In a recent plateau exercise of China’s Tibet Military Region, pictures of Type 15 light tank tail cabin automatic loader loading armor-piercing projectiles were unveiled. This ammunition is China’s new generation of 105mm hull armor-piercing projectile. Its performance is very powerful, and it can pose a threat to all Indian tanks at conventional combat distances.
For Type 15 light tank, whether the previously equipped tail fin-stabilized armor-piercing projectile (APFSDS), or the new generation of 105mm APFSDS that appeared this time, it uses a full-body bomb, that is, the core is directly inserted in the cartridge Inside, it can maximize the length of the core and enhance the armor-piercing ability, according to Ordnance Technology.
Due to the use of full-load ammunition, Type 15 light tank did not follow the turntable type loader on other Chinese battle tanks but instead used the tail cabin-type automatic loader to directly supply the bomb from the tail of the gun. This is the first time in the history of the development of tanks in China – all tanks previously developed, including the most advanced Type 99A2 main battle tanks, use a turntable automatic loader.
It can be clearly seen from the published pictures that the body of the new-generation 105 mm armor-piercing projectile used by Type 15 light tank is very long, indicating that the core of the projectile cannot be short. Everyone knows that the APFSDS uses a core to penetrate the armor, so the better the core material, the longer the length, and the stronger the armor-piercing ability.
The new generation of 105mm APFSDS that appeared this time should use tungsten alloy cores, which can pose a sufficient threat to all second-generation tanks and some third-generation tanks at regular combat distances. Even in the face of T-90S, it remains a considerable deterrent and can penetrate the front of its body. Although the T-90S turret is equipped with contact 5 explosion reaction armor, which has a certain degree of weakening of the shelling armor-piercing shell; however, since the new-generation 105 mm APFSDS has enough armor-piercing margin, the probability of the frontal breakdown of the T-90S turret is not small.
In general, Type 15 light tank not only has good plateau adaptability and powerful maneuverability, but also is equipped with a new generation of domestically produced 105 mm APFSDS with good armor-piercing ability, and is supplemented by a fast reloading tail cabin-type automatic loader, which has a comprehensive combat capability in the plateau area comparable to that of a heavy main battle tank, making it very suitable for rapid interpenetrating operations in the plateau area.