it aceptable excuse? In my obinion it isen't. China should have chosen the non-soviet tank philosofy back in the eightyes when the choises reflecting the current situation were made. This is becouse the changed doctrines and tactics requires equipment designed in line of those. The soviet tank desing represent completely different way of warfare than the modern chinese armed forces should and propaply will practise. It needs weapons and systems suited for these new tasks and therefore a new, even more sophisticated MBT than ZTZ-99 should be developted.

Interesting points.

I think however, between yourselves you have probably answered the question. I do not think China is facing a conflict between Professional and Conscript philosophies or Qualatitive and Quantatitive doctrines. I suspect China is evolving both, simultaneously in order to capitalise on its natural strengths.

Like any other modern nation, China realises that it needs a very strong, Professional Core Army, and is I dare say developing the equipment necessary for such a force to function.

In the event of a major conflict however, China would want to use its massive numerical superiority to simply overwhelm any adversary. This means raising a large conscript force to fight alongside and protect/preserve its profesional core. As conscripts are raised and trained quickly, it make sense to provide them with equipment that is both relativly simple to operate and cheap and quick to produce.

The advantage here is that instead of fielding conscripts in ancient and obsolete relics, you can field them in modern designs; albeit of simplified or reduced spec. As production would be fast (to repeat myself modular) there is no need to stockpile huge numbers of weapons that might well be totally obsolete by the time they are required.

By maintaining a development programme and building limited numbers for evaluation, training, further development etc, you refine your production and operational techniques to ensure a rapid deployment of basic, but still cutting edge weapons.

Needless to say, you would expect the Professional forces to develop in a recognisably western way.

Sanpan, your post is logical . I think with the advent and fielding of a quality airforce for gaining air supremacy and with continued work on its close airsupport function the need for a MBT that compares with the most advanced western design would not be needed. I think if your see the PRC gain further ability in gaining total battlefield situational awarness (THIS IS HUGE) you will see the role of the MBT decline. The ability to see targets with ground targeting radar (like JSTARS) and then have the ability to attack those targets with attack helo or fast movers is going to further negate the need for the PRC to field such advanced MBT.