New Type98/99 MBT thread

[lcloo]

Dont be so sure about the low probability of war on china´s borders. China is on a very rough neighborhood. They have borders with nations that have some of the largest armed forces in the world: the korean peninsula (which could involve the US), russia, india, not to mention myanmar and vietnam.
In fact, in times of crises, they have already sent forces to some of these borders.

IMHO, land forces are and must be the most important branch for china´s armed forces.

With the exception of India, all countries (including Vietnam) with land borders with China have agreed upon the demarcation of their land borders.

The tense era was from 1950s to 1980s, since then the only area of possible war is between North and South Korea. China now is more friendly with South Korea than the North. I am not even sure if China wants to involve. They may even wish the North gone.

And I do not foresee any war between China and India, but if an unlikely war erupts in Himalaya range, heavy tanks are not of much use in rugged mountains unless India send troops across into Tibetan Plateau.

 

[plawolf]

With the exception of India, all countries (including Vietnam) with land borders with China have agreed upon the demarcation of their land borders.

The tense era was from 1950s to 1980s, since then the only area of possible war is between North and South Korea. China now is more friendly with South Korea than the North. I am not even sure if China wants to involve. They may even wish the North gone.

And I do not foresee any war between China and India, but if an unlikely war erupts in Himalaya range, heavy tanks are not of much use in rugged mountains unless India send troops across into Tibetan Plateau.

Agreed. Although not about China not getting involved in a war in the Korean Peninsula. Whose side China will fight on, now that would be a very interesting question.

Personally, I think one of the main contingency plans, and the one the Chinese leadership is likely to lean in favour of, is a grand bargain with South Korea.

If NK does something so monumentally stupid as to make war inevitable, I think there is a strong chance China will secretly make SK an one-in-a-lifetime grand bargain:

The PLA is going into NK. The question is which side they will fight for. Agree to ditch America in favour of China as its diplomatic and military backer, and the PLA will enter NK as allies of SK to end the war once and for all, with minimal deaths and destruction, and China will even help with post war reconstruction and modernisation of the North.

Between them, China and SK could probably neutralise NK's nuclear Arsenal before it could be used, which both would be supremely keen to see happen.

Refuse and it will just be a re-run of the first Korean War.

The PLA will go in mainly to end the war as quickly as possible, and minimise the flood of refugees into China, but also to help SK keep its part of the Gand Bargain after.

But that is just speculation on my part.

Bringing things back on topic, unless you have been living under a rock for the last 30 years, you must know that the key to victory on land in the modern era is control of the skies, or st minimum, the ability to deny your opponent control of the skies.

The biggest and best equipped land forces are still going to get reduced to so much scrap and dead bodies if you allow the enemy to control the skies, and so can bomb your ground forces to ruin at their leisure.

Conversely, so long as your ground forces are not neglected to the point of uselessness, any half decent ground force can easily win the day with friendly air power secures the skies.

Even the humble venerable Type 59 is enough and wins by default when the enemy's fancy M1s or Leo IIs have been slagged by your Air Force and attack helicopters.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

The relationship between North Korea and the PRC is widely considered at it's worst. Since the Rise of Kim Jong Un every year the DPRK seems more and more isolated from Beijing well the relationship between the PRC and ROK grows warmer. This could make problems however as Pyongyang is more likely to become more and more desperate in a strategic standing.

the lessons of the first world war are that any one arm alone cannot win in modern conflict.
you need the mix of forces. If we look at Syria and Iraq today we see western and Russian forces trying to win a war with just air power well rebels and loyalist try and fight with infantry and artillery alone as the whole levant slowly turns into a sectarian trench war.

 

[kroko]

With the exception of India, all countries (including Vietnam) with land borders with China have agreed upon the demarcation of their land borders.
.

A conflict betwen two nations doesnt have necessarily to do with border demarcation. The latest china-myanmar tensions are just an example of that.

