China-US Army Cooperation Project: Jaguar Medium Main Battle Tank

[蛙蛙们懂王来了就没狗粮了]

[Would you like to see this in-game?]

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The Jaguar tank is a highly completed prototype, not a blueprint vehicle.
Because the Peace Model Project had already completed design finalization and trial production of two complete prototype vehicles, the plan was abandoned due to international political changes.
The only two prototype Jaguar tanks are currently located in Louisiana, USA, in front of the Cadillac Gage Destron factory.
The “Jaguar” was equipped with a L7A3 105mm rifled tank gun produced by the Royal Ordnance Works in the UK, which also had a heat shield. A huge telescope like instrument was also installed at the tail of the gun.
Back then, a company called Optoelectronics provided optical fire control equipment to the US Army, including a muzzle reference system collimator mounted on the end of the L7/M68 rifled gun.
In addition to this external system, the wedge-shaped armor on both sides of the gun turret has two gap openings. The left gap retains the traditional Type 59 telescopic articulated tank gun sight, while the right gap is a parallel machine gun.
Therefore, the “Jaguar” tank still adopts the personnel layout of the Type 59 tank, with the gunner on the left front of the turret, the commander behind the gunner, and the loader on the right side of the turret.
But on the right side of the turret, there is a rectangular sighting device in front of the handhold cover, which is a new type of gunner sighting mirror, and there is also an M2 type 12 above it 7mm anti-aircraft machine gun.
With the advancement of electronic technology, the M1A2 main battle tank has installed a commander’s independent sight on the left side, which transmits the image of the left sight to the commander’s seat on the right side through electronic transmission technology. The “Jaguar” tank also uses this imaging system, which has a thermal imaging sight for the same gunner (integrated laser ranging function).
Honeywell, a manufacturer of general thermal imaging components in the United States, initially used a conversion system to enable the commander to see the image inside the gunner’s thermal imaging sight when developing a thermal imaging sight for the M1 main battle tank.
The company also upgraded the gunner thermal imaging system for M48, M60, and Jaguar tanks to replace early night vision systems, and integrated Nd YAG laser rangefinders. Additionally, a set of displays was added to the commander’s position.
The company also developed the HITS serial scanning thermal imaging sight in the late 1980s for use in the T-54/55 and 59 tank modification projects.
This type of sight includes a square sight with a built-in pitch lens, a gunner display, a vehicle commander display, signal and electronic devices, a conversion box, etc. The HITS sight provides a 625 line, 50Hz CCIR combination video image, which can be displayed on both the vehicle commander display and the gunner display.
This device perfectly avoids the problem of blocking the view of the rear observation mirror when installing a new thermal imager in front of the left gunner’s command tower. After all, there is no observation equipment on the right side before loading the handguard cover. Of course, in order to ensure the firing range of the machine gun above, the handguard cover has been raised a bit.
In this way, the gunner can use the traditional telescopic articulated tank gun sight in a white light environment, while using a newly installed sight with a thermal imager at night or under replicated weather conditions. At the same time, the gunner and commander can use the same thermal imager, which can also reduce costs and meet the positioning of their foreign trade tanks.
The disadvantage is that this thermal imaging aiming system only has a forward view and cannot provide a panoramic view for the vehicle commander.
