Monday, March 30, 2009

3rd generation Chinese Type 99



Western forces beware, the Chinese have fielded the most advanced tank yet! Well, only the most advanced in China that is. Following in the ancient Chinese tradition of quantity over quality and cheap products, the Chinese have developed their own 3rd generation battle tank that they believe is the answer to the Western nations’ superior tank designs. Likewise, they also used their other ancient tradition of ripping off western designs to compensate for their lack of engineering ability in the design of this tank. Yes, the Type 99 tank does possess many up-to-date gimmicks like a laser awareness system to locate the direction of shots fired at it (hmmm….) assuming they don’t destroy it first I guess, and it can also be used to scramble an enemy tank’s optics, I guess again under the assumption that the enemy tank’s optics weren’t used to target and then subsequently destroy it. Among other criticisms laid down by numerous armor enthusiasts, observe the area located directly under the turret, how the armor is concave rather than convex, this design renders this area a “shot trap”, which is a serious design blunder
that increases vulnerability to frontal fire, the most common in a tank-on-tank battle. A shot could also jam the turret in this area even if it didn’t destroy the tank or kill it’s occupants. All in all, the Chinese have successfully developed a tank that rivals the western designs in speed, electronics, and almost there with the armor, but they still fall short in the overall design having not had any modern experience with tanks in battle

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