Personally, I think(...)But that is just speculation on my part.

thats right, its just speculation and most probably wrong IMO, because:
-the ccp will not allow NK to colapse, for geopolitical reasons (not allow US influence and armed forces) to get directly to china´s borders; and internal political reasons (ideological solidarity and doing so would help delegitimize its own rule in power. China may not like NK but are still comunists alike)
-there is no way that SK would want to trade the US for china por many reasons (historical, political, economic, etc.)

As for the rest, i think that you overestimate air power, specially in face of the most recent air-defence systems. AFAIK the s-300 hasnt saw combat yet, and this is a 30-year old system.
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[taxiya]

This is my favorite part, so I will join in before it is stopped as OT.

-the ccp will not allow NK to colapse, for geopolitical reasons (not allow US influence and armed forces) to get directly to china´s borders; and internal political reasons (ideological solidarity and doing so would help delegitimize its own rule in power. China may not like NK but are still comunists alike)

Remember Sino-Soviet border war? Soviet was seriously thinking of nuking another Communist country?
Yes, China does not want NK to collapse BUT ONLY to a point. China didn't like Gorbachev to ruin Soviet Union on the ideology ground, but China did gain access and relief from a defeated Soviet Union in Central Asia and Mongolia.
I am not advocate China diching NK at all, quit contrary, I want NK to stay peaceful and its people's life improve. But under no circumstance, will China issue a blank check to NK.

-there is no way that SK would want to trade the US for china por many reasons (historical, political, economic, etc.)

Why not? Historically China was the sole dominant power over the peninsular for more than 2000 years. till she lost it fully to Japan in 1897 and U.S. partially since 1945 because of her weakened economy and technology. Today, the peninsular hasn't drifted away, China is recoverring to her historical strengh in every aspect. If the event played for 2000 years, why do you think it will change to another totally different script?

One thing will give you a very good insight, checkout the history of the three kingdoms of Korea. Together with other major events, the conclusion is that there is no regime on that peninsular lasted long by having a hostile relationship to the north of the peninsular. I think both NK and SK know the history very well to make the right move.

 

[kriss]

Kroko, for your second point, it's not entirely unreasonable for SK to favor china over US.
The No.1 threat to SK is NK of course but since part of the "deal" is NK become history we can put NK aside. The No.2 threat is japan which is an ally of US who often pressure SK over dispute between SK and japan. When NK is gone once important US garrison seems unnecessary and rather annoying (foreign army on homeland, japan issue, etc). OTOH, china obviously share more interest over japan issues and doesn't intend to put troops in SK.
Besides that, china is become more important as a trading partner of SK which this partnership is again disturbed by US frequently. I know US is also important to SK economic but since we are not in cold war this kind of thing would be more "flexible".

For your first point, though I write a wall of text to make my point of SK could switch side, I agree with you that china will not let NK go done unless china is confident to win SK over but that's way too unpredictable to risk lost an ally and a buffer zone (though beijing will be pretty happy to replace little Kim with a less crazy one).

Enough for off topic let's get back to ZTZ-99.
I don't think china need a large fleet of 99 to win in korean penn. As many other member has indicated a land force cannot win the war against an enemy controlling the air and both NK and SK are just too close to china for even USAF to prevail.

 

[plawolf]

Korea is also very mountainous, same for most of the Sino-Indian boarder region, which makes them poor tank country.

Vietnam is tropical and forested, so is no well suited to heavy tanks, and you don't need Type99 calaber tanks to totally outclass their tank force anyways.

The only boarder which makes good tank country and where the likes of the Type99 might be needed is the Sino-Soviet and then the smaller Sino-Russian boarder.

Historically, the PLA needed a lot of tanks to blunt a possible Soviet massed armour push, but since the collapse of the USSR, and the warming of relations between China and Russia, there is a near zero threat of Russia launching an all out invasion of Northern China, and an even smaller chance such an invasion could possible succeed in this day and age.

