China testing 140mm smoothbore cannon?

Some people claim that CCTV 7(Chinese Central Television 7)'s military TV program said that this Type-98 is testing China's new 140mm smoothbore cannon. I haven't seen the video but here's a picture from the TV program.

www.wforum.com...

Here's the normal Type-98 picture.

www.wforum.com...

Thats a huge machine gun as well.....Any other pictures?

The barrel looks longer but its not clear enough to tell the thickness or the caliber.





West Point, Out.

OMG I just noticed that machinegun thing wasn't on the original Type-98. Look at the second picture. Could that be a CIWS type self defence weapon?

the turret looks similar to this

Nah, its a normal Type-98G turret but it looks like its has upgrades the Type-98G didn't get.

[edit on 24-4-2005 by COWlan]

What you talking about COWlan? Not seeing what your describing here.
You referring to this picture?



Or this one? The "CIWS type defense weapon" you are referring to [below] is not what you think it is.



Besides, COWlan, though the thought of a 140mm smoothbore may raise goosebumps all over your body, the weight alone will prove a significant problem for this MBT. Why you think that the majority of the world's MBTs utilize 120-125mm's? Impressive as this may be, I'm seeing major problems with this, and the picture almost indicates such. You can see how the weight of the gun alone is bearing on the MBT.




seekerof

[edit on 24-4-2005 by Seekerof]

Nothing the Type 98 has on it is new to tank technology. Also, the west does not use very large guns because with large guns you carry less ammo. You get smaller rounds to perform better not just increase the size.

COWlan don't get overexcited, by the looks of its probably some type of 40mm grenade launcher or a very high caliber machine gun. Its too small to be any type of CIWS.

Yep, and if you really wanted to see a tank chassis fitted with a huge main cannon, its already been invented, its called self-towed artillery. I'm still wondering why they need such a huge cannon, I believe that the current 125mm is already good enough to penetrate most armor.

Isn't that huge "CIWS" the dazzler system?

westpoint how can you comment on the armour of the t-98. no one knows whats even inside the design of the abram is from late 1970s. i read somewhere that the chinese 125mm is more powerful than the german gun your using. our gun is not a copy of a russian one it was indegeniously developed from our 120mm tank gun.

what a load of BS, oh. I read somewhere.......blah. You seem to resort to making things up to suit you. Not just on this thread but others.

And in case you didn't know the Germans build the best tank guns, it must come from 70 years of experience.

But by all means provide a link to what you claim, or though for some reason I don't expect you to LOL,

I would say the rifled gun on the Challenger II is better than anything Germany has produced... being 50% more accurate and all.

Also it's not that impractical as most MBT's never get down to 20 rounds in a major tank engagment. So a 140mm canon is feasible.

By the way folks... that's picture is just the standard 125mm cannon... the shockwave and distortion from the gun firing has manipulated the image... I have seen the before and after firing shots and it's just the basic type-98 prototype undergoing trials

It is ? Do you have anything to back this up or is this just heresay ?

As far as accurate tank gunnery today, much more reliance is placed in a tanks Fire Control System, rifled or unrifled barrels makes bugger all difference.

This aren't the days of world war 2 when you had to manually lay the gun and make the adjustments in your head.

Besdies the most efective anti-tank round is a DU sabot. Now a sabot doesn't rely on the spin imparted by barrel rifling, so I fail to see how rifling would make tanks kills any more accurate.

The US Army in fact chose the smooth bore cannon over a rifled one when designing the Abrams.

Yes the US went with the nato standard smoothbore... the Uk went with the indiginously developed rifled barrel

Think about it... a rifled gun is going to be more accurate for the same reasons as a rifle is more accurate than a musket.

The reason the smoothbore was chosen by the US is because it can fire a wider range of ordinance.

Want proof?... go look up maximum engagement ranges for Challenger II and M1a2

A Challenger 1 also holds the longest kill ever at over 5km... more than 1km further than the M1a2 maximum

Well you'd also know that rifling has no effect on the accuracy of sabot rounds.



Yeah right, one lucky kill doesn't mean that it's more accurate. Sure if they regularly engaged targets at that range and scored hits you might have someting to talk about. Anyway it took them more than one round to score a kill. I'm sure that if it was an Abrams instead it would have achieved the same kill.

But you're hardly supplying any hard information about the capabilities of the British gun.

[edit on 25-4-2005 by rogue1]

Challenger II does not fire SABOT... it fires Charm III hesh

www.army.mod.uk...

www.clubi.ie...

www.army-technology.com...



EDIT: just noticed that source claims it was a 120mm round... which is innacurate as the gun is 125mm

Considering the Abrams has never engaged over 4km I would say "1 lucky shot" has a lot more going for it

Anyhow... go look up "L30 gun" if you want to learn more





[edit on 25-4-2005 by Lucretius]

Hesh = high Explosive Squash Head, I though these were retired decades ago.



Ahem....I thought you said the Challenger doesn't fire sabot rounds, but the quote you provided says it is an APFSDS in other words a DU sabot round. Has APFSDS changed it meaning in the lat couple of weeks lol.

Hmm alll the sources say that the L30 is 120mm, I've got no idea where you get 125mm from. Maybe you are cinfused with Russian tanks