New Type98/99 MBT thread

plawolf

Lieutenant General
There is an unhealthy obsession with hardship within the PLA. That said, I think Type 15 has air conditioning and far better ergonomics.

Thinking about it some more, it might not just be purely about penny pinching or being needlessly harsh on troops to prevent them going soft. In cars, air cons typically increase fuel consumption/reduce range by around 8-10%.

Since PLA tank and armoured forces place a lot of emphasis on manoeuvring rather than relying mainly on having the toughest armour and biggest guns to punch straight through the enemy’s main force, it could be that loosing 10% range for the comfort of the crew is deemed too much of a sacrifice.

Better that the crews train and get used to not having aircon in peacetime and get to enjoy that during wartime when the situation permits it, rather than get used to aircon and not be able to handle it without it.

Although I still think some common sense and health and safety limits need to be set. 55 degrees C is simply unsafe working environments, especially in an enclosed confined space. They could set the aircon to keep the internal temp at 30-35, which will still be pretty uncomfortable but at least not actually hazardous to crew safety.
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
The Type 96 is still the backbone and has been this way since before the ZTQ-15 was commisioned. Well over 2000 Type 96 vs about 900 Type 99. But it does seem like the PLA is overextending on tank types. They should limit it to 2 types, a light tank 30-40 tonnes and a medium weight MBT 50-60 tonnes. ZTQ-15 already has high altitude and "conventional" variants so the two lines and their sub-variants should cover all terrain and conflict types. The Type 96 production hopefully gets stopped but it's there because it offers the PLA much better value for money and material than the Type 99 and since the PLA demands to have the numbers in order to cover the vast landmass and station x numbers in every certain area, the only solution is unfortunately fielding three tanks - 2 MBTs and 1 light tank.

Armoured warfare has previously demonstrated that in terms of tanks, quantity does trump quality.
So that calculation applies to the cheaper Type-96 versus Type 99.

And it looks like you can buy 2 or 3 Type-99 tanks for the cost of a single Abrams.
So I know where I would place my bet on the outcome of a hypothetical tank battle.
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Thinking about it some more, it might not just be purely about penny pinching or being needlessly harsh on troops to prevent them going soft. In cars, air cons typically increase fuel consumption/reduce range by around 8-10%.

Since PLA tank and armoured forces place a lot of emphasis on manoeuvring rather than relying mainly on having the toughest armour and biggest guns to punch straight through the enemy’s main force, it could be that loosing 10% range for the comfort of the crew is deemed too much of a sacrifice.

Better that the crews train and get used to not having aircon in peacetime and get to enjoy that during wartime when the situation permits it, rather than get used to aircon and not be able to handle it without it.

Although I still think some common sense and health and safety limits need to be set. 55 degrees C is simply unsafe working environments, especially in an enclosed confined space. They could set the aircon to keep the internal temp at 30-35, which will still be pretty uncomfortable but at least not actually hazardous to crew safety.

Conventional submarine crew working in the engine area work at 55 degree temperatures for a lot longer but to be fair, they have the option to go shirtless.
 

Inst

Captain
In cars, AC increases fuel consumption by that amount, true, but that's relative to the total engine output. Tanks, in contrast, produce a lot of engine output relative to the energy needs of AC.

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IMO, training without AC is necessary because the AC is not necessarily a reliable factor. Sometimes, to extend operational range, you might want to disable the AC. At other times, the AC could break down, or be destroyed by enemy weapons. And ACs are heat pumps; they tend to generate heat increasing IR signatures.

In practice, operating with AC is necessary in wartime simply because the heat gets to you and impacts decision-making and rate of decision-making. In training, making sure that operators might not need the AC, on the other hand, could build robustness for when systems break down or AC can't be used due to its thermal signature / fuel costs.
 
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