We are so off topic I feel bad and yet I'm so interested in the topic I can hardly fail to respond. It's a dilemma!Charcharo said:We wont have time to see who was right or wrong. We would already be dead...
The chances of me crewing any one of these machines is minimal. For me a realistic one would be T-72M2 (very heavily upgraded, not like them monkey models
I WOULD choose and Abrams though. Comparable power to the T-90, but better crew comfort.
As a general or a commander or a politician though... I would choose T-90. Comparable to Abrams yet cheaper.
The Type 99 and its variants seem to be the real deal. They are taking their program very seriously. The Chinese had weapon tests a year ago with cannons from all over the world. They liked the Russian 125mm the most (though the L55 of the Leopard 2 was no worse).
However, their variant of the Russian 125mm 2A46 which is used on the new models is even better.
That is what they say. And the Chinese, even if they do use propaganda on their populace, take these things seriously.
So I do think it is at least comparable to other modern tanks. Very cheap too.... well compared to the rest
There is nothing wrong with copying what works. All are copying old French/German/British/Soviet designs at this point anyway
The T-14 may be quite exciting. Of coarse, later on even better tanks will come, but the entire program the Russians had with the "Armata" series was VERY well thought out.
I wouldn't chose the Abrams because of crew comfort but crew survivability. The Abrams is very resistant to damage whilst also keeping teh crew alive. As far as I know, only one crew has ever been killed in combat driving an Abrams. The tank itself, even if damaged, can usually be repaired. The crew... not so much. There is a lot more doubt surrounding the T-90 because, even though it has similar armor specs, the ammunition storage is awful because of the auto-loader. There are good reasons to think that a penetrated Abrams will keep its crew alive and be repaired. There are also good reasons to think that a T-90 who's internal ammo explodes will leave you with a dead crew and unsalvageable tank.
I do know of the weapons tests for the Type 99, the issue I have is with the claims matching up with reality. This is why I mentioned the FC-31 and J-series aircraft. On the spreadsheet, the stats look great but video of manuvers for the various craft show very troubling design flaws. Even though the J-series is basically a rip-off of the MiG, it's anything but a perfect copy. Check out the way the FC-31 looses altitude during manuvers, and that's even without its combat package installed. This has left me soured on teh reliability of Chinese made armaments regardless of what the posted stats are and regardless of how serious they are about having a good MBT. I'm not saying it's a bad tank, I really don't know, but I'm not going to take tehir word for it either.
Also, it's not so much copying what works that's the problem. It's poorly copying what works.
I totally agree about the Armata series though. The achievements with that tank have been admirable!
Thanks for chatting by the way, I love bantering about military tech and get so few chances to do so. I appreciate your time!