Behind the turret, additional devices such as crosswind gauges can be seen to improve the accuracy of striking distant targets.
The US side equipped the turret of this tank with Cadillac Gage’s own bi-directional stabilizer and electric/hydraulic drive mechanism, using NATO standard homogeneous steel armor shell on the periphery of the turret, and later replaced it with composite armor on the production version…
There is a protrusion on each side of the turret armor, which is used to install a smoke bomb launching device. It is a set of 4-pack smoke bomb launching devices.
The front is also equipped with an external gun shield commonly found in Western tanks, which makes its appearance completely different from Soviet tanks and more similar to NATO tanks.
It is interesting that the US did not choose to use the American M250 6-tube 66mm smoke bomb launcher on a large scale, but instead used the Helio smoke bomb launcher from the Royal Ordnance Works in the UK to launch the British L8 66mm smoke bomb.
This device is widely used in the “Warrior” infantry fighting vehicle and the “Challenger” 1/2 main battle tank, where the infantry fighting vehicle is equipped with a 4-pack version and the tank is equipped with a 5-pack version.
The smoke bomb consists of a metal shell containing propellant and fuse, as well as a black rubber head filled with red phosphorus pellets. When fired, the shell bursts and produces a curtain of smoke in front of the vehicle. The “Sun God” launcher can launch smoke bombs with a range of 30-35 meters and can also launch lethal grenades with a range of 100 meters.
Another type of tank that uses a homogeneous steel shell, like the turret, is the vehicle body. The front angle of the vehicle body is very different from the traditional Type 59 tank, and is more similar to the second-generation Type 88A main battle tank. Composite armor is added to the front of the vehicle body to achieve better resistance to damage.
In order to reduce the weight of the vehicle on the side, the US equipped it with a vertical rubber skirt, which is quite fashionable and can to some extent destroy the metal jet from the armor piercing bomb. It also sweeps away the original rustic appearance of the Type 59 tank and covers the iconic “five pairs of wheels”.
As for the rear deployment of the vehicle, there is an American style infantry communication solution - the vehicle mounted infantry phone.
Compared to the originally time-consuming infantry tank cooperative training, equipping the infantry team with a vehicle mounted communication phone outside the vehicle to enable timely exchange of battlefield information between tank commanders of the infantry team.
Equally simple and crude, the US military cut open the Type 59 chassis to redesign a rear engine compartment similar to a “stingray” light tank in order to load the tank with Detroit Diesel’s 8V-92TA diesel engine. The huge heat dissipation device is very eye-catching, and after the replacement, it can ensure that the powertrain composed of the engine and transmission system can be lifted as a whole.
The performance parameters of the Jaguar tank are as follows:
Number of passengers: 4 people
Total combat weight: 40 tons
Unit power: 14 kW/ton
Unit pressure: 91.43 kPa
Vehicle length (cannon forward): 9.6 meters
Vehicle length: 6.8 meters
Vehicle width: 3.27 meters
Vehicle height: 2.63 meters
Maximum driving speed on the highway: 55 kilometers per hour
Climbing ability: 60 degrees
Water wading depth: 1.1 meters
The weapon configuration includes:
Main weapon: 105mm rifled tank gun
Auxiliary weapons: 7.62mm parallel machine gun, 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine gun
Smoke grenade launchers: 2 in a group, a total of 4
The ammunition loading capacity is:
Main artillery shells: 34 rounds
7.62mm machine gun ammunition: 3500 rounds
12.7mm machine gun ammunition: 600 rounds
Cannon rotation range: 360 degrees
Artillery pitch angle: -4 degrees to+17 degrees
Image 1: Storage location of existing prototype vehicles

