Chinese language state broadcaster CCTV has for the primary time aired footage of the Individuals’s Liberation Army’s new Kind 99B foremost battle tank taking part in stay fireplace drills. The brand new sort of foremost battle tank was first unveiled at a army parade on September 3, 2025, throughout which tanks from the 112th Mixed Arms Brigade of the 82nd Group Army led the bottom car column by means of Tiananmen Sq. in central Beijing. The tank’s design seems to answer a number of rising developments in armoured warfare which have develop into more and more clear within the Russian-Ukrainain Struggle, with enhancements over the previous Kind 99A centered on enhancing situational consciousness and energetic safety. The tank integrates two GL-6 energetic safety system launchers and 4 radars, and has far superior community centric warfare capabilities because of its upgraded info know-how and information sharing subsystems.
The Kind 99B’s situational consciousness is reportedly additional improved by the combination of a 360-degree imaginative and prescient system for the crew. Its extra fashionable fireplace controls embrace a brand new technology of thermal imaging methods, which unconfirmed experiences point out might have set a brand new commonplace because the world’s first fourth technology system. A brand new photoelectric and sensor methods additional improves battlefield consciousness. The tank reportedly additionally advantages from improved explosive reactive armour modules, though additional particulars stay restricted. The Kind 99 was developed as a part of a high-low mixture with the lighter and far less expensive Kind 96, which was procured in higher numbers to re-equip items throughout the nation.
Chinese language state media experiences have particularly highlighted the Kind 99B’s excessive optimisation for top altitude and chilly climate operations, with its design meant to facilitate fast and sustained fight operations in mountain areas such because the Himalayas. The previous Kind 99A was notably deployed throughout Sino-Indian border disputes, and was thought of to have supplied a major efficiency benefit over the Russian T-90MS that types the spine of the Indian fleet. It stays unsure how lengthy the Kind 99 will stay in manufacturing, and whether or not nearly all of deliberate Kind 99B tanks can be procured from manufacturing traces, or acquired by means of upgrades of older Kind 99 tanks to the brand new commonplace. China presently serially produces six tank sorts in parallel, of which the Kind 99 is by far the heaviest and finest protected, with the tank having been succeeded by the newer Kind 100, which was additionally unveiled in September.
Following the demonstrated excessive vulnerability of each Western and Russian tanks within the Russian-Ukrainian Struggle, rising questions have been raised amongst Western analysts relating to the viability of conventional tank designs, together with new tank sorts constructed round conventional ideas such because the British Challenger 3 and German Panther. The Chinese language Kind 100 program deeply revised conventional tank design priorities, and is far lighter, extra cellular and fewer properly armoured, whereas utilizing a much less highly effective 105mm gun in comparison with the 125mm gun on the Kind 96 and Kind 99. It as an alternative locations a better emphasis on energetic safety methods to defend in opposition to each missile and drone assaults, and significantly focuses on information connectivity and multi-domain coordination to function at safer distances and and work carefully alongside unmanned plane for reconnaissance and concentrating on. The Kind 99B is assumed to have tailored the Kind 99 design in the same course, albeit on a a lot heavier extra conventional chassis that depends on thick armour safety and a strong foremost gun. The entry of the Kind 100 into serial manufacturing has raised the chance that manufacturing of the Kind 99 might quickly come to an finish.
