The point with Russia is they do produce one main battle tank for the most part and it’s the T-90M while upgrading legacy hulls of T-72’s and T-80’s because they have thousands of them. By bringing them to modern standards along with new production T-90M’s, they have a way to rapidly build there tank forces up. Not to mention there’s also some parts commonality between the T-90 and T-72 which allows for easier production. While Russia does upgrade T-80’s to the BVM standard, that’s a stopgap until more T-90M’s can be produced as the T-80BVM is expensive to operate and maintain.
As for China, they have the ZTZ96A/B because it’s a lot more simple to rapidly produce alongside the more complex ZTZ99A which the ZTZ96 supplements it. The ZTZ99A is China’s main battle tank while tanks like the VT4 are inferior and are tailored to the export market to generate more revenue. Anyways, by building quantity in the ZTZ96’s and at the same time producing the quality ZTZ99A’s allows them to rapidly expand there tank forces.
Summary: Cost effectiveness is key to slowly build up quality vehicles alongside rapid quantity vehicles.
Chinese IS focusing on 1 design i.e ZTZ -99 for domestic.
VT-4 is for export variant: abit modular and not constrained by PLA requirement.
both have roots dating back to ~Type-90II.
(ZTZ-96 dates back to the ambitious 122 project, but their “domestic Leopard 2” doesn’t happen and the hull design gets reused & updated for type-88 and type-86 and finally to 96, during which they get to inspect T-72 & T-80 for which Type-90I → VT-1 → ZTZ-99)
Russian T-72/80 combo came from the fact that, 64-80 series were comparatively expensive, so needed a cheaper sidekick a la '72. Now Russia is/was only focusing on T-90.
(ignore the renewed T-80 derivative news for now)
Actually both current MBTs dates back to T-72. 1 is a direct upgrade sort of and the other copied+inspired by.
T-55M with armour package from Polish T-55AM Merida.
T-55M with 80% likely MEXAS composite armour, or 20% likely something from Israel.
T-72 FINMOD 1, in picture is midlevel upgrade testbed, kontakt-1 like ERA blocks, unlikely to be real.
FINMOD 1 would have had new FCS (thermals and new night vision capabilities) and new apfsds with capability between 120mm DM33 and DM53.
3 prototypes were ordered, low cost, mid cost and high cost upgrades. In the picture is mid cost stage upgrade, at least first and the second level prototypes were made. Third stage is unknown however according to Olli Dahl who worked/works for patria and on the T-72 Modernization project, the individual components for third stage upgrade were tested (such as Israeli laser warning receivers, etc) and possible active protection system.
Unfortunately the project is still largely classified.
Soon comes the Leopard 2 MLU project, we will see what that brings, APS is a high possibility.
Also give Finnish and Swedish Leopard 2s the M339 HE-MP-T shell.
Armed with a retractable mast that houses the EOS500 electro-optical sighting system, a Recce S Scout UAV, a Natter 7.62mm RCWS, ROSY Smoke Grenade Launchers, a Acoustic Platform for Vehicles (APV) alert system, and a traversable dual ATGM launcher that houses 2x Spike LR2’s. These systems are all housed on the Enok 14.8 4x4 by ACS. This vehicle is equipped with a 260 kW diesel engine, providing the vehicle high mobility. The Panzerjaeger Concept Tank Destroyer from Rheinmetall offers a fun and modern ATGM vehicle for Germany.
There is also a Boxer concept variant armed with 4x Spike LR2’s however, there isn’t any built prototype. This can be seen in the image above.
