Commanders!
In the past few days we unveiled the two vehicles of the Into the West Battle Path, both of them modern Chinese machines unveiled to the public last year. It is therefore probably not a surprise that the final vehicle of the Battle Path will be the ZTZ-100 Main Battle Tank.
And, as usual, a bit of history.
Like the other vehicles, the ZTZ-100 Main Battle Tank was unveiled to the world during the military parade that took place in Beijing on September 3, 2025. While its appearance wasn’t a complete surprise to those closely following Chinese military developments, it did cause quite a stir in the community as tanks that are brand new (instead of endless upgrades of old platform) are relatively uncommon.
The Type 100 platform the ZTZ-100 was built has probably been in development for the past decade in the China North Vehicle Research Institute (also known as Institute 201). The goal was to create a new platform (and in this case, Main Battle Tank) suitable for modern battlefield, which is why ZTZ-100 significantly differs from its predecessors.
Let’s start with the designation, which we haven’t addressed yet. Chinese tanks in general were previously designated very roughly by their class (ZTZ stands for Main Battle Tank) and their year of appearance (this practice was likely inherited from the Soviet Union times but is generally quite common). The Type 100 breaks this tradition because the number 100 is not referring to any year. The most prevalent theory is that they simply used the number following 99, which wouldn’t really make sense for the non-MBT platform designation, but there’s no conclusive result in this regard. Or maybe it just sounded cool – sometimes the simplest explanations are right.
In any case, the philosophy behind ZTZ-100 is as follows. The age of tank versus tank combat is over and tanks no longer need to be prepared to fight off other MBTs using kinetic ammunition. This has been confirmed by the Ukraine experience so far where most tank losses came from drones, artillery, and guided missiles. Extremely thick frontal armor is therefore not as important as defense against HEAT warheads. And when you don’t need your tank to weigh 80 tons, all sorts of interesting things become possible.
The most important elements of the ZTZ-100 design are therefore crew protection and active protection. That is why the turret on the ZTZ-100 is remote-controlled (unmanned) and the crew (3 men) is located in the hull in front of it, in an armored capsule. Like the Type 100 CSV, the ZTZ-100 crew is using augmented reality for maximum situational awareness – the tank is equipped with cameras transmitting picture directly into the crew helmets. No other tank in the world allows for that, perhaps except for some Israeli Iron Vision experiments.
Aside from armor, the vehicle is (much like the Type 100 CSV) protected by ERA or NERA elements covering its sides, as well as JD-3 jammers and JD-6 hard-kill active protection system with double the amount of launchers compared to Type 100 CSV. The smoke grenade launchers are also vertically positioned in the turret and there are some forward-facing effectors as well, which is likely a drone countermeasure, allowing the vehicle to cover the entire area with smoke (not just as a circle, but as a dome of sorts).
The firepower of the vehicle was a bit of a surprise as well because according to most sources, the tank is actually armed with a new 105mm cannon that is firing advanced ammunition (including APFSDS and programmable HE). This, in reality, would fit very well into the new MBT concept since the tank doesn’t need to fight enemy MBTs head a smaller caliber is perfectly sufficient for anything softer than that, especially with advanced shells. The advantages are more ammo carried, better ammunition handling, potentially faster loading too. The gun is of course automatically loaded.
Much like on the other two vehicles, the Fire Control System is state-of-the-art with the commander being also able to use a heavy 12.7mm machinegun linked to the commander optics (this feature is not on the CSV variant of the Type 100 platform).
The entire vehicle likely weighs between 40 and 50 tons and is powered by a 1500hp hybrid engine, allowing it to go as fast as 80 km/h on hardened surfaces and 50 km/h off-road. The engine is located in the back (unlike on the Type 100 CSV).
And, like with the other two vehicles, not much else is known. The vehicle is clearly still in development to a degree (judging from several variants and interim models that have since appeared) and is possibly not ready for mass-production. It’s also worth noting that the vehicle is not completely without controversy (even within China), nor is it intended to replace all other MBTs in Chinese service. China is building tanks with three potential theaters of operations in mind and this vehicle fits two perfectly:
- Mountain areas against India in the Himalayas (replacing the fleet of first and second generation tanks and complementing the Light Tanks in Chinese inventory)
- Taiwan (where a lot of urban combat is expected)
The third theater, Siberia, is considerably more open and heavier tanks (such as the upgraded Type 99B) are expected to be deployed there.
In Armored Warfare, the ZTZ-100 will be a Tier 10 Premium Main Battle Tank.
Where the ZBD-100 is all about mobility and short-range firepower and the Type 100 CSV about long-range combat, the ZTZ-100 focuses on protection – active protection, that is.
Armor-wise, it’ll be similar to the Type 100 CSV with a combination of NERA, reduced module damage taken, unmanned turret and durable armor (especially effective versus HEAT rounds). There’s also the hard-kill Active Protection System from the Type 100 CSV but with improved performance. The idea of this system is in fact as follows – it’ll have very high amount of charges with a relatively high reload time so once depleted, it’ll take a while to reload. This will be possible to bypass but we’ll tell you more about that a bit later.
Mobility-wise, we’re looking at roughly the same values as on Type 100 CSV thanks to its 1500hp hybrid engine. The weight will be a bit higher (40 tons compared to CSV’s 35) but the mobility will nevertheless be very good.
The firepower will also be excellent thanks to its relatively rapid-firing 105mm gun. This tank could be considered something of a hybrid between the Main Battle Tank class and the Light Tank class in this regard but it really is way too armored to be a Light Tank. It could be considered a Medium Tank but in Armored Warfare, it falls straight into the MBT class.
The gun will be complemented by the 12.7mm machinegun on the top of the turret for softer targets – both with excellent depression and elevation angles, which means the vehicle will be quite comfortable to drive. The hybrid engine will allow it to stay relatively stealthy and the cutting edge optics will offer excellent viewrange for its class.
But the core of the ZTZ-100 new gameplay lies in the Synergy passive ability. The very shortened version is this. Where the ZBD-100 provides mobility-related bonuses to itself and the other two vehicles of this Battle Path and the Type 100 CSV provides firepower bonuses, the ZTZ-100 provides two protection bonuses:
- Additional module durability (making modules very resistant to damage)
- Protection zone
The second ability only activates (and stays active) only if all three vehicle types are close to each other but if they do, ZTZ-100 will provide an umbrella of sorts (like an improved version of the APS system) that protects the vehicles inside the protection area against incoming guided missiles, including all kinds of FPV missiles. In other words, if active, vehicles inside the protection zone (not just the Battle Path ones) cannot be engaged by FPV missiles.
Details about the inner workings of this ability will be shared in a separate article. Also please keep in mind that these values are not final as the Battle Path is still a month away at the very least. But we do hope that you’ll like the Battle Path along with its improvements that are coming (one’s really big) and, as always:
See you on the battlefield!
