Historical Background
The Sino-Soviet split, beginning in the 1960s (and finally ended in 1989) signalled a worsening of relationship between the Peoples' Republic of China and the Soviet Union. It reached a nadir in 1969 following a series of border clashes. By the 1970s the Chinese felt that their Type 59 tanks, derived from the Soviet T-54, were long in the tooth and were outclassed by the newer T-64 and T-72. The Peoples' Liberation Army requested a new tank, designated the Type 69, incorporating technologies gleaned from a captured T-62. Despite being a successful export item, the Type 69 was not well-received by the PLA. A new tank was sought and the first in the second-generation of Chinese tanks was the Type 80. The Type 80 incorporated new design ideas such as fully welded turret, a new diesel engine licensed from a German design and armed with a Type 83 105-mm rifled tank gun, a licensed copy of the famous Royal Ordnance L7 gun.
In 1988, China North Industries Group Corporation (Norinco) in association with 201 Institute (now China North Vehicle Research Institute), unveiled their version of the Type 80: the Type 85 in 1988. The PLA however was not interested, although the tank was further developed for export to Pakistan as Type 85-IIAP and Type 85-III. However, following the receipt of (allegedly) captured Iraqi T-72s from Iran, the PLA changed its mind. While finding that their L7-derived tank gun could penetrate the armour of a T-72, the T-72's 2A46 125-mm gun can penetrate the armour of the Type 80 and this was further reinforced by the performance of T-72s during Operation Desert Storm, when the PLA found that their contemporary tanks were inferior to the Western MBTs. The Type 85 was accepted into service, with the Type 85-IIA subtype re-armed with a domestically developed 125mm gun. The improved Type 85 was ordered into production as the Type 88 MBT. At the same time the engineers were developing another new version, the Type 90. It was not accepted into PLA service although it formed the basis for Pakistan's Al-Khalid MBT. In 1995, the Type 85 was upgraded to Type 85-III standard which includes a 1,000hp diesel engine, ERA blocks, enhanced armour and the fitting of a Image-Stabilised Fire Control System. In this form, the tank was accepted into service as the Type 96 and replaced the Type 88 on the production line in the same year.
The Type 96 (also known as ZTZ96) is of a conventional design, with six double roadwheels on each side of the tank. The lower hull was protected by a saw-toothed armoured skirts and the front was protected by a well-sloped glacis plate. Armour details however remain classified. The armour also has well-sloped facets. The tank is armed with a fully-stabilised 125-mm smoothbore gun. Like many 'Eastern Bloc' tanks since the T-72, it was also equipped with an autoloader. Although not documented, the gun may probably be compatible with cannon-launched missiles such as the 9M119 Svir or 9M119M Refleks (NATO AT-11 Sniper). Secondary armament was a 7.62mm machinegun mounted co-axial with the main gun and a Type 85 12.7mm heavy machinegun on the commander's cupola. The main gun was laid using a computerised fire-control system incorporating laser rangefinder and automatic target tracker. A bank of six smoke grenade launchers were fitted on either side of the turret. The 1,000-hp diesel engine can propel the tank up to 70 km/h and having a range on internal fuel of up to 450 km. External fuel tanks can increase the range to 600 km. The tank is also equipped with NBC protection and automatic fire suppression system.
In 2006, an upgrade of the Type 96, designated Type 96G/A was introduced. It was fitted with ERA blocks and a new thermal imaging system for all-weather operations, It is believed that the Type 96G/As approach the 'high-end' Type 99 MBT in terms of firepower, mobility and protection. The Type 96 is currently in use with the Peoples' Liberation Army (roughly 2,500 in service), Sudan (200) and Morocco (150 VT-1A variant ordered).
The Kit
In 2009, Hobby Boss came up with a rather large number of PLA subjects (perhaps in conjunction with the 60th anniversary of the Peoples' Republic) and the main-force ZTZ-96 (as the Type 96 was also known as) was one of them. This kit represents the early/basic version of the ZTZ-96 without the extra ERA blocks (the ERA-equipped ZTZ-96 was released a year later). The kit comes in fairly large box and consists of 348 parts in tan plastic, 217 separate track links in brown plastic, 24 brass PE parts, a length of braided copper wire, a length of vinyl tubing and a length of single-strand copper wire plus the usual decal sheet. The kit is well-moulded and have good detail. The separate-link tracks would be tedious to assemble as they need to be cut off the sprue and cleaned up before assembly - but as with most modern tanks, the ZTZ-96 is equipped with side-skirts, so one can cheat by simply assembling the visible portion of the tracks only! The painting instructions shows a three-colour camouflage scheme and the decal sheet provide markings for just one vehicle '602' of an unknown unit. The only other distinctive marking was a pair of Chinese Red Stars. A 'number jungle' is provided should fancy any other three-digit tank number.
Construction
The instructions have you assemble the running gear first. While I did start with the wheels, it was restricted to painting the tyre parts (while still on the sprue) XF-63 German Grey. The next step was attaching the external fuel tank mountings and spare track links on the rear hull panel. I also skipped this and proceeded to attach the suspension parts to the hull. The idler mount is a two-piece affair and it was also rather loose in its slot. The rear hull panel, less the fuel tank mountings was then cemented to the lower hull. Next, instead of completing the wheels and tracks, I add the roof of the hull first. Dry-fitting showed that the fit is not good. I cut off the large locating pins on the glacis plate and also removed the locating tabs on the roof/upper hull. The roof can fit better now although the there is a step on the forward hull where the roof meets the lower hull. The headlight brush guards present problems as they are moulded in two parts and extremely hard (if not impossible to get a good match-up). In the end, I cut off the bars, leaving the basic u-shaped guard. The cut bars were replaced with styrene rods.
