Chinese Type 96 fails to impress in 2014 Tank Biathlon World Championship

Teams from 12 countries, including from Russia, Angola, Armenia, Belarus, Venezuela, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, are participating in the competition With T-72B tanks provided by the host country Russia , While China has been the only country who participated with Type 96A MBT which is a Chinese Third Generation main battle tank (MBT) Based on the Type 85-III design.

While Russian crew dominated the first round with time of 25 minutes and 39 seconds, followed by the Armenian team which completed the course in 28 minutes and 58 seconds. Kazakhstan was third with a time of 29 minutes and 53 seconds.
In second Round too Russian tank crew dominated second round with the result of 26 minutes 27 seconds, the Republic of Kazakhstan came second with the result of 30 minutes 14 seconds and the Republic of India was the third with the result of 31 minutes 26 seconds .
Type 96A MBT fielded by chinese Tank crew dubbed has a superior tank in 2014 Tank Biathlon World Championship has failed to impress and repeatedly has been missing podium finish , T-96A is not only a newer tank but also more modern and also is one of the most widely used tank in chinese army , with around 2500 being build .
Since the tank is widely used by Chinese army and the Tank crew is more familiarize with the Tank , Much better performance was expected from the Tank and its crew . T-96A which was first mass produced in 1997 onwards is competing with much older Soviet era build T-72B.There was also an incident where T-96A lost its caterpillar track while in the competition .
A tank biathlon is a mechanized military sport invented by the Russian military that has similarities to the sport of biathlon. Tanks have to complete a course of up to 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) avoiding obstacles, crossing rivers and bridges and firing at a set of targets positioned at distances from 900 to 2,200 meters (2,900 to 7,200 feet).