 The Chinese Type 98 Main Battle Tank | Type 98
General characteristics | | Length | 11 m | | Width | 3.4 m | | Height | 2 m | | Weight | 52 t | | Suspension | Torsion bar | | Speed | 65 km/h road
47 km/h off-road | | Range | 450 km, with external tanks 600 km | | Primary armament | 125 mm smoothbore cannon | | Secondary armament | Coaxial 7.62 mm machine gun
12.7 mm machine gun on roof | | Armour | Thought to be similiar to the T-80 mm | | Power plant | Liquid cooled diesel
Type 98 1200 hp, Type 99 1500 hp ( kW) | | Crew | 3 (commander, gunner, driver) | The Type 99, formerly known as Type 98 and Type 98G, is the latest main battle tank fielded by the Chinese People's Liberation Army. It has increased firepower, mobility and protection versus older tanks such as the Type 88 or Type 59. ImageMetadata File history File links Type_98_Main_Battle_Tank. ...
ImageMetadata File history File links Type_98_Main_Battle_Tank. ...
The metre (Commonwealth English) or meter (American English) (symbol: m) is the SI base unit of length. ...
The word ton or tonne is derived from the Old English tunne, and ultimately from the Old French tonne, and referred originally to a large cask with a capacity of 252 wine gallons, which holds approximately 2100 pounds of water. ...
Military vehicles are commonly armoured to withstand the impact of shrapnel, bullets or shells, protecting the soldiers inside from enemy fire. ...
The T-80 is a Soviet/Russian/Ukrainian Main Battle Tank. ...
Diesel or Diesel fuel is a specific fractional distillate of fuel oil (mostly petroleum) that is used as fuel in a diesel engine invented by German engineer Rudolf Diesel. ...
The horsepower (hp) is the name of several non-metric units of power. ...
The US M1A1 Abrams tank is a typical modern main battle tank. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
The Chinese Type 59 Main Battle Tank is a copy of the ubiquitous Russian T-55/54 medium tank. ...
Development
The tank was revealed in October 1999 during the national parade and entered service in small numbers for operational tests and evaluation before the finalization of the design. 1999 is a common year starting on Friday Anno Domini (or the Current Era), and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...
The production version, known as initially as Type 98G and later as Type 99, was revealed in 2001. It had an improved engine, additional Leopard 2 A6-style armour on the turret front and sides, and explosive reactive armour. 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...
The Leopard 2 is a German main battle tank developed in the early 1970s and first entering service in 1979, replacing the earlier Leopard in the MBT role in the Bundeswehr. ...
This article or section should be merged with Reactive armour Explosive Reactive Armour. ...
Note: the official manufacturer's designation seems to be ZTZ-99. The tank is also known as the WZ-123 MBT.
Design The design of Type 98 was influenced by the Soviet T-72 and the German Leopard 2. It also has features new to the PLA such as a slope shaped turret which increases protection. The driver's compartment is in the front, with the fighting compartment/turret directly behind, and power pack in the rear. Soviet redirects here. ...
The T-72, a Soviet main battle tank entered production in 1971. ...
The Leopard 2 is a German main battle tank developed in the early 1970s and first entering service in 1979, replacing the earlier Leopard in the MBT role in the Bundeswehr. ...
To accommodate more equipment and rounds, the Type 98's turret is slightly larger than that of the Type 90, which has resulted in a gap between turret and the hull in the front. This could be a major disadvantage in battle as it acts as a shelltrap [much like the overhang on the German Leopard 2 and Israeli Merkava] and exposes the turret ring, increasing the likelihood of hits from the front jamming the turret. The Leopard 2 is a German main battle tank developed in the early 1970s and first entering service in 1979, replacing the earlier Leopard in the MBT role in the Bundeswehr. ...
Merkava (Hebrew: â–¶) is a series of main battle tanks developed and manufactured by Israel for the Israel Defense Forces. ...
In addition, the Type 98 also lacks designs often found on Western MBTs, which minimize the damage caused by HEAT projectiles. For example, armor bulkheads separating the crew compartment from the fuel tanks and rounds, as well as top panels designed to blow outwards in case of explosion, are non-existent in the tank. This could lead to low damage survivability in combat according to the experiences of the 1991 Gulf War. A red-hot iron rod cooling after being worked by a blacksmith. ...