That is one of the primary reasons why the PLA has not been in a massive hurry to upgrade its tank forces, and why they favour the 96 over the 99.

Not only is the 96 cheaper, it's lighter weight makes it far more suitable for the tropical terrain of Southern China and South East Asia, where the most likely all out conventional war threat lies, along the Sino-Vietnamese boarder, and in Taiwan.

But even those are tiny remote possibilities, and the tank force the PLA currently has will comfortably enjoy overwhelming technological and numerical dominance over rival tank forces they may face in those theatres.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

Looking over the Terrain if you were looking for a tank war in that part of Asia it's Korea and Siberia. Russia and North Korea have tanks. Russia is a pier to pier fight well North Korea is all about tanks.Their Air force is Rubbish, Their Navy is a coastguard. Their Army has tanks and Tanks in the Thousands. They may be antiquated but they have them in numbers.

Taiwan, Vietnam are to wet, India is to high and rocky.

 

[kwaigonegin]

The odds of a massive land/tank war in Asia/China is extremely remote for the reasons you guys have already mentioned. Also unlike aircraft and ships, tanks are also relatively easy to produce especially in large quantities. If SHTF for some odd reason, a country with good manufacturing capability can churn them out like hot cakes even the latest ones. They are also relatively easy to drive and a tank crew can be trained in a very short amount of time to drive and fight in them. Strategy is what matters more in tank warfare as oppose to individual unit skills and that's already available.

As far as NK is concern, I think China would be more afraid of millions of hungry Norks rushing pass their borders. In that case even 50 yr old armor would be more than sufficient to stop the hordes of mostly civilians but that would be more a political issue and not necessarily a military one.

 

[plawolf]

Looking over the Terrain if you were looking for a tank war in that part of Asia it's Korea and Siberia. Russia and North Korea have tanks. Russia is a pier to pier fight well North Korea is all about tanks.Their Air force is Rubbish, Their Navy is a coastguard. Their Army has tanks and Tanks in the Thousands. They may be antiquated but they have them in numbers.

Taiwan, Vietnam are to wet, India is to high and rocky.

NK's tanks are of little threat to anyone but their own crews. The NK military's primary deterrence are mountain bunkered artillery and missiles that are hard if not near impossible to take out with air strikes, yet are close enough to drop an unholy amount of HE death and destruction on major SK population centres, especially the Capital Seoul.

Sending in massed armour without comprehensively taking out surrounding mountain strongholds risks repeating the mistakes that cost the US forces so greatly during the Korean War, when heavy vehicles got bottlenecked by the mountainous typography.

Only this time, it won't be PVA light infantry flanking them across the surrounding mountains, but ATGMs and hidden artillery sniping away from up on high.

In the event of an all out war in Korea, it will look more like the end phases of the first Korean War, with grinding attritional advancement rather than rapid maneuvering combat on the ground.

You are going to be relying heavily on air calv (I'm including attack helicopters as well in this category) for rapid advancement, while tanks, armour and artillery grind forwards securing NK strongholds and defensive lines in a methodical and systematic way.

Of course, that would be like a worst case scenario. The best case would be a lightening decapitation strike to take out chubby Kim and his closest advisers before large scale combat has even been joined, deploying special forces to capture or neutralise NK's nuclear stockpile and send in ground forces to secure NK's military within their bases with minimal lost of life.

Only China has the ability to do that, so if SK wants any chance at building a prosperous reunited Korea under its leadership, rather than end up with a bomb flattened disaster area and resentful populous making up half its newly expanded country, it has no choice but to work with China.

But all of that is dependent on NK doing something so monumentally moronic as to make war unavoidable. In which case China has little to loose but plenty to gain to propose such a grand bargain, and the same goes for SK in accepting.

However, even the best case scenario will almost certainly carry massive cost to China, and SK especially. As such, this will only ever be a hell merry contingency plan to make the most of a hopelessly bad distinction rather than something anyone sane or rational would seek to actively bring about proactively.