China’s new armored systems signal a shift toward lighter, networked, and drone-resilient capabilities in the PLAGF, underscoring the need for India to fast-track and adapt its FRCV and IBGs
The People's Republic of China (PRC) displayed an impressive array of sophisticated weapon systems during its annual military parade. The parade also provided a glimpse into how the People's Liberation Army (PLA) envisions future warfare. While many of the weapons systems, especially missiles, were known to be in the possession of the Chinese military, the display of the People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF) ground combat vehicles was the most significant capability in this year’s parade. These vehicles included the older Type-99A Main Battle Tank (MBT), but it was the newer Type 99B MBTs drawn from the 112th Combined Arms Brigade (CAB), 82nd Group Army, that led the formation on China’s Victory Day Parade.
The new armoured capabilities exhibited at the parade are consistent with intelligencisation and networked warfare that would help the PLAGF secure a rapid and decisive victory.
The unveiling of the Type 99B MBTs demonstrates Beijing’s commitment to the development and deployment of advanced armoured capabilities not just for near-abroad missions and operations, but also for long-distance overseas force projection missions. More critically, it is the Type 100 medium-weight tanks with their Type 100 support vehicles that captured the attention the most. While the Type 99B is undoubtedly an advanced upgrade on the Type 99A in the heavier armour category and featured prominently in this year’s parade, they are a key, but only one cog in the networked capability that is organic to the PLAGF CAB. The Type 99Bs are geared to delivering heavy firepower. But they are part of a networked capability encompassing three areas–informatisation, intelligencisation and firepower. These are critical areas where progress is now a priority for the PLAGF and across all the service arms of the PLA. Officially, China sees synergy between informatisation, intelligencisation and firepower. Indeed, in Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s National Party Congress (NPC) address in March 2025 emphasised the significance of “network information systems” that necessitate complete integration into PLA operations, cyber, information technology, space and autonomous platforms. The new armoured capabilities exhibited at the parade are consistent with intelligencisation and networked warfare that would help the PLAGF secure a rapid and decisive victory.
Armoured forces are by no means obsolescent, let alone obsolete for the PLAGF., Rather, they are being adapted and tailored to the evolving nature of the PLAGF’s missions and the lessons it has learnt, especially from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. The Type 99B is believed to be an upgraded variant of the heavier Type 99A, which has a combat weight of 58 tonnes. Yet it is the Type 100 medium-weight fourth-generation tank, making it more deployable, especially for overseas missions. It is equipped with the GL-6 Active Protection System (APS) and is markedly more mobile and manoeuvrable—a byproduct of the Chinese observations of the Russia-Ukraine war. The ubiquitous and relentless drone threat and the necessity for more effective tank performance in geographic contexts such as the Himalayan plateau, where PLAGF faces India, is compelling China’s military planners and tank designers to keep the total weight of their advanced MBTs within a combat weight band of 55-60 tonnes. It is evident that the Chinese privileged mobility and firepower over protection; its heaviest combat tank weighs 58 tonnes, which is considerably below the combat weight of the Abrams M1A2, the British Challenger-2 and the Indian Arjun Mk1 and Mk2, which are anywhere between 8-12 tonnes heavier than the PLAGF’s heaviest tank.
The ubiquitous and relentless drone threat and the necessity for more effective tank performance in geographic contexts such as the Himalayan plateau, where PLAGF faces India, is compelling China’s military planners and tank designers to keep the total weight of their advanced MBTs within a combat weight band of 55-60 tonnes.
More importantly, the PLAGF’s latest Type 99Bs have also been designed to strike the most optimal balance between firepower, mobility and protection with a weight limit of 58 tonnes. The brand-new Type 100 medium tanks have only augmented the strength of the PLAGF’s CABs. Although equipped with a 105 mm main gun, compared to the Type 99B’s 125 mm gun, the Type 100 incorporates an unmanned turret, allowing its crew to remain protected inside the tank while delivering a high rate of fire using varied munitions and supported by an advanced fire control system. Powered by a hybrid-electric engine, the Type 100 tanks are designed to approach enemy positions with notable stealth. Reduced noise combined with a reduction in thick armour makes them more mobile and manoeuvrable, and the tank relies on a blend of passive and active protection.
The Type 99A and its advanced variant, the Type 99B, are not merely stand-alone capabilities; they have the capacity to deliver heavy firepower, constituting an organic element synergised with the Type 100 medium tanks and Type 100 vehicles, which are integral to PLAGF’s CABs displayed during China’s annual national parade in early September 2025. The Type 99B, with its informationised capabilities, can deliver highly accurate firepower in concert with the lighter Type 100 tanks and Type 100 vehicles. The latter set of capabilities provides the intelligence component of the collaboration. These new additions witnessed at China’s military parade will require attention from Indian Army (IA) force planners.
