Tank origin

Throughout the 1970s, the People’s Republic of China experimented with main battle tank (MBT) designs to replace the Type 59. In contrast to the WZ-122, which was influenced by Soviet technology and developed in the early 1970s, the WZ-1224 was developed in the late 1970s with western MBT technology as the key inspiration. The tank featured a welded turret and a 120mm smoothbore gun. It was not pursued beyond the prototype phase.