Type 15 MBT seen with digital camouflage coating

According to Chinese media reports a group of Type-15 tanks in the Xinjiang Military Region carried out a driving training exercise. Several Type 15 tanks were seen participating in the training with digital camouflage paintings, which was in sharp contrast with the classic dark green paint.

Earlier this year, the regiment stationed on the Indo-Sino border received a batch of Type 15 light tanks. This was the first time that the Xinjiang Military Region troops installed Type 15 light tanks. This means that after a certain synthetic brigade of the Tibet Military Region and the “Tashan Power Brigade” of the 75th Army, the Xinjiang Military Region has become the third unit to install this latest domestic tank.

According to Chinese claims such asType-15 has light weight, good protection ability, high level communication system, and strong attack power, the Type 15 light tank is affectionately called the “Black Panther” by officers and soldiers of PLA. However limited by size, the Type 15 light tank did not use the 125 mm guns which is used in Type 99 and Type 96 tanks, but instead used a 105 mm rifled gun.

Don’t underestimate it because the main gun has a slightly smaller calibre. This 105mm rifled gun has the ability to launch various types of advanced shells and artillery-launched missiles. With reference to the 550mm/2000m armour-piercing performance of my country’s export-type BTA-2 105mm armour-piercing projectile, when using our army’s DTC02-105 (that is, the third-stage projectile), the armour-piercing performance of the Type 15 tank at 2 kilometres should be able to reach The 600 mm homogeneous steel plate can completely penetrate the main battle tank of the opponent in the direction of the plateau.

Let’s talk about the new paint for the replacement of the Type 15 tank in the Xinjiang Military Region. When it was first installed at the beginning of this year, the Type 15 painting of the composite group was still the classic dark green painting. This kind of painting is more suitable for Jungle areas and dense areas, but in the high altitude areas with sparse vegetation and sand and rock. It seems a bit “unacceptable.” And easily detectable from long distances.

The 15 light tank of Xinjiang Military Region first changed to digital camouflage and perfectly integrated with plateau and mountain

Previously The PLA army deployed dark green colour Type 15 tank which can be clearly seen from long distance. I think the Chinese counterpart learning lots of things from India, seems like they learned from their mistakes.

Only half a year after the installation, these 15-type tanks of the Xinjiang Military Region have been replaced with digital camouflage mainly in desert colours. From the perspective of the military training ground, after changing to this digital painting, the Type 15 tank will be more difficult to be detected by the enemy’s detection methods in plateau areas, thereby improving its penetration and survivability.

Modern tanks use a variety of ways to improve their concealment capabilities. The simplest and most effective way is to attach camouflage and camouflage nets to the tank, and the multi-colour digital camouflage effect is the best. This is because low-light night vision and other optical detection equipment mainly distinguish between the tank and the surrounding environment. The smaller the difference between the two, the more difficult to detect.

Experiments show that after the tank uses three-color and four-color camouflage, the probability of its detection by optical equipment is reduced from 75% to 33%. Digital camouflage is the use of computer image technology to extract natural background texture, colour and hierarchical features and other information “pixel grid” composition.

From a close-up perspective, digital camouflage is more likely to produce “optical illusion”, producing the uncertainty of the basic pixels in digital images, which can simulate the swaying effect of tree shadows, and the mottled characteristics of leaves and gravel in backgrounds such as jungle or desert; From a long distance, different colour spots can be juxtaposed and interlaced to produce spatial colour mixing, which can form a large spot segmentation effect to simulate the image characteristics of the background community.

For example, in the photos released this time, the 15-type tank is painted with digital camouflage, and it blends perfectly with the plateau and mountains, and its concealment performance has soared. Now only the time will say either The tank 15 is a real threat to India or another paper dragon of China.