https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ ... good-81081Is China's ZTZ-96 Main Battle Tank Any Good?
Russia and America don't think so.
Is China's ZTZ-96 Main Battle Tank Any Good?
- Xiaoshan_Sailor
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Is China's ZTZ-96 Main Battle Tank Any Good?
Interesting article on China's ZTZ-96.
- 43rdRecceReg
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Re: Is China's ZTZ-96 Main Battle Tank Any Good?
I guess the first question to ask would be whether it's a fake, or the genuine item
I believe a Chinese firm managed to produce a counterfeit Porsche (with a Ford engine? ),
and so a fake tank is not beyond the bounds of possibility.
I believe a Chinese firm managed to produce a counterfeit Porsche (with a Ford engine? ),
and so a fake tank is not beyond the bounds of possibility.
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please"- Mark Twain.
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Re: Is China's ZTZ-96 Main Battle Tank Any Good?
No main battle tanks are any good any more! They are like the battle ship. Great in WW1 but out-moded by the carrier in WW2. The new battlefield fire and forget missile launchers are small, highly mobile and score every time with no line of sight required.
We don't have them in 1/16 yet so don't panic!
We don't have them in 1/16 yet so don't panic!
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- jarndice
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Re: Is China's ZTZ-96 Main Battle Tank Any Good?
I wouldn't go loading the "Fake" Military propaganda solely upon the Chinese,
American Nuclear Submarines rarely if ever carry the proper Fleet Numbers on its Conning Tower indeed they are irregularly repainted with a different number just as the Lockheed SR71 Blackbird whose Tailfins similarly carried an assortment of different numbers throughout its service.
And closer to home if you go to the Army Air Corp Museum at Middle Wallop you will see a De-Havilland Canada 2 Beaver Numbered XP821 and it is painted in United Nations Markings and the White and Blue of that organisation,
If you ask the staff why it is painted in that scheme you will get a cock and bull tale about "Aid to the people of Kampuchea/Cambodia and Laos"
The US Army was flying the U6 in Vietnam in a number of roles and was well known by the troops on the ground and by US Navy/Marine and Airforce aircrews,
The U6 was the US army's designation for the Beaver,
Coincidently the British Army's Beaver XP821 was flying aid for the UN in South East Asia when the UN could have had access to any number of single engined liason aircraft but it was considered safer to fly a type that the belligerents recognised as friendly so it was able to operate a lot closer to the action than has ever been admitted.
There is a lot more to this story but I like my freedom.
American Nuclear Submarines rarely if ever carry the proper Fleet Numbers on its Conning Tower indeed they are irregularly repainted with a different number just as the Lockheed SR71 Blackbird whose Tailfins similarly carried an assortment of different numbers throughout its service.
And closer to home if you go to the Army Air Corp Museum at Middle Wallop you will see a De-Havilland Canada 2 Beaver Numbered XP821 and it is painted in United Nations Markings and the White and Blue of that organisation,
If you ask the staff why it is painted in that scheme you will get a cock and bull tale about "Aid to the people of Kampuchea/Cambodia and Laos"
The US Army was flying the U6 in Vietnam in a number of roles and was well known by the troops on the ground and by US Navy/Marine and Airforce aircrews,
The U6 was the US army's designation for the Beaver,
Coincidently the British Army's Beaver XP821 was flying aid for the UN in South East Asia when the UN could have had access to any number of single engined liason aircraft but it was considered safer to fly a type that the belligerents recognised as friendly so it was able to operate a lot closer to the action than has ever been admitted.
There is a lot more to this story but I like my freedom.
I think I am about to upset someone
- 43rdRecceReg
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Re: Is China's ZTZ-96 Main Battle Tank Any Good?
What happens to the driver's head, when the Gun suddenly drops down into the maximum hull-down position?
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please"- Mark Twain.
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Re: Is China's ZTZ-96 Main Battle Tank Any Good?
He gets a bump! When the gun is fully lowered and then traverses he gets decapitated. However, like Russia in WW2, what's the loss of a man when there are so many replacements available?
