China set to field world's most powerful tank

Interesting story, thought I would share with my fellow tread heads #:-)

-snip
Jane's Defense Weekly, a respected Britain-based military journal, said the People's Liberation Army is set to deploy a new main battle tank, or MBT, that, when fielded, will become the most powerful of its kind in the world.

The magazine said the tank will feature a huge 152 mm main gun with an automatic loader that, when coupled with a new advanced aiming system, will enable the tank to fire on the move with high first-hit-first-kill capability.
....
The latter two MBTs also are fitted with a JD-3 integrated laser rangefinder/warning/self-defense device – also called a "dazzler" – which uses a high-powered laser to directly attack the enemy weapon's optics and gunner.

AFPC said China is believed to be the first country to use such active laser defense devices on its tanks.
-snip

Interesting stuff
More here
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32501

What the paper failed to report is that Da Hong Kong Connection is the man behind this thingy....

Be afraid, be very afraid, dudes!!! Especially you!!! Yes, YOU!!!! #:-)

Done think it will go that far, you yanks will probably make something stronger! btw is it true that the depleted uranium in your M1A1 Abrams is unique in your country?

Its not the tank its the crew. 152mm main gun, auto loader or not has got to be brutal on the crew. A couple of rounds down range and these guys will be shell shocked. Also, a BIG gun alone does not make a super tank. In WWII the Germans fielded the King Tiger with its long barreled 88. Yet one P-47 with a couple of rockets and bombs could take it out.

Let China field its 'uber' tank - when it comes to a shooting war I'll take a motivated American crew and their M1A2 any day. Oh, and by the way how do you say Warthog in Chinese?m:-)

My thoughts exactly Patton. If GW1 and 2 taught anyone anything it is that without air superiority tanks = ground targets.

I'm with the other fellas saying that a "gun doesn't make a super tank", you should also consider mobility, protection, reliability and the logistic chain you have to put in place to support them in the field. On top of that there are really few places where you can take advantages of such a gun, at least here in Europe...
Ciao

I agree with the above this tank could be a nite-mare to service sounds like a nest of gremlins looking for a home. a gun that size and the parts involved with a auto-loader? problem if it breaks in combat? see above example TARGET looks like a lot of hype to me but thats just what i think luv my M1A1 TURRETTOAD 13 OUT.

I think the Soviets have an autoloader in one of thier tanks (T-72?) I heard the autoloader had a nasty habit of loading the gunner into the breach before they worked out the bugs...

I bet the US defense industry is dancing in the streets, lots of money coming there way.

China should be proud of there supertank for the 15 minutes the US allows them to be #1, any longer and it would make a mockery of all the "We're #1" bumperstickers.

A tank firing that size round would either have limited ammo or would be huge. You are also correct in what it is like to shoot a big gun in an armored vehicle, having shot a few 152 rounds out of a Sheridan. Now, we are looking at a long-barreled gun, with high velocity rounds, this equals more propellant, huge rounds, etc. Man, what a monster and what a recoil!

Auto-loaders are notoriously bad for business; if they were so good why don't we use them??

Yeah, give me our air-ground team any day. These just look like oversized, movable pill boxes to me. In a defensive war with air superiority is may do OK as a tank killer, but not in today's environment. The tactics in GW1 and GW2 both point to a combination of maneuver, firepower and agility... not Bigger is Better. I think the M1A2 is about as big as you want to go.

What military genius thought up this nightmare?

If firepower was all that made a tank great.... then explain WW II.........

The T-64 had a automatic loader which had a vertical ammunition stowage system that in the early years of service had a habit of injuring crewmen.

The T-72 had a horizontal feed system that supposaly fixed the prob that plagued the T-64.

I also remember reading somewhere that one or more soviet tanks with auto loader systems had to have the gun at a speciffic elevation and position in order to reload but I dont' remember which they were. I also remember reading that this was why U.S. tanks kept the gunner. because they didn't want to be constrained to taking the sights off the target to reload once they started shooting......

maybe someone else could elaborate on this.....

I think it was the T-64 that had to have the gun at max elevation to reload. I could be wrong though, but that was the first Soviet MBT to try the auto loader.

FYI, the sighting system in modern MBTs is not "slaved" to the gun. In other words, when the gun goes to 0° elevation, the gunner still maintains the same sight picture.

