Khand-e

" There are those engineers and politicians who say it takes years to develop and field a military cartridge and weapon system. I call, “Bull Shit”, when we were bombing them into dust and the Russians were crushing them under foot, the Germans fielded an entirely new cartridge along with the first assault rifle, and in two years managed to produce nearly half million of these assault rifles. There are those engineers and politicians who say it takes years to develop and field a military cartridge and weapon system. I call, “Bull Shit”, when we were bombing them into dust and the Russians were crushing them under foot, the Germans fielded an entirely new cartridge along with the first assault rifle, and in two years managed to produce nearly half million of these assault rifles." ....How did this glorious little tidbit not get quoted just for the laugh factor?

You should totally get on TS so I can rant to you about it. But more or less yeah, only "It doesn't seem to work after decades of development yet its flaunted as one of the best mbts by its creator and blind fanboys despite the amount of technical problems that have hindered it's development" would be longer, but more accurate I guess.

I just got done ranting about how the K2 is the East Asian Arjun in many ways. You totally missed out.

The PRC never collapsed though. :smug: (Yes I know you're referring to the 6x48mm the USSR was designing, but smug posting to Olifant is our prime directive.)

Hover drives clearly.

So, missiles are always good. Mainly when NATO countries cry about Turkey buying them because their own bids lost and that's potential money COMMUNISM!

Big gun = best gun There's always a reason for big gun.

Next topic is a feature I'd like to call "get fucked Mike Sparks". So, we have a thread about IFVs in the forum, figured I'd add a bit about a (relatively) new series of 8x8 wheeled armored fighting vehicles, the Type 07P(pilot design)/ZBL-09 "Snow Leopard"/VN-1 (export version), while this has about a thousand different variants so far, I'll stick to the ACV/IFV Variants for now. Enter the Snow Leopard Things of note. Crew: 3 Troop carrying capacity: 7-10 Weight: 15-20+ Tonnes Armor: Originally 25mm APFSDS resistant on the frontal arc and 12.7mm SLAP immune 360 degrees, increased to 30mm APFSDS resistant on the frontal arc and 14.5mm SLAP resistant/API immune 360 degrees with later armor addon packages, hard spall liner, immune to fragments from 152/155mm artillery shells and blasts from at least 25m, various defenses and design features to protect against mines and IEDs. Armament: has a large assortment of different armament packages, however as I'm only referring to APC/ACV/IFC variants here, I'll only go with those for now, which are: 12.7mm or 14.5mm protected gun mount or remote controlled machine gun turret, a compact 25mm turret, and (as pictured above) a 30x165mm armed turret with a 7.62mm coaxial and the option to mount an HJ-73C, a highly modified, modernized AT-3 Sagger variant (The reason for using a dated design is that engaging enemy armor headon isn't a primary function, plus larger missiles like the HJ-8 and 9 were hard to do on the relatively small turret) on each side of the turret. Speed: Up to 100 km/h on roads, 8 km/h in amphibious operation. Engine: 440hp Diesel Range: 800km. --------- So, the story with this is simple, "Fuck Mike Sparks", and what I mean by that is, a big part of the development process of this was highly inspired by the PLA witnessing the Stryker and the success of US Stryker brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan (To a lesser extent, the way the Russians operate their BTR-80s was also an influence), pretty soon, they wanted a similar vehicle family that could perform the same functions: A respectably mobile platform on roads that could carry a large number of troops safely despite a relatively light weight and also be able to perform many other functions depending on what the mission calls for. Similar to the US, China has many roads (and are building more at quite a fast rate) and lots of country side to cover, this made it necessary to able to travel up to 800km on a full tank in the event it needs to travel without the aid of aircraft or railroads. One small note to add, that space between the second and third road wheels is there partially because some variants of the vehicle have access doors there. I actually like the concept of the US Stryker brigades and, more importantly, the fact other nations seem to like the idea enough to design their own clearly proves that the US made a grave error in not scrapping the Stryker program in favor of the ALMIGHTY M113 GAVIN!