Weren't the UKs first claimed nuclear bombs nothing of the sort? Little white lies!
Weren't the UKs first claimed nuclear bombs nothing of the sort? Little white lies!
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Re: Is China's ZTZ-96 Main Battle Tank Any Good?
I don't know that I'd go that far. The tank may no longer have the pre-eminence it enjoyed during the Second World War, but it's still an important part of combined-arms warfare in terms of heavy support and exploitation. Tanks might suffer in asymmetrical and/or urban warfare, but that's nothing new; it's just a limitation of the concept. Anti-tank guns and handheld shaped-charge weapons didn't make tanks obsolete, so it's unlikely that ATGMs and standoff ground-attack aircraft will do the same. There's always been that constant arms race, there are always new countermeasures.General Jumbo01 wrote:No main battle tanks are any good any more! They are like the battle ship. Great in WW1 but out-moded by the carrier in WW2. The new battlefield fire and forget missile launchers are small, highly mobile and score every time with no line of sight required.
To be honest, I'm pretty happy that there haven't been any large-scale conflicts between powerful industrial nations to put the theory into practice. Being an armchair general is a lot more fun when no lives are at stake.
I'd like to think that in a situation where the gun might be aiming at something rapidly, the driver would have the good sense to be well within cover!43rdRecceReg wrote:
What happens to the driver's head, when the Gun suddenly drops down into the maximum hull-down position?
- jarndice
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Re: Is China's ZTZ-96 Main Battle Tank Any Good?
The UKs first Nuclear Bomb Test produced what is known as a "Squib" To be polite it underperformed
In the very descriptive terms of Wiley Coyote it went bnag instead of BANG,
Practice makes perfect and now we can kill millions of innocents just as well as anybody else who has the bomb.
In the very descriptive terms of Wiley Coyote it went bnag instead of BANG,
Practice makes perfect and now we can kill millions of innocents just as well as anybody else who has the bomb.
I think I am about to upset someone
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Re: Is China's ZTZ-96 Main Battle Tank Any Good?
One could say that all nuclear bombs detonated in the 40's and 50's went bnag instead of bang, including the ones dropped on Japan. They were immensely inefficient.jarndice wrote:The UKs first Nuclear Bomb Test produced what is known as a "Squib" To be polite it underperformed
In the very descriptive terms of Wiley Coyote it went bnag instead of BANG,
Practice makes perfect and now we can kill millions of innocents just as well as anybody else who has the bomb.
To think that the one dropped on Hiroshima only detonated around 2%, that's 7grams, (the size of a peppercorn) of its uranium, the rest, 98% of the fissile material just being blown apart in the air and not contributing to the destruction.
It certainly brings home just how scary these weapons are.
When I did my apprenticeship, I worked with guys that had worked on our British nuclear test program in the Easter Island area (edit; Or was it the Christmas islands? probably the Xmas ones), they had machine workshops in the back of lorries, probably why they struggled to get it right
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Re: Is China's ZTZ-96 Main Battle Tank Any Good?
As for the Chinese tanks. . . .
This isn't the first time this has happened to them in other tank exercises.
Watch "ZTZ-96B lose a wheel during Tank Biathlon 2016" on YouTube
Watch "Chinese Type-96B Tank Breaks Down in Tank Biathlon 2018" on YouTube
To be fair to them, they did win a race in an event.
Watch "Chinese Team Wins Competition in Tank Biathlon" on YouTube
This isn't the first time this has happened to them in other tank exercises.
Watch "ZTZ-96B lose a wheel during Tank Biathlon 2016" on YouTube
Watch "Chinese Type-96B Tank Breaks Down in Tank Biathlon 2018" on YouTube
To be fair to them, they did win a race in an event.
Watch "Chinese Team Wins Competition in Tank Biathlon" on YouTube
Mick - The grit in the underpants of life!
And always happy to spare the bytes
TOTM needs YOU support YOUR TOTM competition, I'm doing my part, are YOU?
And always happy to spare the bytes
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