In the M1 tank, when the loader puts the gun on "safe" so he can load the next round, the gunner's sight still follows the target. As soon as the loader places the lever up and the gun is armed, the main gun then jumps to the proper elevation. The gun also adjusts to the proper superelevation as soon as the gunner "lazes" the target and the range and speed are calculated by the fire control system. All of this is invisible to the gunner who maintains the proper sight picture. Well, except for the noise of the main gun jumping up or down only inches from his head.

I imagine that a modern tank with an auto loader would have a similar system and the gunner would be able to keep the sights on the target regardless of the elevation required to auto load. This isn't exactly new technology, the M60s had it and the initial M1 design is pushing 25 years old now.

I did a paper ten years ago while at the Royal Military College of Science in Shrivenham, the UK. The idea then was to design an MBT with a 140mm gun. No problem. However, it had to fit on a standard railroad flatcar and be transported through tunnels, and had to be no more than 70 tonnes with had to have a crew of three. It was theoretically possible, but the problem was that the gun's recoil distance had a direct impact on the size of the turret ring. We couldn't keep the weight below 70 tonnes. in fact it approached 80 as I recall. So now all of our equipment bridging couldn't handle the load. An interesting project. I made a lovely model of the beast out of cardboard and wood. Can't imagine the technical probems with a 152mm gun.

Nowadays you don't need such a heavy tank. mobility is most important at modern battlefield. i think there won't be great battles like kursk so they can use their tank as a mobile bunker.

It reminds me of someone else who enjoyed the "big is better syndrome" Uncle Adolf. He pushed his people to one close to or over 175 tons. As one of our other brothers suggested the size alone would be prohibitive in alot of respects. Unless they came up with some new armor lighter stronger and other structural replacements etc. It should be interesting, but again it reminds me of the Wagnerian solution! Besides as some of you have mentioned Air-Ground coordination and resources is the key.




Butch Cassidy Tanks46
Pig#3 Head Armorer
DSB

Interesting points but...

I say we wait till we have more info and pics before making any judgements as to its effectiveness and viability.

hmmm.... one of the major factors seems to be recoil..... I wonder if any of the principals of some of the old recoilless guns would work or maybe insead of standard shells... rocket porpelled warheads......(that might cut down on the weight of the turrent ring and mass of the gun.).. pure speculation here by the way.... feel free to shoot down these ideas........

Delbert
I used to shoot with a recoiless 106mm gun when I was in command of an anti-tank platoon. I just cannot immagine how you can use this kind of gun in a tank turret, unless you do not want to transform it in an oven... Even if you will be able to find a way to discharge the exausts outside of the turret how can you manage to load the gun? If I'm not wrong the M60A2 was not equipped with conventional ammo, but I have not direct experience with it...
Ciao

this new tank sounds to me like a sitting duck! the size it would have to be to accomadate that gun, autoloader and enough ammo would make it an easy target for anyone! add to this the notorious unreliability of autoloaders and the slow rate of fire they have and this thing would be near useless in modern warfare.

why do you all love the abrams so much, the recent opperations in iraq proved that the challenger 2 is superior ( and cheaper )

big problem with past auto loaders was it raised the tube up causing gunner to lose sight picture. if you don't get first round hit do you know how to say oh oh in Chinese.

Read my first post above, this isn't true any more. One thing the Chinese do not have is Force Projection, or the ability to send this monster to where you want to fight. Be nervous if you are a bordering country, but if they want to transport fighting forces by air or sea, it is doubtful the USN or USAF would let that happen. Not too many true Blue Ocean Navys left in the world.

Good points Sabot, as always. I don't think we have to worry about these things rolling off of LCACs onto the Jersey shore anytime soon. If the USN didn't stop them, Tony Soprano would...

A lazer-dazzler. Very clever. What kind of power packs are they gonna put in these things? one fast-breeder for every company.. They're also gonnna have to redesign/rebuild every bridge in China (or has it go amphib. capability too?) as the weight of one o fthese puppies is going to make for some interesting diorama possiblities. I don't think we need to be too worried. it sounds like one of these feelgood stories put out by the PRC to keep the populations mind off other less savoury topics like human rights or SARs.... Jim

I think the Chinese translation for Warthog is:

"Holy Crap! here it comes again!!!"



Jabos, Stukas, IL-2s, Warthogs- the bigger the tank, the easier the target

Re. a possible Red Chinese invasion of NJ, one of China's problems is the lack of amphibious warfare capablity. It would also have to construct a new generation of tank-landing craft to move the new "Super-Tank"........jim