Monday, December 13, 2010

New MBT Mods?

Type99G?

Type 96AG??

3 comments:

Camden Boy said...

Isn't the 2nd one just a Type 96 with out the frontal ERA fixed?

duskylim said...

In fact, I believe the 2nd picture to be a Type-59 with the Type-96 turret installed.

What convinces me is the slope and size of the frontal glacis plate on the hull and the position of the driver's vision ports.

A Type 99 with a hull based on the T-72, has the driver in a central location, just underneath the main gun when it is pointing forwards.

Plainly then this tank does not have the T-72 hull.

A Type-96 has the driver position on the left-front of the hull, same as in the Type-59,69,79, but the Type-96 upper-front glacis consists of several plates at very shallow angles - with a single lower glacis plate underneath.

This is the key to identifying this tank as a Type-59, which like the T-54/55 has a single large upper plate sloped about 45 degrees from the vertical.

Camden Boy said...

Sorry duskylim, but that's not a Type 59 chassis. Note the lack of a glacis mudguard, the position of the lights, and the tow points at the bottom rather than the top of the glacis. There is a variant (export) of the Type 59 with a Type 96 turret, but that looks nothing like this one:
http://china-defense.blogspot.com/2010/11/bangladesh-armys-new-type59g-mbt.html

The reason that the front of this Type 96 isn't angled is because it's the Type 96G, which has a flat front glacis for the application of ERA blocks. And to be honest the image is too blurry for us to see if there are slight angling of the frontal glacis.