Image 2:Image 2: The source of each component of the “Jaguar” marked by Chinese engineers was referred to as T-59M (Type 59 modernized improved version) by the US at that time

Image 3: Real time photo of the Jaguar tank fire control system

Image 4: Engine Manual for the Prototype Jaguar Tank

Image 5: Real time photos of the entire system test of the Jaguar tank

Information source 1： [30年前，这位上海老人在M1A1坦克边许下一个心愿，如今梦想成真_新民眼_新民网 (xinmin.cn)]
Memoirs of Interview with Chinese Chief Designer of the Jaguar Tank, Bian Renguo
(https://newsxmwb.xinmin.cn/xmyan/2019/09/16/31585227.html)
Information source 2： [被遗忘了三十年的“魔改”59，身上竟有白头鹰的影子！ (weibo.com)]
World of Tanks Official ‘Jaguar’ Tank Weibo Column
(被遗忘了三十年的“魔改”59，身上竟有白头鹰的影子！)
Information source 3: Modern Weapons, June 1993 issue
Information source 4: Russian media “Moldovan Messenger” news agency reported on October 12, 2012
Экспортный танк "Ягуар": китайцы и американцы мечтали вместе покорять рынки стран "третьего мира"
Information source 5: “History of China-US relations (1911-2000) (Upper, Middle, Lower)”
Author: Tao Wenzhao
Publisher: Shanghai People’s Publishing House
Publication date: September 2004

