THOUGH BULK SALES REMAIN KING, NORINCO AIMS TO REDEFINE CHINESE ARMOR WITH ADVANCED EXPORT MODELS
NEWTOWN, Conn. - The People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF) is currently undertaking an ambitious campaign to overhaul and/or replace its vast but aging armored inventories with vehicles of a higher operational and technical standard.
Although the PLAGF fields the largest active armored fleet of any military, a significant majority of the service's armored stocks remain composed of the outmoded Type 59 design.
Nevertheless, over the past decade the PLAGF and Chinese contractors have made considerable progress not only in the retrofit and modernization of existing armored stocks but, perhaps even more importantly, in the steady development and procurement of increasingly modern and capable indigenous MBT designs.
Although performance and technical specifications of the majority of China's currently operational Type 98/99 series MBTs are still not comparable to those of designs such as the M1A2 Abrams, K2 Black Panther, or Leopard 2, Chinese contractors are gradually closing the capabilities gap through the introduction of advanced tank variants like the latest Type 96A and Type 99A models, and new designs like the VT-4.
At the time of writing, NORINCO is undertaking serial production of a number of different variants of the Type 96 and Type 98/99 for domestic procurement by the PLAGF. It should be noted that NORINCO's serial production of new-build MBTs for the PLAGF appears to consist in large part of earlier Type 98/99 series and modernized Type 96A models - those that can be affordably acquired in substantial quantities while still constituting a major improvement over the service's current Type 59s.
The contractor's more state-of-the-art Type 99A/A2 models are thought to be produced and acquired on a smaller but gradually increasing scale, and (at the time of writing) are primarily reserved for select units.
The continual evolution of China's MBT development and the scale of procurement afforded by the PLAGF's requirements will ensure that the PLAGF will field a progressively more potent armored force over the coming decades.
Over the past several years, NORINCO has made a concerted effort toward the creation of a more standardized designation system for Chinese armored vehicle products being sold on the international market.
As China has steadily developed more advanced indigenous weapons systems, NORINCO has also begun to adapt its marketing strategy accordingly, even if bulk sales have been - and are likely to remain - its primary source of export revenue.
This shift has primarily come in the form of placing more prominent marketing emphasis on the capabilities and name recognition associated with individual defense products, establishing a clearer sense of hierarchy within the contractor's available product line, and attempting to build a more recognizable and cohesive NORINCO brand image, forged in the same vein as those of leading Western European, Asian, and North American defense contractors.
China's latest and most advanced tank design is known as the MBT-3000, or VT-4, and arguably stands at the forefront of this effort. NORINCO publically unveiled the earliest mockups of the design in 2012 at the Eurosatory Defense Exhibition, but the ultimate design of the new tank remained a work-in-progress over the succeeding three years.
The VT-4 features considerable enhancements over prior Chinese MBT designs in regard to both technical and weapons systems, and armored protection and survivability.
NORINCO publications and coverage from Chinese state media show that the MBT features an indigenously developed active defense system, roof-mounted RCWS, frontal composite armor for added protection of the turret and hull, and the integration of advanced imaging systems for the tank's gunner and commander. The MBT-3000 is outfitted with a capable 906-kilowatt (1,300-hp) powerplant.
The opacity of the Chinese defense industry makes it difficult to ascertain the VT-4's level of direct developmental and technological connection to the latest variants of the Type 98/99 MBT series fielded by the PLAGF, or the degree to which the PLAGF might intend to pursue procurement of a domestically oriented build of the VT-4.
Nevertheless, the tank's design features provide a clear window into the emerging philosophies of Chinese MBT design and provide a useful indicator of innovations to come. While the higher cost of the MBT-3000 design could prove prohibitive to its procurement by the PLAGF, many of its core design features will no doubt be implemented into future NORINCO MBTs.
Although the MBT-3000 has yet to secure any export orders, the vehicle's combination of potent modern systems and capabilities with a low unit cost (in comparison to other advanced MBT designs) may allow it to breach the highly competitive MBT market and achieve a modest level of sales through the latter half of the forecast period and beyond, namely among China's traditional military export customers. Ideally, NORINCO likely hopes that the VT-4 will become the armored solution of choice for a niche market of developing nations that are developing their military capacity but remain fiscally unable to procure the most state-of-the-art Western European designs.
However, NORINCO's entry into the advanced MBT market will also be fraught with considerable challenges, as the company will need to prove that these more expensive - but largely unproven - new products can stand among those offered by long-established competitors such as Russia's Uralvagonzavod or Germany's Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW).
Pakistan, which previously cooperated with NORINCO on the development of the MBT-2000/Al-Khalid MBT project, has reportedly expressed interest in the potential procurement or licensed production of the new model.
Despite these more ambitious designs, however, the majority of Chinese tanks sold on the export market remain surplus stocks of older models being phased out of active service with the PLAGF. For cash-strapped customers seeking to enlarge or modernize their armored inventories, NORINCO offers highly appealing bulk procurement packages of retrofitted MBTs that allow purchasing parties to fulfill their requirements at an affordable cost.
Chinese contractors have increasingly pursued the African defense market as a promising outlet for both new-build and surplus military vehicles.
In 2013, China delivered a large but unspecified quantity of retrofitted Type 59G MBTs to Chad. The same year, NORINCO completed an existing 2011 Tanzanian order for Type 59Gs, and also carried out the modernization of some of the country's existing Type 59 inventories to the same standard.
You have 0 item(s) in your cart