Design features of the Type 99 main battle tank

The original design of the Type 99 was based on the T-72. Its chassis resembles an enlarged T-72 and is equipped with a new welded turret. This is the usual turret configuration of new Chinese tanks since 1985-IIM. . Compared with the previous Type 85/90 tanks, the most easily identifiable aspect of the Type 99 tank’s appearance is the V-shaped shrapnel on the front of the vehicle. This design was previously seen on the Russian T-72 tank and was mainly used to prevent shrapnel from hitting the front of the vehicle. Turret ring.

The driver's seat is set in the center of the front of the car. The cockpit cover is a single piece. The hatch cover is equipped with three periscopes. The central one can be replaced with a binocular starlight night vision goggle. The effective use distance at night is about 200 meters. . There are two crew members in the turret fighting room. The commander is located on the right side of the gun body. There are 5 periscopes around the commander's command tower hatch on the top. The gunner's hatch follows the Russian style forward opening design. There is a vehicle in front of the command tower. Long full perimeter sight. The turret fighting room space of the Type 99 is larger than that of previous Chinese tanks, leaving space for installing larger-caliber tank guns. The gunner's seat is located on the left side of the gun body, and the gunner's sight is located in front of the gunner's hatch. The engine compartment at the rear of the vehicle is isolated from the turret fighting room by armor, and the entire power package can be replaced at one time. Due to the large amount of equipment in the vehicle, the Type 99's turret is also slightly larger than the previous Type 90.

The difference in appearance between the subsequent improved Type 99 and the original design is the additional armor on the front of the turret and the cancellation of the front V-shaped baffle; the main mass production work of the Type 99 was concentrated on the second An improved configuration, the original design was just a transitional model. The basic structure of the arrow cluster armor on the front of the 99 improved turret has two layers. The body is a hollow box, and an additional layer of armor (fixed with bolts) is added to the exterior of the front and side fronts; therefore, the armor kit itself is at least There are two parts of armor: the outer armor plate and the inner structural body. The hollow structure of the body also helps to dissipate the power of the HEAT armor-piercing jet. In addition to the front armor of the turret, many square armor blocks (should be reactive armor) are also installed on the front of the Type 99 improved vehicle and on both sides of the turret; a large overall storage rack is set up from the middle of both sides of the turret to the entire rear of the turret. , water tanks and other on-board items can be added in the middle, and there are armor plates on the outside of the storage racks on both sides of the turret; this storage rack can detonate enemy HEAT armor-piercing bombs in advance, without adding too much weight, it is strengthened Protection capabilities of the sides and rear of the turret. Type 99 still uses the past mechanical transmission and hydraulically assisted manual transmission system. The transmission device consists of a transmission box, two side transmissions and a coaxial side transmission. The side transmission is a two-stage planetary gear type with a friction clutch. Using hydraulic operation, there are 2 locking clutches and 4 mechanical brakes in each side gearbox, with a total of 7 forward gears and 1 reverse gear;

On the 99 variant, China is developing a new generation of 1,500-horsepower high-power diesel engine based on the 1,200-horsepower 150HB engine, using German MTU MT883 as the performance index. This new engine and new transmission system have been installed on the Type 98 modified tank for testing, and have demonstrated a maximum road speed of 80 kilometers per hour and a maximum cross-country speed of 60 kilometers per hour.

On the traveling part, the Type 99 tank uses two double-pin rubber crawler tracks (each consisting of 85 crawler shoes, with a total mass of 2.1 tons and a service life of 10,000 kilometers), and 6 pairs with a diameter of It consists of a 730 mm double-edge road wheel, two pairs of rubber-mounted supporting pulleys, two pairs of rubber-mounted side supporting rollers, and a driving wheel and an idler wheel. The driving wheel is at the rear and the idler wheel is at the front. Hydraulic sleeve shock absorbers and "Z" shaped shaft shock absorbers are installed on the first, second and sixth road wheels. The torsion bars of the suspension device are arranged transversely along the bottom deck, and the tie rods of the control device are arranged along the side decks. Due to the improvement of the torsion bar, the road wheel travel has been increased to 340 mm, thus increasing the average driving speed of the vehicle by 12%, and it only takes 10 seconds to accelerate from a stop to 42 km/h. The Type 99 tank is equipped with an advanced command-type digital tank fire control system, which is more advanced than the previous 85-IIM and 90-II systems. The Type 99's fire control system integrates a dual-axis stabilization system, commander's sight, gunner's sight (including infrared thermal imaging camera and laser range finder), gun trunnion tilt sensor, turret horizontal angular rate sensor, It is composed of cross wind sensor, digital fire control computer, control interface and related circuit control box.

