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Smoke grenade dischargers are fitted in two banks of four launchers along the frontal turret sides.

The crew remains four - driver, commander, gunner and loader - while secondary armament consists of a 7.62mm co-axial machine gun in the turret and 12.7mm Anti-Aircraft (AA) Heavy Machine Gun (HMG) on the turret roof. The Fire Control System (FCS) (with laser rangefinder) is taken from the Type 69-II model while side steel skirt armor protect the important upper components of the running gear (which were left exposed on the Type 69). Changes to the Type 80 over the Type 69 include an all-new, lengthened hull design with composite armor support as well as the turret system of the Type 79 MBT series with its 105mm L7-based rifled main gun. Note that the special armor doesn't cover the 30° arc.The Chinese Army Type 80 Main Battle Tank (MBT) is a further development of its Type 59/69 MBTs, the Type 59 itself an outgrowth of the hugely successful Soviet-era T-54A model series. Maybe this is the reason why the current Chinese "premium tank", the Type 99A2 is fitted with a new turret.Ĭhinese turret design. On actual Chinese tanks, the roof section of the armor module seems to be sloped at 12-13°, which would be a bit better, but still not sufficient against modern APFSDS rounds. Given that the NERA plates and most of the passive armor array do not cover the upper section of the armor module, hitting this area with any somewhat modern anti-tank weapon would allow to pentrate the tank easily. In the CAD image, the roof of the special armor module is sloped at about 15°, which would be sufficient to make most RPGs and older APFSDS rods "bounce" or shatter, but is not enough against modern ammunition.

Another problem - at least if the armor layout looks like it does in the drawings - is the exposed upper section. This means that it is possible to hit the tank from within the frontal arc (where between 60 and 80% of all hits are expected) at a place, which is not protected by any sort of composite armor at all. Chinese tanks on the other hand don't feature composite armor at the turret sides, while the turret geometry doesn't follow the original Soviet concept.