You can get turbine engines pretty small these days, but yes, for the most part, It's not a question of "can you?" but "why would you?" Which apparently was also thought by those in power who said no to any work being put into it.

I figure I'll get this one out of the way now, with the trend of "BIG GUN!" and such showing up, and we'll go unto the rumor mill, which is of course, the rather infamous Type 99KM "proposal". This one rather annoys me because of the whole "China making a super tank, we must respond by x x blah blah" crap that gets posted when people see the concepts of it, or even worse, people who fanboy it as "THEIR NATIONS MAIN TANK HURR DURR MY INVENTION TOTALLY" on sperglordstates, for reference, here's a couple versions. Things to note, aside from the fact that it's overall profile is really low, is the fact that the reason people sperg about it is because of the supposed specs, it was stated to weigh 75-80 tonnes, have a 2700 hp diesel fueled turbine (some sources state a conventional engine), and, as mentioned before as far as the whole "BIG GUN!" thing goes, a 155mm smoothbore main cannon, This tank emerged around the time the name "ZTZ-99/Type 99" first appeared to outside sources, they didn't know what the vehicle was or that it was merely an improved version of the Type 98 family, there were concept images as seen above of said tank and rumors spread this was going to be one of the variants, this has yet to be seen. However, basically everyone I talked to with an inkling of knowledge inside the country has pretty much told me that it was indeed a proposal ...A proposal that wasn't taken seriously by almost anyone at all and was pretty quickly canned before any building whatsoever started, mainly considering they just started on the actual Type 99 you'll more often see today and the PLA ground forces get far less then the PLAAF and PLAN as it is, but because no one really bothered to look into it, rumors still spread about it. Some have even gone as far as to say It was never real in the first place, which could also be true. So, that wraps up that, but, there's at least some merit to the Chinese testing larger guns then 125mm or I wouldn't bother to write this in the first place, as every now and then you'll see photos such as these. Which is supposedly a 140mm gun, so I guess while it's possible there may be a PLA tank with a gun larger then 125mm in the future, It won't be the 99KM.

To be honest, even though I've had some people dig up numbers for me, I only have some pretty basic information on the 1 piece combustible case APFSDS that gets used in the 99A2. (It can also still use older 2 piece designs oddly enough.) The story about the rouds themslves are that they're confirmed to be DU Alloy (with small amounts of Titanium being the likely alloying agent) with a 30:1 L/D ratio and presumably 25mm in diameter (for 750mm total length.) and a very high muzzle velocity of 1780-1800m/s The claimed penetration in RHA is very high, likely because well....high velocity DU tends to do very well in plain steel compared to Tungsten, but it's claimed to be 850mm at 2km, there was also a claim of 960mm, I think that was either a mistranslation of the ATGM it uses (which is listed around 950mm usually) or the fact that unlike the first number, it simply says "steel" and not "armor steel" so, could just be softer test matierial for whatever reason on the second number. As for why, It's more because tanks like the 96 which use Soviet style 2 piece rounds simply lacked the effectiveness compared to, say, an Abrams using M829A3 so 1 piece rounds are likely going to become far more commonplace over the next few years.

0/10 No Strv-2000

Well, thread title is pretty obvious, It's a continuation of the original HAV thread without certain shitstains ruining it, post away.

