ZTQ-15 and PRC Light Tanks

RichardGao

Junior Member
Registered Member
The Israeli Lahat ATGM which fits in their 105mm gun can penetrate about 800mm RHA after the first layer of ERA is blown.

The penetration numbers I've seen for 105mm APFSDS are around the 600mm range RHA, including ones that use DU.

The T-90's armor on its front can reach the equivalent of 850mm RHA based on kinetic energy.
So what? That's the turret of the T-90A, against 3BM42. (which is 800 instead of 850 BTW) Against munitions like 125III the numbers are likely below 750. Meanwhile the CE equivalent of 90A is roughly 1000. So yeah ATGMs need more penetration to defeat tanks.

Now you've been talking about gun-launched top-attack fire-and-forget ATGMs for quite a while, can you name one of these?
 

RichardGao

Junior Member
Registered Member
The same reason the ZTQ-15s are used, as opposed to 99As. The logistics and terrain of penetrating deep into India across the Himalayas is a nightmare.
Trains please. Tanks are transported via road and railroad rather than on their tracks. Plus it's not only the Himalayas that is the China-Indian border.
for penetrating T-90M frontal armor
When did it become T-90M? Wasn't it T-90S which is an equivalent of Russian T-90A without Shtora? \ツ/
The solution being proposed is a good, modern top-attack ATGM that can be fired from the ZTQ-15's gun.
So why not use HJ-10s as an alternative when you already have a top-attack ATGM?
countering the T-90M
There it goes again.
as the Chinese have both a HJ-12 and HJ-10 in operation, one being laser or wire-guided and the other being fire-and-forget top-attack.
You're confused. 12 is F&F while 10 is vehicle based wire-guided.
If the PLA somehow ends up losing air superiority, the ZTQ-15s are now up to the plate for anti-tank roles
First, why would PLA lose air superiority?
Second, how much combat space do you think there is for 15 if there's no air superiority?
The entire point you want flexibility is that flexibility is redundancy
It is. Because we already have an entire system for all the jobs while you want to build Gundam. It's just excessive to develop such an ATGM while normal ATGMs only have ~5km range and <1000 penetration, while we have HJ-10 which has 10+km range and ~1500 penetration, and in the meantime can do some anti-air work.
but that's assuming the artillery is working and isn't taking airstrikes
Then why did you assume that the tank isn't taking an airstrike?
"Artillery is working" why wouldn't it work when it's acting as supporting fire off the frontline?
And if you didn't know, PCL-191 has 400+km of range while on the Tibetan plateau, and why not use its long range and high accuracy to bombard strategically valued targets like an airfield?
 

Figaro

Senior Member
Registered Member
@RichardGao, when you have accidentally posted a post that is double or you don't want it, you can clear all the content and mark it with a single word "delete", so the post will be considered as an accident and will be ignored or mods will remove it. I think leaving a blank post is somehow against forum rules.
SDF definitely needs the delete option lol. Would make posting much more convenient.
 

Inst

Captain
So what? That's the turret of the T-90A, against 3BM42. (which is 800 instead of 850 BTW) Against munitions like 125III the numbers are likely below 750. Meanwhile the CE equivalent of 90A is roughly 1000. So yeah ATGMs need more penetration to defeat tanks.

Now you've been talking about gun-launched top-attack fire-and-forget ATGMs for quite a while, can you name one of these?

Also, there's claims that the T-90MS the Indians use as their best tanks currently have claims of post 1000mm RHAe vs KE due to the use of the new Relikt ERA package.

Chinese ATGMs tend to give post-ERA RHAe penetration figure. Do Israeli ATGMs give post-ERA RHAes or pre-ERA RHAes?

And no, the PCL-191 is intended to destroy strategic targets, i.e, command points, airfields, etc, not tanks.

===

I mean, in general, KE penetrators are better than CE penetrators. Given the choice, you'd rather go with a KE penetrator than a CE penetrator, but when you're hobbled by your gun size, a CE top-attack ATGM, which has the benefit of ignoring frontal armor and only caring about thin top-armor, seems to be a better solution.
 

Inst

Captain
As far as HJ-12 and HJ-10 go, I never said which was which.

And as far as the Himalayas go, the problem isn't getting the tank into Tibet, the problem is getting the tank across the Himalayas into Indian territory, which means you have to cross brutal terrain. If you look at the Sino-Indian border, there's not a single point where the Chinese can avoid mountains; it's all Tibet or Xinjiang mountains on the border. A Yunnannese incursion is theoretically possible, but you'd have to violate Myanmar's sovereignty.

And as far as top-attack ATGMs go, LAHAT has 8 km of range. Spike NLOS has more than 22 km of range.

Regarding losing air superiority, the Indians have tons of bases at the border and the Chinese have few bases. They can use civilian airports as temporary airbases, but civilian airports are far from ideal as they will not have the ammunition and fuel needed for an air campaign prestocked. Moreover, the PLAAF is traditionally an air denial force, and they don't seem to have much experience in SEAD missions, although they do have missiles for that. The Indians have a ton of Russian SAMs on the border, so you can't guarantee that the Chinese will be able to swat fighters out of the sky once they get up.
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
What is this obsession with trying to make the Type15 a super star destroyer of a tank that can kill all and sundry?

