China is probably not the first nation you think of when thinking about tanks contrary to popular
belief though china has a complex history with armored vehicles in the modern era they
now boast the second largest tank arsenal in the world with an excess of 9 000 vehicles the
tank we're going to talk about today though is one failed project that nearly saw the creation
of the first and only domestic Chinese heavy tank throughout history there have been countless tanks
all designed to kill but not all have been a success what happened to the ones that never made
it and why did they fail my name is ConeOfArc join me as we journey through time uncovering
failed projects and forgotten creations in cursed by design once again a huge thanks to the coldest
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now before we talk about the tank i need to give a disclaimer finding information about tanks from
Asian countries is tricky and china is probably the most difficult of them all due to this finding
sources that are factually accurate and detailed has been extremely tricky not to mention what
little information i could find needed to be translated from Chinese so there's a chance of
things being lost in translation i have to give a huge shout out to Cobra and Will Kerrs for their
help with finding and translating enough material to allow us to discuss this interesting machine
that being said let's talk about today's tank the second world war saw many new types of
tanks enter service one of these types that became extremely prevalent was the heavy tank
development of these tanks continued into the post-war years with tanks like the m103 conqueror
and numerous soviet tanks even a nation like china who had been brutally suppressed by the Japanese
through much of the war would receive a number of is-2 heavy tanks from the soviets by the late
50s though these tanks were extremely outdated compared to the increasingly sophisticated designs
being produced elsewhere despite china having begun production of the type 59 by this point
which was essentially just a license-built version of the soviet t-54 the liberation
army headquarters believed that it was crucial to also have heavy tanks for any coming battles this
is clearly shown by a quote that says other than equipping our army with a large number of light
and medium tanks a certain number of heavy tanks is also necessary to defeat enemy tank battalions
and carry out ambush missions development for this new tank kicked off on the 19th of October 1960
when the national defense committee released the first design manual for the tank with the armor
technology department releasing some guidelines in December of the same year the code name for
this project would be wz-111 one source claims the first prototype was assembled in 1960 but
i tend to believe the more realistic 1965 date given by most other sources this is supported by
the fact that most other documents also show its final design being completed in 1964. likely the
first source just confused the dates regardless of this let's discuss what this tank was to be
equipped with the designers intended the tank to be superior to the soviet t10 as well as the new
American m60 tanks just by its shape they clearly drew considerable inspiration from soviet designs
which is typical of Chinese tank development even to this day like the soviet heavies of the late
40s and 50s the wz-111 would have featured pike nose-style armor and a rounded turret the upper
plate armor was around 130 millimeters making it slightly thicker than that of the t10 with similar
side and rear armor at first glance you might easily mistake the two tanks but you can easily
tell them apart by the shape of the lower front plate on the wz rather than the more triangular
shape it has a rectangular plate spaced awkwardly off the pike nose to me this almost makes it look
like they welded the lower plate from an m60 right to a t10 hull but obviously that's not the case
as for the turret it would have had around 200 millimeters of frontal armor most likely becoming
weaker as you move to the sides and rear like the soviet counterparts to arm this tank a Chinese
cannon called the y-174 122 millimeter cannon which was an improved version of the d25t was
installed to complement this gun it would be equipped with a single plane stabilizer
night vision systems and a chain style autoloader this would have made the tanks firepower like
that of the early t10s possibly even superior firepower given the autoloader reportedly there
was also some talk of mounting a 130 millimeter gun but this could be tied to the tank's presence
in world of tanks and not to any real-life plans to power this heavy beast it was equipped with the
most powerful engine ever fitted to a domestic Chinese tank at that point the 551 mw diesel
engine produced 750 horsepower allowing the tank to supposedly reach a top speed of 50 kilometers
per hour giving it fairly good mobility this power would be sent into its running gear which would
be controlled with a hydraulic system making the driver's job relatively easy to protect the crew
of four the tank was to be fitted with not only an automatic fire extinguisher but would also
have NBC alert systems installed with the tank being sealed enough to allow it to operate in a
nuclear environment unlike any Chinese designed before it this tank was also apparently fitted
with a mine detector testing of the prototype was performed following its completion first
with a dummy turret and later in 1965 it supposedly received a complete turret and gun
no results of these tests are available as far as i can tell so the performance of this machine is
largely up for debate nonetheless numerous issues plagued the tank's design and potential production
most of these are due to issues with supply of components and quality of the tank's construction
pike knows armor had already proven problematic on tanks like the is-3 due to steel quality and
the wz-111 seems to have shared this fate issues with the armament may have also prevented this
tank from moving further with other tanks like the type 85 using copies of the 105 millimeter l7
rather than any other Chinese-built gun all that remains today of this tank is the hull
with a mock-up turret mounted on it this fact leads many to believe that the turret was never
fully completed although there is a possibility the turret was destroyed during nuclear testing
like many Chinese prototypes supposedly were unfortunately due to the difficulty of getting
materials on tanks like this we may never know the full story of this interesting machine
still it's interesting to see how nations most wouldn't consider as tank producers worked to keep
up in the worldwide arms race if you come across any information on this tank that's credible i
encourage you to leave it below as it could help us all learn more about this mysterious heavy tank
i hope you all enjoyed this video if you did please remember to leave a like and subscribe
for more videos like this i'm aiming to produce at least one of these videos per week currently
appearing on your screen now will be a video i made talking about a somewhat similar heavy
tank program which would create the tank we know as the is-7 or if you've already watched
that one the full cursed by design playlist is there for you to catch up on see you there