May 12, 2003

China Hasn't Figured It Out Yet

WorldNetDailyis reporting that China is set to field world's most powerful tank. So assuming they can make it work, they will have built the largest and most powerful target for the US military.

The main problem with these new tanks would be that there are so massive in size. At a time when the world needs to be moving towards smaller, lighter weapon platforms that are easier to hide, the Chinese come out with mobile artillery that they call a tank.

Even their attempts to protect it are outdated. They have mounted a "dazzler" or an active laser designed to blind gunners or optical systems. But the dazzler is an active system, meaning it can be identified when it is operating and can be countered. How long do you think it will be before we create a weapon designed to home in on the dazzler (like we have the HARM to home in on radar)?

Maybe this will be a good weapon to use when invading Tibet or North Korea, but against the Americans it would be a death trap. It may be bigger and heavier gunned than the Abrahms, but with large scale armor battles being a thing of the past, so what?

This just proves that whatever information the Chinese were stealing during the Clinton administration wasn't too useful. They have managed to create a platform that's about 10 years behind the time.

I wonder what they'll come up with next?

Posted by Chris at May 12, 2003 09:54 PM | TrackBack | Linked by:
Comments

The "dazzler" has several components, starting with a passive laser detector that will watch 360 deg for a targeting or rangefinding laser to "paint" the tank. Then the dazzler will probably fire a high intensity laser beam back to burn out the designator, mess up the ranging and/or blind the gunner sighting in. There could also be a system of firing smoke dischargers, buzzing an alarm in the crew's intercom, or even slewing the turret to point the main gun at the location of the enemy. Some of this stuff has been around for a while. As far as the 152mm gun, the only way to defeat an Abrams frontal arc of armor is a much bigger bullet than the current 125mm Russian guns, so the 152. Let's wait until we see how the ammo performs, the crew/ammo/fuel configuration and how it moves before we say it's more than a target. Second, the Chinese have the same problem the Soviets had: a requirement for a huge army to defend itself, so they could never quite produce the numbers of vehicles required. If the tank started production tomorrow and the Chinese really cranked them out, they could outfit a division or two in a year or two. Figure another year or two to become really proficient with the tank, developing tactics they don't really currently practice and they could be a threat..... uhhhh.... if WE invade THEM. They certainly don't have the strategic lift to go anywhere. They might sell small numbers of the new tank somewhere, but I doubt it will survive contact with the Abrams.

Just a couple of thoughts.

Posted by: Outlaw3 at May 14, 2003 04:08 PM


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