China’s obsession with always having the gun locked in a positive elevated position is really really really annoying. I’m going through tons of footage of both the ZTQ-15 and VT-5, and they never show the gun being stabilized when going over rough terrain, the gun is ALWAYS locked in the up position. It’s such a massive pain I don’t think it’s possible to ever find the VT-5 showcasing it’s gun depression.
Not to mention Chinese tv channels literally have the biggest yappers who say nothing useful, no stats. On the “armor segment” of the VT-5 showcase on CCTV, they say nothing useful just pure slop, all they talk about is it has modular armor, it has laser warning receiver, the best armor is to not get hit first. And a vague statement saying “with modular armor it has MBT level protection.” And it can protect against RPG’s NLAW and Javelins. But no hard numbers or protection level statements.
I’ve given up, I hope one of you guys can go search and find the holy grail of “not actually locked gun in Chinese training exercise.”
Thanks, now I know that China is regarded, even if this source was rejected. They built a tall tank with a high turret ceiling and elevated section for the gun, only to limit the gun depression to the same as the VT-4, a much shorter tank, with a much flatter turret.
This reminds me of the situation where the ZTZ99A’s turret is huge, but the back of the turret is filled mostly by empty space. It almost seems like these Chinese tank designers are making tanks to look cool, and not to be optimized. I’m really seeing some constantly weird design decisions on these tanks.
I remember watching a video of the inside, and right behind the crew the back had a giant empty space, Infront of the electronics section of the turret.
Not to mention to ZTZ99A has a much taller turret, yet it still can’t leverage a further gun depression compared to the ZTZ96.
Why can’t it be used as a source to report? That’s a VT-5 in real life, with it’s gun elevated past 20 degrees. How can you possibly refute that as “not a source.”
I mean, I’d imagine it has something to do with the autoloader mechanism reducing the depression.
CN tank designers probably had their reasons, I wouldn’t be too harsh on them. After all real life isn’t War Thunder, and they didn’t design these tanks so that they would be featured in games.
Plus these tanks already have their turrets angled 2 degrees downward, so the actual depression with turret forward is around -7.
You’d be surprised, they’ve rejected similar stuff in the past.
Even still the design is confusing. The soviets designed the carousel autoloader in order to have the most compact tank with a very small height profile. The Chinese took this autoloader and essentially mounted the largest and tallest turret possible similar to western designs. Now as a result it’s got worst of both worlds. It’s not just me either, many netizens have been disappointed with the 99A in real life, when it was first seen, many wanted to believe it had a bustle autoloader because of it’s huge turret extension at the back. But sadly it still retained the carousel, a soviet relic. This was long before the addition to war thunder. The Army is the least funded branch, so I understand how they have these makeshift designs I guess.
Well Gaijin and their bogus I guess I should not be surprised.
I mean, 99A is already an old design, new tank has already been leaked.
There are still good aspects of 99A, its frontal armor (which Gaijin has butchered immensely), mobility, battlefield management system, sensors…
The truth is traditional MBT isn’t viewed favorably by PLAGF and will probably be replaced by light tanks in the future, or “lighter-than-usual” MBTs. VT-5 is an export product so I can forgive it for the flaws, ZTQ-15 turret is notably less tall and “lower profile.”
Though VT-4 in general does seem to be a decent design ruined by Gaijin’s modeling as usual.
Having over 20 degrees elevation would already be big improvement, makes shooting down helicopters easier (as well as when going down slopes or engaging a tank on a hill above you).
VT-5 and ZTQ-15 are still different tanks, contrary to popular belief they are not the same. The turret on the ZTQ-15 doesn’t seem to have this limitation and may allow for more depression.
No problem, now we hope that they accept it, but -6 is a decent improvement. Now the actual depression angle also accounting for the 2 degree turret downward angle with the gun forward should equate to almost -8.
