I understand what you are saying but my point regarding 105mm apfsds is that they are considered ineffective against era. Atleast that's what the logic was because of which nato shifted to l/44 in the first place from 105mm rifle guns. So even if they had amazing rounds I have doubts whether they will be able to successfully pen our t 72s at the first shot.I am referring to superiority over our T-72s.
The old Type 96 is obsolete, just like the T-72, and the Type 99 is too heavy to be used in Tibet and Ladakh, so we are unlikely to see it in action in our theatre.
The Type 15 has elements of modern design techniques, where armour can be kept low for transportation, but can be enchanced or uparmoured to the level of an MBT whenever required.
As for firepower, there's nothing special on the Type 15 that's comparable to anything in the West. It's our T-72 and T-90 that possess inadequate firepower, to the point that they barely compete with the Type 15. Our current tanks are decades behind the latest Western tanks when it comes to firepower. It's because our tank carousels are too small to accept the latest Russian ammo. The Russians are currently upgrading their T-90s to the latest level, and the T-90MS is their export version of the same. Which is why I said we should get a few hundred Japanese Type 10s for use in Ladakh and Sikkim, and equip them with whatever modern 120mm rounds the West is willing to export to us (very expensive option).
The gun isn't everything, the shell matters a lot more. For example, the Americans use a weaker German gun on their Abrams, it's a 44 cal version, whereas the Germans use a 55 cal version on their Leopards. Even then, the American shells penetrate more armour due to their shell design. To put things into context, based on open source info, the German rounds (tungsten) can penetrate 650-750mm of steel from 2Km away, the American rounds (DU) can penetrate 850mm of steel, with the latest round rumoured to do 1000mm+. The latest Russian rounds (tungsten) that cannot fit inside our tanks manage 650-700mm. Otoh, our T-72s and T-90s manage 450-500mm (Russian shells do 450mm, Israeli shells do 500mm and DRDO is hoping to achieve 550mm, all tungsten). Chinese shells for their MBTs are also now comparable with the West.
The T-72's armour is really weak. This is for the ones we operate.
So you can expect the Type 15 to be much, much better than the values for the T-72.
Which is why we need at least the T-90s facing China, not the T-72s.
The T-72s are fine against Pakistan, in a way, where most of the tanks they have are much worse.
I would love if the t72 and t90 were upgrade to 2a46m5 but IA isn't upgrading the firepower for some reason and I have doubts a light tank will have more than 700 mm armour on the turret so our t series atgms and apfsds could very well pen the ztq 15's. Seeing how they reacted to our counterattacks I have huge doubts if the Chinese can employ armour properly or are they similar to the Saudis in using armour and infantry seperately...
Other question is that ztq 15 has modular armour, so according to you approximately how much could the type 15 be uparmoured like approx armour values on the hull and turret and do they havd like modular armour bloc similar to Leclerc and new leopard 2a7 or basically will they stack more layers of ERA on it.
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