You are on the right track. One of the prototypes that got seen publicly months ago had that configuration.
Here I´m just playing around, almost eyeballing how much leg room the crew may be getting and the probable thickness of a front module. Can be as thick as a road wheel.
I don’t think that’s an indicator. With the VR like head set the tank should be heavily digital, so they should both be able to access the screen/observation windows, and the fact that there are two crew hatches doesn’t help your point, as it’s unlikely the other guy has to share a door.
Note that this is not an electronic camera but a backup optical periscope, and it is worth noting that the T-14 also features two hatches despite having three crew members.
That’s what it likely is, since it turned out western style MBTs are likely too heavy for china’s liking, and Russian ones aren’t mobile enough.
This is a smart choice. The conventional, heavy armor tanks (challenger, Abrams) are obsolete in a truly future battlefield. Expensive, heavy, unwieldy for military logistics system.
Drone swarms, top attack missiles, smart shells etc etc.
The popularization of cage armor on top is a evidence of that.
The meta is to pack as many as cheap smart weaponry as possible.
No, articles published back then (2018-19) dealt in detail on how the engineers worked around the 2 man crew limitations in respect to task-cognitive overload of the TC (since the dedicated gunner was made redundant by AI operated FCS). The nickname came much more recently.
Further, in promotional material Norinco showed their 2 men crew compartment test rig. So at the very least there was a real R&D push towards it. Perhaps they walked that back to 3 men or perhaps they pushed on. We´ll see in a few weeks.