Prototypes of Chinese medium tanks from the 70s and 80s

Prototype "1224" with a model of the tower and weapons.

Information about the history of Chinese weapons is still very incomplete. They are based on snippets of news published in Chinese hobby magazines and on the Internet. As a rule, there is no way to check them. Western analysts and authors usually repeat this information indiscriminately, often adding their own guesses to it, giving it the appearance of reliability. The only reasonably reliable way to verify the information is to analyze the available photographs, but in some cases they are also very rare. This applies, in particular, to experimental designs and prototypes of ground forces equipment (with aircraft and ships a little better). For these reasons, the following article should be seen as an attempt to summarize the available information and evaluate it critically. However, it is likely that the knowledge it contains is incomplete, and some topics have been omitted due to the lack of any information.

The Chinese armored industry began with the launch in 1958 of production at the Baotous Plant No. 617, which was built and fully equipped by the USSR. The first and for many years the only product was the T-54 tanks, which bore the local designation Type 59. The decision of the Soviet authorities to transfer the documentation and technology of only one type of tank was in line with the doctrine of the Soviet army of that time, which refused to develop both heavy and heavy tanks, as well as light tanks, focusing on medium tanks.

The only surviving prototype of the 111 heavy tank.

There was another reason: the young army of the PRC needed a huge amount of modern weapons, and decades of intensive supplies were required to meet its needs. An excessive variety of manufactured equipment would complicate its production and reduce efficiency.

Chinese leaders, however, had high hopes and were not satisfied with small deliveries of other armored vehicles: IS-2M heavy tanks, SU-76, SU-100 and ISU-152 self-propelled artillery mounts, and armored personnel carriers. When relations with the USSR cooled sharply in the early 60s, a decision was made to produce weapons of our own design. This idea could not be implemented in a short time, not only because of the insufficient industrial potential, but, above all, because of the weakness and inexperience of the design bureaus. Despite this, ambitious plans were made, tasks were distributed and extremely short deadlines were set for their implementation. In the field of armored weapons, designs have been developed for a heavy tank - project 11, a medium one - project 12, a light one - project 13 and an ultralight one - project 14.

Project 11 was supposed to become an analogue of the Soviet T-10 and, like him, to a large extent use the solutions tested on machines of the IS family. Several vehicles marked "111" were built - these were elongated IS-2 hulls with seven pairs of running wheels, for which towers were not even built, but only their weight equivalents were installed. The cars differed in suspension design details, it was planned to test several types of engines. Since the latter could not be designed and built, engines from the IS-2 were installed "temporarily". The results of the first field tests were very disappointing, and the huge amount of work that still had to be done discouraged decision makers - the program was canceled.

Just as short was the career of the super lightweight 141. Undoubtedly, it was influenced by similar foreign developments, especially the Japanese Komatsu Type-60 tank destroyer and the American Ontos. The idea of ​​using such recoilless rifles as the main weapon did not work in any of these countries, and in China, work was completed on the construction of technology demonstrators with dummies of guns. A few years later, one of the machines was upgraded, with the installation of two launchers of anti-tank guided missiles HJ-73 (a copy of 9M14 "Malyutka").