India’s Future Ready Combat Vehicle (FRCV) is the IA’s response to the PLAGF’s Type 99B, intended to replace the IA’s ageing T-72s fleet, but the FRCV’s prototypes have not seen the light of day. In 2023, the IA decided to fast-track the FRCV, with the prototypes to appear by 2027 and the tank entering production by 2030. The challenge for both the IA and the Defence Research and Development Organisations (DRDO) lies in expediting the design and adopting technical choices for the FRCV, as this author pointed out in a separate analysis, while the tanks of the same or comparable weight class to the prospective FRCV, such as the Chinese Type 99B and the South Korean K2, do not have four crew members, which is what is envisioned for the FRCV. Indeed, future European MBTs are unlikely to feature a four-man crew. They are likely to rely on an autoloader instead of a fourth crew member. More perplexingly, the FRCV will not just have a four-person crew; it will also have an autoloader, which again is nonexistent in any comparable tank. The advantage of an autoloader combined with one less crew member is that it reduces the need for protective armour. If not perfectly or precisely, Korean K2GF, provides a good design template for the FRCV. The reason is that K2GF is designed for operations in mountainous or hilly terrain similar to that in Ladakh and other sectors of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), where tanks can be deployed for operations. KG2F has a 120 mm gun, which is 5mm smaller than the Type 99B main gun, yet capable of firing armour-piercing and high-explosive munitions and features a whole range of technical strengths such as an advanced fire control system and Battle Management System (BMS) enabling coordination with other battlefield capabilities, including Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs) and mobile artillery. It is packed with composite armour, an APS capability, a powerful 1500 horsepower (HP) engine and an advanced infrared and laser range finders. Yet trade-offs are unavoidable with the design of any tank, which will inevitably be the case for the FRCV. Indian designers will have to consider a range factors related to weight, crew, capabilities related to manned-unmanned teaming, stowage capacity for munitions, counter-unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS) and the size of the FRCV’ main gun.
The advantage of an autoloader combined with one less crew member is that it reduces the need for protective armour. If not perfectly or precisely, Korean K2GF, provides a good design template for the FRCV.
More importantly, the IA’s prospective Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs), tailored along the lines of the PLAGF’s Combined Arms Brigades (CABs), will need systems comparable to the Chinese Type 100 tanks and Type 100 vehicles to perform key functions. These include tackling, especially the drone threat through the help of several photoelectric sensors, APS to neutralise anti-tank projectiles, and the Type 100 support vehicle is equipped with a drone that can conduct forward reconnaissance, boosting situational awareness, exposing enemy ambushes and performing, if required, suicide attacks against enemy targets. Indeed, in today’s battlefield drones pose a relentless menace to tank turrets and cannot be packed with armour or their engines shielded with protective armour. What is distinctive about the PLAGF’s Type 100 tanks is that they are fourth-generation tanks, contrasting them with third-generation tanks, in that they completely dispense with a manned turret, armour thickness, including composite and Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA). Instead, it relies on APS, passive defensive capabilities and a Remote Weapons Station (RWS) that engages unmanned aerial threats. The Type 100 support vehicle is equipped with APS and passive defensive systems. While the Type 100 tanks feature a smaller 105 mm gun, it is nevertheless capable of firing a wide range of munitions enabled by advanced sensors, albeit not simultaneously. The Type 100 vehicles will play an equally consequential role by suppressing the enemy’s anti-tank arm, whether mounted or dismounted. At large, the IA will need to configure its IBGs to counter the PLAGFs CABs. Certainly, one key takeaway from what the PLAGF is doing with its CABs is the extent to which it is forging synergy through informationisation, intelligencisation, and firepower between its constituent elements, helping secure battlefield initiative, breakthroughs and victory. The second being the extent to which it has traded heavy or thick organic armour protection for greater mobility, firepower and sensor and APS capabilities for its latest armoured vehicles. A third takeaway is that the Type 100 tanks and Type 100 vehicles are based on the same design philosophy, enabling efficient maintenance and enhancing “…interoperability and interconnectivity”.
Kartik Bommakanti is a Senior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme, Observer Research Foundation.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Kartik is a Senior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme. He is currently working on issues related to land warfare and armies, especially the India ...
Read More +
PREV
