The evolution of Chinese tank design

China has designed a new light tank for operations in the high-altitude rugged terrain in Tibet region which borders India. The new tank has a light weight and a powerful diesel engine suitable for oxygen-deficit environments, according to huanqiu.com, a well-informed website which is a chosen platform to reveal advances in China's military modernization and defence technology.

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Opinion piece by Luke Herbert

The Chinese twin developmental pathway of land based and amphibious tanks is a reflection of their current and future strategic ambitions. China's strategic ambitions can be said on their disputed border with India and territorial ambitions in Asia. China's disputed border region with India is a mountainous region. The geography of China's territorial ambitions in Asia is to varied to document in this article.

I believe that The People's Liberation Army has pursued a twin developmental pathway in the field of tank design. The yet to named light tank does from the limited amount of information available appear to be aimed at the disputed border with India and The People's Liberation Army land warfare doctrines. As for the evolving People's Liberation Army's ,Air Force's and Navy's amphibious doctrine the ZTD-05 Amphibious assault tank armored vehicle (hereafter the ZTD-05) is fore mentioned light tank cousin from another mother manufacturing plant.

Could this newly unveiled tank spawn an amphibious variant? Naturally I can't give the reader answer for certain as the Chinese aren't kind enough to supply me with blueprints. My instinctive feeling is that the answer is no due too the different demands placed on machinery by thin air and cold temperatures mountain regions and sea ward amphibious environments.

One caveat I would add is that if the ZTD-05 is a working project and not a production model the tank hatch is open to my above assertion being incorrect . One might say using a light tank as the design or DNA basis for the sisters the People's Liberation Army is seeking as an additional family member. If the sisters are non identical twins they could give birth to the tanks in the developmental pathway I mentioned above.

The sisters DNA will be that of a gun carrier that will support the infantry in combat operations. The reader may want to consider the possibility that the Chinese have developed a medium tank which have they mislabeled in an effort to fool foreign observers and intelligence agency's. In a future war aside from supporting infantry: a medium tank would make for a good spear head good for the People's Liberation Army as they invade the Philippines and Borneo to name two places.

Chinese nationalistic pride gives credence to the idea that the design of a light tank is complicated in comparison to its predecessor. The Chinese neither desire or have a requirement for a complicated main battle tank which would equal or better the M1 Abrams , the main battle tank in service with the US Army. I believe the People's Liberation Army procurement will have been for a tank with standard thermal imaging equipment; armor to protect the crew from RPG, IED and small arms fire. The tanks gun will be powerful enough to destroy embedded machine gun posts and the occasional enemy armored unit they encounter.

I cannot stress enough how a simpler design allows for mass production of the tank in viable numbers to allow for the replacement of wartime losses and equipping new units. Ease of maintenance is the other essential component of any war time design. The need for the People's Liberation Army to place a “complicated “ tank design in operational service is non existent because a fairy straight forward “simple” design can meet war time and operational demands.