The Chinese Type 99
Pakistan Army set to receive brand new third generation Type 99 main battle tanks from China as a gift. The Pakistani's shows interests in the Type 99 earlier and evaluated them for future purchase. This would be a ideal replacement of older Pakistani Type 59,85,69 main battle Tanks, those are also acquired from the Chinese earlier which is unfit in current battles. Recently the Pakistani Army buys some 300 second hand upgraded T 55 Tanks from Serbia, to increases their Tank numbers close to Indian Army.
The Chinese Type 99 delivery seems just a beginning. Pakistan plans to replace their aging tanks with modern third generation Tanks with in house developed Al khalid and another foreign Tanks like Type 99. They also planned to modernize the Ukrainian delivered T 80 Tanks into new standard with the help of Russia. The modernization makes the tanks more powerful to fight against Indian T 90 MS. Pakistan operates some 300 T 80 Tanks which are 2+ generation Tanks.
Addition of the new Type 99 tank in the Pakistani inventory gives some good advantages against the superior power fire of the Indian Army. India deployed more than thousands of brand new modified T 90 Tanks along the Indo Pakistani borders, with the option of deploying another thousand more before 2020. Compared to the Type 99 the T 90 also developed based on the T 72 Variant and performance wise the T 90 leads in the race due to light weight and more protective composite armor.
The Type 99 is a third generation tank, features some advanced automatic technologies like auto reloader, electronic countermeasures, missile firing cannons and active protection systems. The Type 99 is one of the front line main battle tank of the PLA Army. It's believed the Type 99 is the upgraded T 72 which incorporates Russian and Western technologies. the smooth bore main gun, auto loader mechanism are all comes from the Russia, while the armors and optronics suites are derivatives from some western armors.
The Type 99 has some active protection systems to spoof off the guided missiles and the explosive reactor armor used to withstand from point attack shells. The protection systems are comparable to the Modern Tanks like T 90 and western Tanks like Challenger MBT. However the Tank yet to be battle tested. The Type 99 comes with digital architecture for fire control which reduces the tank crew and work load. The fire control system is the ISFCS-212 with an IR automatic target tracker, The Type 99 also has laser target designator, an IR searchlight, and an improved 2nd generation thermal sight.
The T 80 MBT
The Indian T 72 too modified with some western technologies, which allowed the Tanks to be operated in day and night conditions. The Indian T 72 modernized with Polish fire control systems and thermal imagining systems. along with home made explosive reactive armors and Israeli made Navigation systems. The T 72 Ajeya also employed Laser warning systems and improved Engines. while the Type 99 superior in missile firing cannons only. Indian Army operates more than 2000 upgraded T 72 main Battle tanks.
The Type 99 can fire guided Missile Invar from the smooth bore gun, makes the Tank powerful against non line of sight targets, which allows to engage Tanks hidden from the plain. The laser guided missile can home into enemy target then explode with high explosive or tandem hallow charge warhead. The missile can be self guided or guided from the Tank for jamming resistance. The missile uses laser beam riding for guidance, allows to engage targets upto some 5 kilo meters. The Inavr missile also being used by Indian Army in it's T 90 Tank. The Indo Israeli cannon launched guided missile comes with better range and fire power which was employed in the Arjun Tanks .
Indian Army T 90
It's believed Pakistan may modernize the first batch of 300 Type 99 to suits in Pakistan condition and they eventually deploy those Tanks near Punjabi lines. showing their little offensive fire power against Indian Army. However the Indian Army set to receive third generation guided anti tank missiles from Israel. which allows the Army infantry group to destroy modern tanks like T 80 and Type 99. The Spike ATGM comes with laser and IIR guidance with top attack mode, which can defeat almost all kind of modern Tanks. While Pakistan don't have such fire and forget man portable missiles.
Those Type 99 should need better air cover to work near Indian borders, Since the Indian Air force already inked a contract to procure the modern Apache gunships with fire and forget anti tank missiles like hell fire. The Apache can withstand from the Type 99 secondary fire support systems like 12.7 mm and 7.52 mm machine guns.
Life of Soldiers: China gifts 300 Type 99 Tanks to Pakistan
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