Chinese 96-A

benny said:

Removed watermarks and upscaled

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I suspect both the MBT and the IFV will need extensive appliqué armor on their hull sides in any real war.

Richard Santos said:

I suspect both the MBT and the IFV will need extensive appliqué armor on their hull sides in any real war.

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Why? Applique armor modules that you see on recent Western platforms are mainly designed for urban warfare, not the kind of open-field armor confrontation that China is likely to engage in.

A concentration of Type-96As.

Seems Type 96B has now been 'finalized' and is ready for mass production:

Yankee and Shilao confirmed that they are still sending Type 96B to this year’s tank biathlon and that they are still doing a livecast.

Shoutout to “北疆卫士号" who said last year was going to be the final show of the 96B at this event

FishWings said:

Shoutout to “北疆卫士号" who said last year was going to be the final show of the 96B at this event

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Just goes to show that not even official PLA accounts can necessarily get the facts straight. Always exercise judgment when you get any military related information from China.

OK, so what is our consensus here? Is 96B going into mass production? Or is it the case that, given all the new gizmos on it (TI sights etc), it's not much cheaper than a 99A so PLA might as well just build more of the latter? Or something else?

FishWings said:

Shoutout to “北疆卫士号" who said last year was going to be the final show of the 96B at this event

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Meaning they would send other tanks?