Next, the turret was assembled. I started by mating the turret shell with the lower side. The covered gun mantlet was trapped between the turret halves but with the way it was engineered, It could only be posed in the zero elevation angle. Then various turret fittings were cemented. A few of the parts are made of brass PE but it seems that bending lines were not etched into them. However they did bend easily. The commander's cupola has separate periscopes and commander's sight. However they were all made of solid plastic and needed painting to simulate glass. Furthermore, there aren't any positive raised stopper for the periscopes so the height of the periscopes may not be uniform, if one is not careful. The placing of the cupola however makes me wonder; it looked like the commander's main sight is placed facing the rear. There are however photos on the internet showing the AA MG mount instead facing the rear, so I guess it was rotatable. The cupola was cemented with the MG mount to the back of the hatch.
The turret stowage brackets posed some problem due to thick sprue gates. In fact the sprue gates are inconsistent; some being of the 'regular' (fairly small) while some others were akin to those typically found in short-run kits (apart from the turret stowage baskets, the thick gates can also be found on the track return rollers). As it happened, the sprue gates for the stowage rack are thick and I had to use razor saw to cut it off and and having a more tedious cleaning up. The smoke grenade launchers are fairly OK although there is an ejector pin mark on the reverse side of each mounting, which needs to be filled and sanded. The machine gun ammo box holder on the turret side has a hollow bottom and is quite visible. I have to cut a piece of plastic card, trim it into shape and glued it to the bottom of the said item. The AA MG was assembled but left separate to facilitate painting.
With modern tanks I took a different approach before general painting. The lower hull was painted first and this was followed by the running gear and track assembly. The road wheels are of separate type but not the usual wheel/tyre split. The tyres were moulded together with the main wheel dish and with a separate rim. Before building this kit, I looked around the internet looking for tips for building this kit. I found out that the major glitch is concerned with the sprocket wheels - it was too narrow to fit the slots in the track link. The repair work is easy though, just push Part C9 partway into C2, check whether the teeth on C9 and C10 are aligned with the slots in the link, glue it and cover the gap with putty. The separate-link tracks were then assembled the normal way. But since the ZTZ 96 has side skirts, I cheated by not completing the track run - I left almost the entire top run off! The running boards and side skirts was then assembled and cemented to the hull.
Painting and Decalling
Just one colour scheme is provided - a tricolour of sand, light green and dark green. I deviated from the instructions by using a 50:50 mix of XF-57 Buff and XF-59 Desert Yellow for the sand, a 50:50 mix of XF-4 Yellow Green and XF-58 Olive Green for the light green (Hobby Boss erred badly by suggesting Tamiya XF-20, Medium Grey, for this colour!) and XF-13 JA Green for the dark green. Before going any further I took a look and did some touch-ups where it was required. To tie-up these colours, a filter layer of XF-57 Buff was applied. The decals was then applied. To ease things, I simply used the '602' tank number decal rather than combining the separate numbers to create a new tank number. Afterwards the model received a wash using the usual black-brown mixture. The machine gun was painted Flat Black and then was 'polished' using graphite powder. The ammo boxes (if that's what they are) were painted Olive Green and Flat Black.
Finishing
For the ZTZ 96, this stage is mainly concerned with the rear of the vehicle. Although Hobby Boss provided a twisted copper wire to make the tow cable, I decided to use leftover lengths of twine from previous kits. To my horror, I found that the only one left was from my abandoned Merkava III project (my costliest white elephant, as it involved the Legend Productions' resin turret set, but that's another story). They look thicker then what were used for the ZTZ 96 but I decided to use it anyway. It was cut into the required lengths, superglued to the ends, painted metallic colours and stuck to the model. As the cables were thicker, I have to modify the brackets on the hull. The instructions show that spare track links were placed on the front and rear of the lower hull, but after looking at photos on the internet, I decided not to add any spare track links as many photos show ZTZ 96s without them.
The extra fuel tanks were then cemented onto their brackets on the rear hull. The plumbing for the tanks were provided in the shape of vinyl tubings. To stiffen the tubes, Hobby Boss included copper wire to be inserted inside the tube. The tubes were then painted H77 Tyre Black. The periscopes were painted gloss black. Although not mentioned anywhere, the commander's sight on his hatch was also painted the same colour. With most of the parts installed, it was time for weathering. Although not a weathering process, I started by applying pin wash using the usual black-brown wash mix. The tracks were given a wash of AK Interactive Track Wash. The lower hull, wheels and the tracks were than liberally covered with a mixture of Mig Productions' Russian Earth and Gulf War Sand pigments suspended in tap water. When dry, the excess was removed.
Hobby Boss's ZTZ 96 is fairly simple kit to build and the instructions are also clear, allowing rather pleasurable build. The subject matter is also interesting as it featured a vehicle not seen in other companies' catalogues. On the other hand, there are some snags like the thick sprue gates, solid optics, the two-part light guards and the narrow sprocket wheels. Anyway, it was still a nice kit and one I would recommend to others.
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