In the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the tank, which has dominated the land battlefield for more than 100 years, has been completely pulled off the altar, regardless of whether you are a $4 million T-90M or a $10 million Leopard 2, a drone for a few hundred dollars or a mine for several thousand dollars can be solved, is the existing tank outdated, or is it a tactical mistake of the user? This article will carry out a brief analysis of this, and will discuss the Chinese 99A and the next generation of main battle tanks.
The turret of the Russian tank, which was killed by the explosion of ammunition after being hit, flew up, and the members inside were undoubtedly wiped out.
First of all, let's talk about the prevailing "tank uselessness theory", since the tank can't stop the drone, is the tank outdated? The answer is no, the current situation is that despite the heavy losses of tanks in the face of UAVs and anti-tank missiles, it is still impossible to find a weapon that can replace tanks in the world's largest arsenals and even the ** projects under development. In the brutal battlefield, the tank is still a transcendent existence that integrates firepower, protection and mobility, to put it bluntly, the tank is not good, but other armored vehicles are even more in vain.
Compared with the performance of the main battle tank on the battlefield, the more grim fact is that the potential of the tank has been tapped to the extreme, and how to develop it next has become a dilemma. Specifically, in terms of defense capabilities, increasing (the thickness of the armor in front of the turret of the 99A tank has exceeded 1 meter) and the thickness of the armor has been useless, and the thickness of the armor of the main battle tanks in various countries around the world has reached the extreme, and no matter how thick it is, it will be overweight, and the mobility and passability will plummet, and the development and popularization of anti-tank ** have made the tank armor like paper paste.
There has been no further improvement in mobility, and at present, the main battle tanks of various countries in the world have been popularized with 1200-1700 horsepower diesel engines or gas turbines, which are already capable of supporting large iron bumps of 50-70 tons at high speeds of 70 kilometers per hour (the 99A tank has a 1500 horsepower engine with a higher power compartment). At present, this kind of power is enough, no matter how high the speed is, is it meaningless to run faster than a drone? In the next stage, tank power should develop in terms of reliability, energy saving, and maintainability, but there is no big progress to look forward to.
The firepower is even more lackluster, at present, the tanks of various countries use 120-125 mm main guns, the potential of this caliber tank gun has been exhausted, although the United States and Russia have studied 140 mm tank guns, but limited by the huge size of artillery and shells, it is still not practical. When the Americans were studying the 140mm tank gun, there was a joke that the American M1A2 tank was tested for a new artillery, and after it was installed, it was found that there was no room for personnel to move in the turret. The Russians' solution is to directly develop an unmanned turret, but this is technically risky and needs to be verified for a long time.
The reloaded version of the 99A tank, this turret protection is very exaggerated, but unfortunately the drone specializes in the weak parts of the tank.
In general, if the tank wants to increase its protection capability, it must increase the thickness of its armor, if it wants to increase its firepower, it must increase its hull, and if it wants to enhance its mobility, it must reduce its weight. The performance of 99A has reached the extreme, and no matter how much it is improved on this basis, it cannot adapt to the battlefield dominated by UAVs, combined with the experience of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the squad leader feels that China's next generation of main battle tanks will have the following progress.
First of all, the new structure of the new hull, the separation of people and ammunition, the shells must no longer be placed in the car body, but should be placed in a separate magazine at the rear of the turret, so as to prevent the ammunition in the car body from being destroyed after the weak parts are penetrated. The experience of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict shows that it is futile to rely solely on tanks to counter UAVs, and it must be supported by an information-based confrontation system with electronic warfare aircraft in the air as the core, and the degree of informatization of existing tanks is far from enough.
The Russian T14 tank uses an unmanned turret, but the technological innovation is too big, and they themselves have little confidence.
Finally, the active defense system of the tank is strengthened, the existing active defense system of the tank is mainly based on anti-missiles and rockets, and almost no small UAVs are considered, and the UAV signal jammer temporarily installed by the Russian army on the tank has proven to be useless (the jamming distance is too short, and the UAV will hit it by inertia even if the control is interfered). The next generation of tanks must be strengthened with anti-drone systems, such as drone detection, jamming, attack systems, laser stations, and so on.
The remote-controlled version of the Type 99 tank, perhaps in the future the remote-controlled tank will become a reality.
In the past, all the technical indicators of the tank were prepared for the tank Armageddon, and its main imaginary enemy was the tank, but modern warfare is changing too fast, and tanks against tanks have not been encountered several times in the whole war (the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has been fought so far, and the number of direct confrontations between Russian and Ukrainian tanks is very rare). If you want to adapt to the war, the tank can only start from scratch, and the next generation of Chinese tanks should be even more so, which is also a good time for us to overtake in the corner.