In the recent CCTV news report, the picture of the Marine Corps just installed the
However, judging from the many heavy armored vehicles previously installed by the Marine Corps, the Marine Corps can obviously choose the 99A or 96B main battle tanks with higher levels of mobility, protection, firepower, and information technology. Why not? Instead of choosing the first two, why did you choose a Type 15 light tank that is inferior to the first two in every aspect? After all, the Marine Corps has already installed Type 08 and Type 11 wheeled combat vehicles with similar positioning before this.
The Type 05 amphibious assault vehicle currently in service by the Marine Corps has a stronger amphibious combat environment and better firepower. Why is it still equipped with a Type 15 light tank?
Because the Marine Corps basically performs amphibious operations missions based on beach landing operations, its main heavy armor equipment is mainly the early Type 63 and 63A, and the later family-style Type 05 Mainly amphibious combat vehicles. But why did the Marine Corps also quickly replace the Type 15 light tank after it was finalized and fielded? Mainly because the Type 63 and Type 05 amphibious heavy armored combat vehicles have excellent amphibious combat performance, but in order to improve their amphibious combat performance, especially the Type 05 amphibious combat vehicle, the entire body is designed to be relatively wide, which can provide sufficient interior space and greater buoyancy advantages.
Although this design makes the Type 05 amphibious combat vehicle, it has become the "world's most advanced amphibious combat vehicle" that is faster than the U.S. Marine Corps VV7 amphibious combat vehicle at sea. However, the overly large and high body structure is made of a large amount of aluminum alloy materials. This causes the Type 05 amphibious combat vehicle to have a higher speed at sea, but once the beach landing operation is successful, it will suffer from insufficient protection due to its lack of protection. Qianghe's own vehicle body is wide and has a high probability of being shot, making it unable to fight further into the enemy's interior.
So although the
At the same time, compared with the Type 08 and Type 11 wheeled combat vehicles previously installed by the Marine Corps, although the total combat weight of the Type 15 light tank is nearly 1.5 times heavier, it is stronger than the former. Off-road mobility and greater protection. It can be said that in future beach landing operations, the Type 05 amphibious tank only needs to directly destroy the shore defenses at sea, and then the Type 15 light tank and the Type 11 wheeled tank will work together to continue to penetrate into the enemy after a successful landing. Internally, and with the help of the speed of the Type 11 wheeled combat vehicle and the off-road mobility and protection of the Type 115 Type , the "success of comprehensive beach landing operations" was successfully achieved.
Why did the Marine Corps not choose the 99A and 96B tanks with stronger firepower, protection, mobility, and information capabilities, but insisted on choosing the Type 15 light tank?
In fact, after the Type 63 and 63A amphibious tanks previously equipped by the Marine Corps were retired, although the Type 05 amphibious tank developed at the same time derived from the same platform as an infantry fighting vehicle and an assault version with a 105 mm howitzer, its thin and light The aluminum alloy body structure makes it only suitable for rapid beach landing operations, but cannot independently penetrate deep into the enemy's interior to conduct deep operations.Therefore, the Marine Corps originally planned to purchase a batch of Type 96A main battle tanks to fill the vacancies after the retirement of the Type 63A. However, the Type 96A tank is a heavy tank second only to the 99A. Although its mobility, protection and fire strike performance are very Yes, but its total combat weight exceeds 45 tons, which means that even after successfully landing on the beach, it will not perform well in the swamps, tributaries and other environments inside the tidal flats.
Although the Type 08 or Type 11 wheeled combat vehicle with a lighter overall combat weight has good maneuverability and firepower strike performance, especially its amphibious ferry capability, it also has a very good advantage in beach landing operations. However, both the Type 08 and Type 11 tanks have limited combat weight due to their wheeled chassis, and thus have shortcomings in terms of protective performance.
So after the Type 15 light tank was put into service in batches, the Marine Corps quickly saw the best choice. Because the Type 15 light tank is specially tailored for swamp areas and plateau environments such as the Southern Water Network. Not only is the total combat weight much lighter than the 99A and
So for the Marine Corps, why did it remain indifferent to the 99A and 96B with stronger protection and firepower capabilities, but chose the Type 15 light tank? It is because the Type 15 light tank has similar mobility and protective advantages to the 99A and 96B, but its mobility advantages are more obvious than those of the 96A and Type 05 in beach landing operations. Especially in the face of the six Type 071 amphibious dock landing ships installed in batches by our army, its advantages are even more obvious. After all, one Type 071 can carry almost 40 Type 15 light tanks and other amphibious combat vehicles, and one Type 071 can also carry four