- Yes
- No
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