TYPE-15 China's New Light Tank

Thanks for watching guys , what do you think of the Type-15? Is the United States copying China with their new Light Tank? unironically hooah photos: www.instagram.com/cappyarmy/ uniornically hooah tweets twitter.com/Cappyarmy

This tank looks to be designed to counter India in Himalayas more than supporting the first wave of offensive against Taiwan

Back in WW2, the British were fighting the Japanese in the jungles of Burma. The Biggest tank they could get down tight & steep jungle mountain roads was the 30 ton Grant tank. Their 75mm gun gave the Brits the edge over the Japanese, in the battle of Admin box. I bet there are still many parts of the World, with weak bridges, twisty mountain roads & narrow urban streets, where you cannot use a tank of more than 30 or so tons.

To clear up a bit of confusion around this tank: Yes, it does have an oxygen generator, but it's not for the engine. The engine is an electrically assisted turbocharged diesel to prevent turbo lag and adjust for changes in altitude. The oxygen generator uses lithium hydroxide in a chemical reaction (like the rescue masks in airplanes that drop down) to generate pure oxygen so the crew doesn't suffer from hypoxia at altitude. Remember these tanks are intended in part to operate on the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas. Crews passing out from hypoxia would be a mission kill without firing a shot.

Actual PLA tanker here. I serve on a ZTZ-99A. The video is mostly correct and ZTQ-15, I think, is a welcome addition to our force. There are a few caveats though 1- The said tanks on street were not for suppressing a protest. Henan is quite far away from there. You can see people taking photos in the photo. When the party wants to suppress a protest it usually doesn't crack down on the protest itself. 2- It is true that the ZTQ-15 lacks composite armor on most of its surfaces. But it is not rated for 12.7 mm. It is still harder than any IFV as you would expect from a vehicle of the said weight (35-37 tons) and internal volume. Otherwise, its existence wouldn't make any sense. Its purpose is bringing a 105 mm gun to the battlefield and being immune to anything less than an anti-tank weapon. 3- It has a bustle autoloader not carousel. All of its ammo and the autoloader are stored at the blow-off compartment. Note: There is actually more than one ZTZ-99A model. There are differences between the batches and older ones get renewed but I won't elaborate on that. It doesn't have anything to do with the topic and I am not sure how sensitive the topic is.

Great video! But it doesn't "produce oxygen"; it compresses the air, making it denser like air at sea-level. It's a supercharger, pretty common piece of tech on aircraft, and some high performance cars, but I think this might be the first tank to use one.

One of the main reasons for this tank is that China's average soldier has grown taller and wider over the past two decades, leading to cramped tanks and other equipment problems. They simply don’t fit in old Soviet designed tanks anymore. Almost a decade ago The PLA started measuring troops on 28 different metrics to figure out how to redesign military equipment for the now-larger force. This is kind of the reason they needed a bigger small tank.

A couple things that are worth mentioning in a feedback: 1. The ZTQ-15 is suitable not only for Taiwan & the Sino-Indian border, but all of the PRC's southern frontier, which is composed entirely of either mountainous (e.g. Himalayas) or hilly jungle (e.g. Yunnan) terrain. Moreover, North Korea also has heavily mountainous/hilly terrain. In other words, all of the PRC's likely potential conflict zones, along with roughly half of China's border frontiers need light tanks more than traditional MBTs. With the prospect of conflict vs Russia negligible at this point, the PLA's focus on light tanks is a no-brainer. An introductory overview of the PRC's current potential conflict zones & geography would've been far more informative to setup the rest of this video, rather than deviating into seemingly obligatory cope on Gordon Chang-style "predictions" about "impending Chinese economic collapse"; 2. The overwhelming majority of Taiwan's tanks are not M1s, but largely outdated M-60 variants, which the ZTQ-15 can handle in a TW scenario; 3. According to Tradoc's official site & the Army Recognition website, ZTQ-15 can also use 105mm APFSDS rounds, although may not be as effective as a larger 125mm smoothbore variant. It appears there was some ambiguity in the wording of this video that could've been interpreted otherwise; 4. While ZTQ-15 has been seen operating with companion drones, it currently doesn't appear to have a dedicated docking station mounted on the turret for drones. That could be a useful feature to experiment in future variants of this model.

Weight is one of the primary reasons the M4 Sherman tank was deemed adequate in early WWII. Unlike the Soviets and Germans American made tanks had to be transported cross country by trains and across the ocean to Europe by ship. Size was a major factor followed closely by reliability. No depot sized maintenance facilities for the M4. The gun and armor were secondary considerations.

When you jump across the wall just to learn more about your domestic light tank from an American infantryman 😆

Cappy at this point has more info on Chinese military than Taiwan government.

This tank’s engine is specially designed for high altitude which lack of oxygen. It has turbo for the turbo. It means it got four turbos. T72 or T90 will face significant power drop. Sometimes won’t even start. It’s not simply put a high power engine in a light tank. The engine is carefully designed for high altitude. It doesn’t matter it’s 1500hp or 500hp without special design you won’t work properly at 4000 or 5000m altitude.

17:30 Fun fact, since the Chinese word "bao" doesn't distinguish between panthers and leopards, the name "hei(black) bao" really means just panther(distinguished from leopards), not necessarily black panther.

It would be a mistake to underestimate the chinese. The same ways the germans underestimated the soviets, or the russians underestimated the ukrainians

Great writeup Chris and Justin. This is a lot of legwork to compile this much info on the Type-15. A bit of clarification on the rifled gun, it can indeed fire Sabot rounds. An example of this is the M900 APFSDS-T. The Type-15 is also not quite air-droppable, but uses something similar to the Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System (LAPES) that hucked a Sheridan out the back of a C-130.

4:15 How did a military parade became "protect the bank"? These two events are seperated by half a country and 3 month of time, and somehow suspiciously connected by a bunch of random medias?

The scene with the two Canadian Leopard 2's was in Gagetown... that place has swamps on top, on the side and at the bottom of hills. If your tank gets stuck there it will probably take a few hours to extract. Great write up on the PLA's new light tank. Cheers!

This seems like a wild oversimplification, but it almost gives me the vibes of a Sherman tank in WWII... Light, fast, easy on fuel, with the ability to get large numbers on the battlefield.

Remember this tank doesn't have to beat M-1s. It has to beat Marines and Paratroopers and be rapidly transportable by their C-17 copy. There it checks the block.

Bangladesh 🇧🇩 also bought VT-5 version of Chinese tank. ♥️