[ChieftainWarrior]

+1 for both US and China, similar to MBT-70/KPz-70

[JamesPond1200]

Belongs in both the US and Chinese trees. +1

[蛙蛙们懂王来了就没狗粮了]

Addendum:
Because the Jaguar tank was very similar to the newly established M1 main battle tank of the US Army at that time, except for a slight loss of weight.
So the Chinese engineers involved in the plan gave the Jaguar tank a nickname… “Mini version of Abrams”

[蛙蛙们懂王来了就没狗粮了]

Image: A photo of a moving Jaguar tank taken from another angle

[蛙蛙们懂王来了就没狗粮了]

Image: A close-up photo of an existing Jaguar tank

[Misaka19802]

American make it more like an OF40 instead of an russian T-series tank,beautiful!

[EL337GH0ST]

+1 for China and US

[actualsize123]

This would be so fun. Basically a low br Abram’s.

[蛙蛙们懂王来了就没狗粮了]

Add more
Historical Story: The Jaguar Tank Project that Died at the Last Moment
The direct reason for the failure of the Jaguar tank project was the subsequent military cooperation ban imposed by the United States on China. ‌
The Jaguar tank is a main battle tank jointly developed by China and the United States in the mid-1980s, aimed at targeting the markets of third world countries.
The design of the tank is based on the chassis provided by China, while the American partner Gage is responsible for the upper body, turret, transmission, and engine parts.
In early 1989, the project announced the successful completion of research and development work, and ultimately produced two prototype cars for testing by Gage Company.
The testing work went very smoothly, and the performance of the Jaguar tank greatly exceeded the expectations of the Gage engineering team.
The only issue with high performance is the significant increase in cost budget, which skyrocketed from the initial estimate of one million US dollars to 1.55 million US dollars.
However, Gage Company believes that this will no longer be a problem after entering the mass production stage.
However, due to the subsequent military cooperation ban imposed by the United States on China, this originally promising project was forced to be abandoned.
The implementation of this ban prevented the planned production and promotion of the Jaguar tank, leading to the failure of the project.
Although China and the United States have made significant technological achievements in the development of tanks as a result, including the use of advanced fire control systems, high-performance engines, and robust armor protection.
However, due to political factors, these efforts ultimately failed to translate into actual mass-produced products on the Jaguar project.
After the interruption of military cooperation between China and the United States, Gage Company was unwilling to accept the failure of 99% of its projects that had already been completed.
So they imported the complete technology of the 59 chassis from their previous partner, YTO Luoyang 704 Factory, in an attempt to promote the mass production of the Jaguar tank and complete the project thoroughly with their own strength.
The complete burial of the Jaguar tank project was due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, which caused massive chaos and led to a massive influx of Soviet equipment, represented by the T-72 and T-80, into the global arms market.
At the same time, the NATO group led by the United States also began to install a large number of newly designed M1 Abrams main battle tanks. The previous generation main tank M60 was retired and sold extensively to recover its last bit of value.
These second-hand main battle tanks have similar performance to the Jaguar, in fact, the Jaguar has a slight advantage compared to them.
But the extremely low price makes the cost-effectiveness of the Jaguar tank extremely unattractive, and the expected international buyers no longer exist.
At this time, the Chinese military had already lost interest in the 59 tank, and they had learned a lot of American tank design experience and advanced technology from their previous cooperation.
The modernization modification plan for the Type 59 tank has been abandoned, and the Chinese military has decided to fully promote its advanced main battle tank program… the WZ123 project, also known as the Type 99 main battle tank.
In this way, the death sentence for the project has been completely pronounced.
In 1994, Cadillac Gage announced bankruptcy and the company was acquired by Textron Marine and Land Systems.
In 1997, Cadillac Gage Textron officially announced the failure of the Jaguar project.
(So the 99A of China’s technology tree is actually a hybrid technology of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Germany, but the Soviet prototype is not the T72 but the Soviet T62 captured by China during the Treasure Island War. The German prototype is the Leopard IIA0 main battle tank, and the fire control turret engine transmission and electronic equipment are all based on American technology.)
(Addendum: The development sequence of Chinese tank equipment started with the T54A, and the Type 59 tank thoroughly mastered the relevant chassis technology and formed its own series. After the Zhenbao Island War, the Type 69 and Type 79 tanks were developed based on the captured T62, and new technologies introduced by China and the United States in cooperation produced the Type 80 and Type 88 tanks, with the final result being the 96A.).
(During the period of friendly relations between China and the United States in the 1980s, Germany had just completed the development of the Leopard 2 tank and attempted to promote it to the international market, including the Chinese market.
Germany has shown great enthusiasm towards the Chinese military delegation, displaying and allowing Chinese military personnel to access the Leopard 2 technology blueprint, but only for reference, and expressing willingness to transfer the Leopard 2 tank and its related technology intact to China.
This means that the complete Leopard 2 tank technology, including artillery, power, and other technologies, will be provided without any intentional modifications.
This proposal for technology transfer reflects the good state of China-Western relations at that time, as well as the willingness of Western countries to open up technology transfer to China.
In addition, the Chinese military has also seriously considered introducing the Leopard 2 main battle tank in history, which was very rare at that time because the Leopard 2 tank was one of the most powerful main battle tanks in the Western world and had long occupied the top spot on the world’s top ten main battle tank rankings.
The introduction of this type of tank had a profound impact on the development of China’s main battle tanks, and even in the famous Japanese war fantasy novel “Minsk Strike”, the Leopard 2 main battle tank equipped by the Chinese army fought fiercely against the powerful armored flood of the Soviet Union.
Although China ultimately did not adopt the Leopard 2 tank as its main combat equipment, this encounter undoubtedly provided valuable learning opportunities for China’s military industry and promoted technological progress in tank design and manufacturing.
In addition, in 2010, Chinese soldiers had the opportunity to personally experience and test drive the Leopard 2A6 tank during their training at the Mengster Armored Forces School in Germany. This tank is renowned for its outstanding performance and advanced technology, and is known for being able to hunt down any type of main battle tank in the world.
The exposure to the technology of Leopard 2 directly inspired the development of Chinese tanks and initiated the WZ123 project, which means that the 99 tank is based on Leopard 2 tank as a technical blueprint and parameter benchmark. It has to be said that the 99 tank has nothing to do with the T72. The only contribution of the T72 to the research of Chinese tanks is its automatic loading machine.)

[蛙蛙们懂王来了就没狗粮了]