So, basic introduction, to start off, we'll go with the latest backbone of the PLA Ground forces' Armored divisions, the ZTZ-96 G/A Basic specs. Crew: 3 Weight: 42-45 tonnes depending on equipment and addon armor/era. Power plant: 1,000 hp liquid cooled Diesel engine Speed: 65 km/h on roads 45 km/h off road Range: 400km without external tanks Armament: 125mm L/48 main gun with autoloader similar to the Soviet 2A46 (8 rounds per minute rof), ATGM capable, based on Russian Refleks-M missile, also has HEI-FRAG, HEAT, and APFSDS ammunition choices, W-85 12.7mm cupola machine gun (not pictured in this photo), 7.62mm coaxial machine gun. Wow, such sharp looking, very armor. Capability wise, this tank was recently pitted against some modern T-72B variants in a Russian tank Biathalon, and while it was deemed better in Armor, Armament, and Electronics, it lost out in mobility due to the underpowered engine, this killed all 730 and 780 hp engines in other ZTZ-96 G/As for the 1,000 hp engine. One interesting note: the boxes on the side actually contain equipment that interferes with the targetting systems of SACLOS missiles, aswell as laser designators, rangefinders and guidance systems, these can be seen when the tank is viewed from above. ----- The heavier, far stronger pride of the ground forces. ZTZ-99 (A2 variant pictured.) Crew: 3 Weight: 54-60 tonnes depending on variant Powerplant: 1,500 hp turbo charged liquid cooled diesel engine Speed: 80 km/h on roads, 60 km/h off road Range: 600km without external tanks. Armament: ZPT98 125mm L/52 autloaded gun with 8 rounds/minute rate of fire (some sources quote later variants at 11 rounds per minute), higher pressure tolerances, redesigned autoloader and other improvements, this allows it to fire improved ammunition such as far more deadly APFSDS then other 125mm autoloaded gun platforms in the PLA's inventory, it can still fire all other types of rounds aswell, W-85 12.7mm cupola machine gun, 7.62mm coaxial machine gun. Armor: While the exact thickness and composition isn't known, It's known from cutaway photos and some are pubically released information to have a hard spall liner as many other tanks these days, the actual armor composition itself are plates of high strength/toughness maraging steel sandwiching materials such as high hardness Aluminum oxides, aswell as layers of Graphene and unknown materials from there (likely something very dense), the boxes on the side of the turret and on the pike nose on the front are likely addon ceramic armor as opposed to ERA as originally believed and may be hollow to act as spaced armed, aside from the physical armor package, the tank also features ERA, NERA, and active defense systems that jam or alter the trajectory of various types of guided projectiles. So, this is the actual "elite" tank of the PLA to supplement the cheaper 96's, Originally it started out with a modest $2,500.000 production cost, however, as time grew on and they kept advancing it to the lastest standards of a top tier MBT, that sort of spiraled out of control a bit, coupled with the fact that the PLA ground forces don't get the same funding as the PLAAF and the PLAN, and the result was that, while the 99A2 has turned out to be a beast in it's own right, it simply isn't feasible price wise to give every tank crew a Type 99A2, however this is probably one of the most underrated 3rd generation MBTs as it's rarely talked about and theres a fuck ton of misinformation about it (mainly that it's a clone of the T-72/T-80 which is completely wrong) and well, it's goddamn pretty, and that counts for alot. Be sure to check my other topics covering other branches of the PLA http://sturgeonshouse.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/80-the-plan-present-and-future-or-the-rapid-modernization-of-the-chinese-navy-and-marines/- Regarding the Navy, Marines, and Weapons used by them and also land based anti ship defense systems. http://sturgeonshouse.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/71-the-future-of-pla-bullit-spitting-devices-powerful-chinese-weapons-and-units-thread/ - Regarding Infantry, small arms, and infantry support weapons. http://sturgeonshouse.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/87-the-plaaf-and-airborne-a-look-at-the-past-present-and-the-future/- Regarding the PLAAF Aircraft and weapon systems, helicopters, and the Airborne. A special thank you. I'd like to personally honor a few posters who have aided me and provided very solid data and posting in this thread, without them this thread and the other PLA related threads would be far less interesting. These should be the first people in here to ask about something. In no particular order. JimZhangZhang, Lightning, Akula_941, and U-47. And of course LoooSeR for keeping content in this thread when I wasn't able to.