The stabilization method of the Type 99 tank's fire control system is "upper reverse image stabilization", that is, a gyroscope is installed on the pitch and rotation axes of the upper reflector of the sight lens for stabilization, and the The electronic synchronization method maintains the linkage between the gun body and the aiming axis, that is, an angle sensor (called the upper mirror resolver) is installed on the pitch axis of the upper mirror to measure the relationship between the aiming line and an object in the turret. In addition, another angle sensor (called the gun trunnion solver) is installed on the gun trunnion to measure the deviation angle between the gun body axis and a reference object in the turret.

Compared with the previous 85-IIM and Type 96’s relatively simple “lower anti-stabilization image”, the “upper anti-stabilization image” of the Type 99 fire control system is the same as that of Western first-line main battle tanks. , its sight is stabilized and moved independently. The sighting mirror directly passes through the stabilizing system to keep the aiming point and the target in a straight line. There are no other constraints. The artillery weapon system is also stabilized and moved independently, according to the gunner's position on the target. The aiming point and ranging results (if the fire control hardware allows, you can also follow the aiming point of the commander's sight), and the ballistic data processing computer uses all relevant parameters to calculate the artillery firing parameters, including elevation angle, crosswind, attitude Compensation, lead, etc., so that the weapon trajectory coincides with the aiming point. In terms of active countermeasures systems, the Type 99 tank is equipped with a special active laser warning/countermeasures system, including a laser warning system (Laser Warning Receiver, LWR, whose receiver is a laser communication system), and a laser warning system behind the gunner hatch. Special blinding laser emitter (Laser Self-defence Weapon, LSDW). LSDW consists of a laser press, a jammer (i.e., a gas laser transmitter), an automatic rotating base, a tracking system, and a microprocessor control unit, which adopts digital closed-loop control.

When the LWR receives the signal from the enemy's laser marker, the system will automatically calibrate the direction of the source of the observation signal, and the commander or gunner will decide whether to activate the LSDW to initiate a confrontation. Both the gunner's and commander's seats are equipped with LSDW control interfaces. After pressing the button, the system will automatically aim the LSDW at the target within 1 second. When used, LSDW first emits a low-energy laser to the target, calibrate the position based on the laser echo, and then emits a high-energy blinding laser to interfere with and destroy the enemy's photoelectric sensors, and even damage the eyes of the operator of the opponent's observation instrument. , and both the gunner and the commander can control the LSDW. LSDW can interfere with all visible/near-infrared optical and electronic instruments such as enemy laser rangefinders, starlight night vision goggles, television cameras, optical sights, and infrared thermal imaging cameras, causing them to become saturated and ineffective, and even cause permanent damage. The LSDW horizontal rotation range covers 360 degrees, the pitch range is between -12~+90 degrees, the horizontal tracking angular rate is 45 degrees/second, the pitch rate is 40 degrees/second, the laser output energy is 1000 megajoules, and the pulse recovery frequency is 10 times/ Seconds, the maximum operating distance is about 4,000 meters, the system can work continuously for 30 minutes, and the life of the laser transmitter is 1.2 million times. Due to the large effective elevation angle, LSDW can even be used to deal with the sighting system of enemy helicopters. The Type 99 tank uses China's newer VHF-2000 tank communication system, which has anti-interference capabilities, high reliability and easy maintenance. It also has very good electromagnetic compatibility. Multiple communication machines of the same type can work at the same time without interfering with each other. The Type 99 tank is equipped with a laser communication/identification friend or foe system, which is installed on the upper right side of the rear of the turret. It uses laser light waves as carrier waves to transmit signals. It has the functions of sending and receiving identification friend or foe codes, digital command transmission and voice communication, and has the ability to develop into a laser The potential of the search system;