Design is as much about compromise and prioritisation as it is about refinement and improvements. Moreover, just how much more advanced do you expect Chinese tech to be, to have a light tank able to take on the best heavyweights of the tank world and win?

The 15 is the low part of the PLA tank hi-lo mix. If they are operating in theatres where they might realistically expect to encounter hostile T90s, M1s, Leo’s and the like, then they will be backed up by PLA 99s to go toe to toe with the enemy big boys, because that’s not what the 15 is for.

Also, it is a little one-dimensional to think of tank combat purely in terms of raw armour penetration figures. Heavy MBTs might be able to survive a direct hit from the 15s 105, but they are hardly going to shrug it off like nothing has happened, much like while there are armour plates rated for 50 BMG, you have to be a fool to think you will be able to continue fighting if you did take a 50BMG round to the chest while wearing such a plate.

The only way that happens is with APS, and there again is the value of having 15s, as with them, you can outnumber an enemy force made up solely of heavy MBTs, and just spam their APS away through volume of fire.

I have a suspicion that much of the focus on fire control and communications improvements mentioned with the 15 might be designed with defeating APS in mind.

With datalink and advanced fire control systems, you could feasibly design a battlefield network whereby multiple 15s can automatically co-ordinate fire to defeat enemy APS by timing multiple rounds to arrive on target within a window shorter than the re-engagement cycle of enemy APS.

If you factor in APS, than having more guns on station trumps having fewer bigger guns any day of the week.

Think of a 15 and 99 partnership, where the 15 effectively takes command of its 99 partner’s gun, and syncs the two guns to fire at the precise moment such that the 15’s 105 triggers enemy APS, while the 99’s 125 slams home before the enemy APS can cycle to re-engage.

It might sound like sci-fi, but the technology is easily already available. With GPS/Beidou, you can precisely geo-locate your tanks to get relative positioning, with laser range finder, wind gauge and all the other standard tank targeting aids as well as GPS/Beidou, you can precisely range and geo-locate your target. Then it’s just basic maths to calculate round flight times, and hence precise trigger times to get the desired result.

The Americans already battlefield tested a version of such a system in Gulf war two, so it is easily within China’s capabilities now. Hell, a decent engineering university student should be able to put such a system together provided he/she had access to the suitable hardware component parts.
 

Inst

Captain
What is this obsession with trying to make the Type15 a super star destroyer of a tank that can kill all and sundry?

Design is as much about compromise and prioritisation as it is about refinement and improvements. Moreover, just how much more advanced do you expect Chinese tech to be, to have a light tank able to take on the best heavyweights of the tank world and win?

The 15 is the low part of the PLA tank hi-lo mix. If they are operating in theatres where they might realistically expect to encounter hostile T90s, M1s, Leo’s and the like, then they will be backed up by PLA 99s to go toe to toe with the enemy big boys, because that’s not what the 15 is for.

Also, it is a little one-dimensional to think of tank combat purely in terms of raw armour penetration figures. Heavy MBTs might be able to survive a direct hit from the 15s 105, but they are hardly going to shrug it off like nothing has happened.

The only way that happens is with APS, and there again is the value of having 15s, as with them, you can outnumber an enemy force made up solely of heavy MBTs, and just spam their APS away through volume of fire.

I have a suspicion that much of the focus on fire control and communications improvements mentioned with the 15 might be designed with defeating APS in mind.

With datalink and advanced fire control systems, you could feasibly design a battlefield network whereby multiple 15s can automatically co-ordinate fire to defeat enemy APS by timing multiple rounds to arrive on target within a window shorter than the re-engagement cycle of enemy APS.

If you factor in APS, than having more guns on station trumps having fewer bigger guns any day of the week.

Think of a 15 and 99 partnership, where the 15 effectively takes command of its 99 partner’s gun, and syncs the two guns to fire at the precise moment such that the 15’s 105 triggers enemy APS, while the 99’s 125 slams home before the enemy APS can cycle to re-engage.

It might sound like sci-fi, but the technology is easily already available. With GPS/Beidou, you can precisely geo-locate your tanks to get relative positioning, with laser range finder, wind gauge and all the other standard target targeting aims as well as GPS/Beidou, you can precisely range and geo-locate your target. Then it’s just basic maths to calculate round flight times, and hence precise trigger times to get the desired result.

The Americans already battlefield tested a version of such a system in Gulf war two, so it is easily within China’s capabilities now. Hell, a decent engineering university student should be able to put such a system together provided he/she had access to the suitable hardware component parts.

As I've said repeatedly, the ZTQ-15 is unsuited for a tank-vs-tank combat but even engineering troops and MPs are given PDWs so they can at least make a modicum of defensive effort when attacked.

What I see right now is that the ZTQ-15 is being given a pistol for dealing with a MBT. I'd rather it be given a PDW; it'll probably still lose but make a better showing of itself.

What I'm asking for is not a substantial redesign of the ZTQ-15, what I'm asking for is just a further upgrade to a gun-launched ATGM in the PLA's possession with other technology already in the PLA's possession.
 
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