A bulkhead is an upright wall within the hull of a ship. ...
C Company, 1st Battalion, The Staffordshire Regiment, 1st UK Armoured Division The 1991 Gulf War was a conflict between Iraq and a coalition force of approximately 30 nations mandated by the United Nations and led by the United States. ...
The tank is equiped with a active laser defense system. The designers claim the laser warning receiver can determine the location of an attacking enemy tank, while the high powered laser dazzler can damage/destroy the enemy's optics system. The range of sizes in which lasers exist is immense, extending from microscopic diode lasers (top) to football field sized neodymium glass lasers (bottom) used for inertial confinement fusion. ...
Dazzler is a type of a directed-energy weapon employing intense visible light, usually generated by a laser (laser dazzler). ...
Armament The main armament is a fully-stabilized 125 mm smoothbore gun with an autoloader. Despite the early reports indicating the gun was a licensed copy of the Russian 2A46, it is actually an indigenous design derived from the Chinese 120 mm smoothbore gun. Smoothbore refers to a firearm which does not have a rifled barrel. ...
Ammunition includes armor piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot rounds (APFSDS), high explosive anti-tank rounds (HEAT), and high explosive fragmentation (HE-FRAG) projectiles. China has also reportedly manufactured Russian AT-11 laser guided anti-tank missiles (ATGM) to be fired from the 125 mm gun. In addition, the Chinese have experimentally developed depleted uranium (DU) rounds for their tanks and these may be available to the Type 98. High explosive anti-tank, more commonly known as HEAT, rounds are made of an explosive shaped charge that uses the Neumann effect (a development of the Munroe effect) to create a very high velocity jet of metal in a state of superplasticity that can punch through solid armor. ...
AT-11 Sniper is the is the NATO reporting name for a laser beam riding guided anti-tank missile of the former Soviet Union. ...
An Anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) is a missile the primary purpose of which is to hit and destroy tanks. ...
// Depleted uranium (DU) is uranium which contains a reduced proportion of the fissile isotope U-235. ...
The front armor of Type 98 is actually 3 steel plates "sandwiching" 2 ceramic plates, which gives protection approximately equivalent to 500mm of RHA. After explosive reactive armour is added, it is said to be equivalent to 1000mm of RHA. RHA stands for Rolled Homogeneous Armour. ...
This article or section should be merged with Reactive armour Explosive Reactive Armour. ...
Note: as of Dec 18, 2005, the actual armor composition of the Type-98/ZTZ-99 remains unknown. However, it should come as no surprise if advanced composites make up part of the tank's passive protection, as there are public photos of experimental Chinese composite armors, specficially Al2O3. Also, there is significant difference between the armor packages displayed on the current ZTZ-99s and the ones first found 2 years ago. Most speculate that the current tanks have a layer of ERA (explosive reactive armor) attached to the turret and the glacis plate. Also interesting is that the additional frontal turret protection might very well be closely related to the latest Pakistani Al-Khalid's frontal turret protection, which consists of spaced armor (as found on German Leopard 2A5s and onward) covered with ERA. This, however, is disputed due to the fact that traditional spaced armor requires much more length than the additions the ZTZ-99 received has. Turret (highlighted) attached to a tower on a baronial building in Scotland In architecture, a turret (from Italian: torretta, little tower; Latin: turris, tower) is a small tower that projects from the wall of a building, such as a medieval castle or baronial house. ...
A glacis ( or ) in military engineering is an artificial slope of earth in the front of works such as fortifications, so constructed as to keep any potential assailant under the fire of the defenders to the last possible moment. ...
See Also The Chinese Type 59 Main Battle Tank is a copy of the ubiquitous Russian T-55/54 medium tank. ...
The Chinese Type 69 and Type 79 tanks were developments of the Type 59, which in turn was a copy of the Soviet T-54/55 series of tanks. ...
Also known as the Type 88C, the Type 96 is the final development variant of Chinas second generation main battle tank (MBT), with certain performance approaching the standard of the third generation MBTs. ...
The T-72, a Soviet main battle tank entered production in 1971. ...
The T-90 main battle tank, the most modern tank in the Russian army arsenal, went into low-level production in 1993, based on a prototype designated as the T-88. ...
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