Empire Conquest-Chapter 697 - 23 The King of Ground Combat

At the front, Liu Zunshan didn’t stay with Ding Zhennan any longer, but went to his own battalion commander’s vehicle, a command-type tank with several additional radios.

Speaking of which, the Marine Corps really went all out this time.

Until now, only two armored battalions in the Marine Corps completed equipment upgrades, replacing the "ZTT-69BL" medium tanks that had been in service for over 30 years with "ZT-99AL" Main Battle Tanks. Thus, the Marine Corps had for the first time the same level of technical equipment as the main army units.

For the past several decades, the Marine Corps had always been treated as a "stepchild", with their main technical equipment being a generation behind that of the Army.

In fact, before becoming an independent branch of the military, apart from specialized equipment such as amphibious assault vehicles and amphibious tanks, the main equipment of the Marine Corps was almost entirely hand-me-downs from the Army.

Even now, not much had changed.

More than 7000 units of "ZT-99" series Main Battle Tanks were produced, and it had evolved to the second generation. Just the "ZT-99B" model alone exceeded 2000 units, and it had already replaced the "ZT-80" series as the backbone of the Army’s main forces.

As a result, it was only last year that the Marine Corps gained the procurement rights, and the current equipment quantity was still less than 100 units.

In this regard, the status of the Marine Corps was even less than that of the Allied armies.

Before that, about 1000 "ZT-99AG" models were exported to several main Allied countries, of which at least 400 were second-hand units from the Army.

Actually, the first batch of "ZT-99AL" that the Marine Corps received were also second-hand goods phased out by the Army, but they were improved according to the requirements of the Marine Corps.

The most significant modification was the installation of the latest 52-caliber 125mm tank gun.

As for electronic equipment, especially the vitally important infrared imaging night vision devices, due to budget constraints, they remained old models and hadn’t been upgraded to the new ones like the "ZT-99B".

However, changing the gun was the most crucial improvement.

Compared to the first to be equipped with the 48-caliber 125mm smoothbore tank gun of the "ZT-80DG", the biggest change in the 52-caliber 125mm smoothbore tank gun, developed for the "ZT-99" but not able to keep up with the schedule and officially equipped only on the "ZT-99B", was not the longer barrel but the adoption of unitary ammunition. Therefore, it could use larger-caliber fin-stabilized Armor-piercing discarding sabot rounds, which meant greater power.

According to the tests of the Empire’s Army, the newly developed fin-stabilized armor-piercing rounds for it could achieve an effective armor penetration depth of up to 600 mm at 2000 meters. The previously developed best performing semi-fixed armor-piercing rounds for the 48-caliber 125mm tank gun only had an effective penetration depth of about 500 mm.

An improvement of 20% in performance can be said to be quite astonishing.

But that wasn’t even the best part.

The second generation of armor-piercing rounds, which had completed development and was about to begin mass production, had a theoretical armor penetration depth of 750 mm, and the design goal for the third generation was even higher at 850 mm.

In fact, even the first generation of armor-piercing rounds could penetrate the frontal armor of all Main Battle Tanks in active service.

With this tank gun, the Marine Corps for the first time possessed an anti-armor capability on par with the Army!

Before this, aside from Anti-tank Missiles, the sharpest anti-tank weapon available to the Marine Corps was the 105mm rifled gun of the "ZTT-69BL".

In a sense, the "ZT-99AL" was also Liu Zunshan’s biggest source of confidence.

In last year’s "Westward 149" joint exercises, another Armored Battalion equipped with "ZT-99A" achieved the best overall score in the Army competition, especially in the firepower section where they outperformed all Army battalions, with a very eye-catching performance that greatly enhanced the image of the Marine Corps.

Moreover, during the firepower test conducted during the exercises, an Armor-piercing bullet fired from a "ZT-99AL" not only penetrated the front and rear armor of the "ZT-55" turret used as a target but also buried itself into the sand wall behind it, ultimately revealing a penetration depth of over 2 meters.

To unleash the full power of the tank gun, equally advanced sighting equipment is needed.

Relative to all previous Main Battle Tanks, the biggest change in the "ZT-99" was actually in the sighting system, or rather, the approach to tank development.

After the end of the last Global War, especially before the end of the Boi War, the leading military doctrine of the Empire’s Army was still geared toward preparation for a global conflict. Hence, in their approach to main battle equipment, the Empire’s Army had always prioritized quantity over quality, and a slight reduction in quality was considered irrelevant.

As a result, from the "ZT-55" to the "ZT-80", the design priority was simplicity.

Of course, this approach can’t be said to be wrong.

During the last war, especially in the first three years, the average service life of a tank was less than half a year, and the enormous attrition of war made any advanced technology seem insignificant.

By the late stages of the war, even the technologically-concerned Tiaoman Empire set aside its craftsmanship spirit and began to focus on production.

Moreover, the changes brought about by technology weren’t significant enough to shift the balance on the battlefield.

After the Boi War, and the onset of the second post-war military revolution, this development approach based on quantity was challenged.

The key issue was technology.

To put it simply, tanks equipped with new technology had better mobility, stronger armor protection, and fiercer firepower.

Furthermore, the accuracy of their firepower had increased by several orders of magnitude.

With the help of bi-directional stabilization systems, Main Battle Tanks for the first time had the ability to accurately fire at targets more than 2000 meters away.

According to the tests by the Empire’s Army, the "ZT-99A" had a first-round hit rate of no less than 80% against targets 2000 meters away moving at a speed of 35 km/h, and even when moving at the same speed itself, the "ZT-99A" had a remarkable first-round hit rate of 60%.

Previously, such achievements would have been unimaginable.

Throughout the entire war, the hit rate of tank guns against targets more than 1000 meters away was less than 20%, and in dynamic combat scenarios, it didn’t even reach 10%.