postmanishere
New Member
designations are Official Military Terminology which is somewhat classified in China,the most accepted explanation is:
ZTZ is a chinese pinyin aberration,which means Z(zhuangjia Armor),T(tanke tank),Z(zhuzhan,mainbattle),there's debate about the last z,which can stand for (zhongxing,medium)or (zhuzhan mainbattle),
ZTQ is simpler,Z(zhuangjia,armor),T(tanke tank),q(qingxing, light)
ZBD is Z(zhuangjia ,armor),B(bubing infantry) d(zhanDou,fighting),
basically PLA ground force hardware uses the same designation system,some other example:
the official designation for type 95 rifle is QBZ95 , Q(qiang,guns or small arms) B(buqiang rifle),Z(Zidong, automatic)
type 88 marksman rifle is QBU88，Q（same above),B（buqiang rifle),U(juji sniping)
because the current designations system was established in the 80s to early 90s , so there's some confusion between old official designations and new designations and project designations.
like the type 59 tank,its project designation is WZ120,not sure about the WZ part,but 120 part is clear:1 is for tanks, 2 is for medium(or mailbattle),0 is the actual project generation number,type59 is 0-gen(because it's a imported design) tank. Think the WZXXX designation as the soviet Object XXX(like object 430 which became the T64)
so type59,or ZTZ-59,has 3 common designation:
1: type 59 medium tank, old official designation
2: ZTZ 59 new official designation
3: wz120 project designation
incidentally the type 99 is actually never officially called "type 99" its official designation is ZTZ-99,people call it type99 ( 99 shi) out of convenience and old habit,so type99 has only 2 designation:
1. ZTZ99
2. WZ123 project desination
and to clarify a very common mistake: there's never been a type 98 tank ,what everybody saw in the 1999 parade is actually project 9910 (9910工程), a showcase(as in "not combat operational") batch of the then developing ZTZ99. 9910 never entered service and all been upgraded to ZTZ-99 specs.