The Type 99 is equipped with a 9602 GPS navigation and positioning system. Its receiving antenna is installed on the top of the right side of the tail compartment of the tank turret. It is responsible for receiving and amplifying high-frequency positioning signals from navigation satellites, and The converted mid-frequency signal is sent to the mid-frequency signal box located on the right side of the turret fighting room; the GPS display controller is installed on the lower right side of the inside of the turret seat to project navigation information on the display and serve as an interface for input/output commands. The 9602 GPS positioning system is a two-channel C/A code receiver that can conduct time-series observations of four satellites in a time-and-minute system, perform continuous range measurements with the C/A code modulated on the L1 carrier, and perform real-time tracking by the navigation processor. Find the three-dimensional position solution and speed, and directly convert the longitude and latitude values ??into the three-dimensional coordinates of the Chinese military network, and then calculate the tank's position, direction and speed. Our country has successively developed 120mm and 125mm anti-tank ammunition. The former adopts a self-contained structure and the latter adopts a separate structure. The 125mm tank gun was successfully developed as early as 1985. After continuous improvement, the chamber pressure of the finalized 125mm tank gun is higher than that of the 120mm tank gun. The final installation on the Type 99 tank was the ZPT-98 50-fold caliber 125 mm high-bore smoothbore tank gun. The gun body adopts high-strength PCrni3nov, and the muzzle kinetic energy is nearly 45% higher than the Russian 2A46M-1 125mm tank gun, and nearly 30% higher than the RH-120 120mm tank gun on the "Leopard" 2A5 and M1A1/A2 tanks. . Due to the implementation of hydraulic self-tightening technology on the barrel, the requirements for barrel strength of high-bore pressure artillery are met. In order to improve the ablative wear resistance life of the barrel, the artillery adopts a full-bore chrome plating process, making its lifespan reach the level of 700 rounds of armor-piercing bullets, which is close to the world's advanced level. In order to enhance the thermal protection efficiency, a double-layer aluminum plate air gap thermal sheath is installed on the body tube, with a protection efficiency of 70%.

Like the Russian 2a46m-1 125mm smooth-bore tank gun, the breech of the Ztp-98 tank gun is also a horizontal wedge type, which is semi-automatically controlled by a ram spring, and is equipped with mechanical and electrical Dual-function firing system. The gun's anti-recoil device is of the under-mounted type and consists of a cylinder-type recoil control rod-type parking and retreating machine with liquid volume adjustment and a three-cylinder liquid-pneumatic recoil machine with a needle-shaped rod recoil controller.

The gun's gun chamber is 880 mm long, the normal recoil distance is 280 mm to 320 mm, and the maximum recoil distance is 330 mm. The mass of the gun barrel is 2.02 tons, the mass of the breech is 72 kg, and the mass of the rotating part is 2.6 tons. The bending strength of the gun barrel is 4320 Newton/meter, the thickness tolerance is 0.6 mm, the process bending is 0.7 mils, and the free error is 0.18 mils. The shooting accuracy is 25% higher than the Russian 2a46m-1.

The types of ammunition the ZPT-98 tank gun is equipped with include semi-combustible cartridges (using the new Tagen propellant) tungsten/uranium alloy fin-stabilized discarding sabot armor-piercing projectiles, fin-stabilized armor-piercing projectiles and fin-stabilized projectiles. The multifunctional anti-personnel blasting grenade has a base ammunition count of 41 rounds, of which 2 rounds are placed in the rotating ammunition feeder of the automatic loader and 19 rounds are placed in each ammunition box in the combat room. When firing a third-generation tungsten alloy fin-stabilized discarding sabot armor-piercing projectile (muzzle velocity of 1780 m/s), it can penetrate 850 mm thick homogeneous armor at a distance of 2000 meters, while the latest special alloy armor-piercing projectile (depleted uranium armor-piercing projectile) can penetrate at this distance The armor penetration thickness can reach 960 mm, and its core aspect ratio is 30:1. In order to strengthen the anti-tank combat capability, the Type 98 tank is also equipped with a multi-functional grenade, a high-explosive type with an increased charge, which is powerful enough to make the tank lose its combat effectiveness.

The later 99 improved model was equipped with the QJG-02 14.5mm commander's anti-aircraft machine gun, and was replaced with a digital automatic loader that was more reliable, easier to operate, and had better performance. In terms of observation, the 99 improved gunner sight is replaced with China's newly developed gaze focal plane infrared thermal imager. Its sensing unit directly receives the thermal radiation signal of the entire field of view and forms a gaze image, without the need for optical scanning. China has launched updated ammunition for the 99 modification. The muzzle velocity of the new APFSDS has slightly increased to more than 1720m/s, and the power of the new HEAT high-explosive armor-piercing projectile is also much higher than that of the early model.