Unfortunately, according to historical facts, only the American technology tree has the Jaguar tank, and the Chinese technology tree does not have it.
The military cooperation between the Chinese and American armies is divided into two stages. The first stage is for China to provide the 59 chassis as the foundation and dispatch a team of engineers to assist Gage in completing their product… the development of the Jaguar tank.
The second stage is when Gage Company sends engineers to China to assist Luoyang 704 Factory of China’s First Tractor Group in retrofitting the Chinese version of the Jaguar, which is the true T59M.
Shortly after the completion of the first phase, the ‘honeymoon period’ between China and the United States came to an end, and military cooperation between the two countries immediately broke down.
704 Factory had already started the development of T59M with engineers from Gage at that time. After the cooperation broke down, Gage had to interrupt the project and withdraw all its engineering teams in China.
Subsequently, NATO included China in the list of countries subject to sanctions by the Paris Integration Council, causing a significant interruption in exports of products from European and American military industrial complexes to China, rendering the T59M program completely unnecessary.
After studying the situation, the Chinese military believes that the potential of the Type 59 tank chassis has been fully tapped and must research its own next-generation main battle tank.
So, based on the Type 88C tank, the 96A was developed.
And the Chinese cooperative enterprise 704 Factory, which was once involved in the Jaguar project, suffered serious losses due to the lack of orders for years. From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, management authority was gradually delegated from the state to the local level.
Finally, the Fifth Ministry of Machinery Industry of the People’s Republic of China, which was in charge of military production at that time, cancelled the military production qualification of Luoyang 704 Factory and kicked it out of the Chinese military production system.
The Jaguar project in the United States has completed research and development, prototype construction, and full system testing, with only the final step of mass production and sales remaining. It is a prototype vehicle with a completion rate of 99%.
The Jaguar project in the Chinese stage has completely failed, and the expected product T59M is forever stuck on the design drawings, with no possibility of implementation,

[Rikers_Beard]

LOL no.

And I get a particular giggle out of how all the sources cited are PRC and CIS.

This is fiction.

[ChieftainWarrior]

how dare Chinese people write sources!

[Silesian_Lynx]

How sad, I wonder that this tank didn’t get the name Richard Nixon for Sino-American friendship.

[ChieftainWarrior]

@Rikers_Beard

bizarre and unlikely program that no American has ever heard of

Wait do you actually think this is a fake program that America didn’t participate in? LOL

Here’s the Janes article on it (Army Guide copies them):

Army Guide

Here’s another: The Jaguar; Almost the Joint Chinese/American Battle Tank - Weapons - Military Matters

Because it was based on a number of developed components, the Jaguar enjoyed a very rapid development program. Cadillac Gage was provided with two Type 59 MBTs by China and by mid-1989 the prototype was complete and undergoing automotive trials in Detroit, while the turret was undergoing initial firing trials. In October 1989 the vehicle was completed and began trials. By all accounts, it performed extremely well.

Unfortunately, timing is everything and the Jaguar’s was bad. On June 4, 1989, the Chinese government cracked down on students who had been protesting in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square for several months. PLA troops opened fire and tanks rolled in. An unknown number were killed, but the footage of the massacre shocked the world. The result was a rapid cooling of relations between the United States and China.

This was to spell the end of the military cooperation projects, though Cadillac Gage would continue to work on the Jaguar alone. The hope of building new vehicles in China may have ended, but Cadillac still believed that there was a market for offering upgrade packages to the vast numbers of Type 59 and T-55 tanks in service around the world.

@Rikers_Beard

But sure, I just hate Chinese people, whatever absurd reduction you need to push an agenda.

What ‘agenda’? That a real vehicle exists and you’re dismissing it entirely because it’s partly Chinese?

[artan24]

not bad

[soymilkman]

+1 for the US and Chinese trees! Time for friendship and cooperation!

[soymilkman]

This is silly and has no place here. We are discussing a factually known, commercial product tank being added to a game, not IRL politics.

[蛙蛙们懂王来了就没狗粮了]

I am a Chinese player, but I also play on American ground vehicles.
I want to make the national vehicles I use more comfortable and add some more interesting vehicles.
Any problems?
We are discussing games and adding a tank that looks similar in performance to the T72 and T80 to the US tech tree.
You are discussing politics in inappropriate places and openly promoting racism.
Oppose for the sake of opposition, even at the cost of denying one’s own country’s history and the goods created by one’s own country.
ooops， It seems that you are also a person who discriminates against ethnic minorities in reality.
How should I put it:
Make USA-ground-forces Great Again！

[HolmanTheHorror]

+1 from me, though I think only the US should get it. While it was a joint project with China, I see no evidence that they ever got one, unlike the joint jet project that happened about the same time.