Type 59/Patton Hybrid - Fake or Real

Hello warriors,

recently, it was leaked that the Chinese tree would get a new tier 8 premium tank, a Type 59 hull with Patton turret. Naturally, given how ridiculous this thing is, most people simply assumed it's a fake from "SerB's design bureau" (and a bad one at that). But is it really?

To find out, we contacted the best person for such question - Wargaming's very own historian, Yuri Pasholok. He confirmed that the vehicle is "real" - in a way.

As you probably know, China has some very specific laws and it is for this reason that the Chinese server is completely independent. In return, the Chinese server operator, a company called Konzhong pays Wargaming license fees and also provides some information on Chinese vehicles.

And here's the issue. Pretty much nothing coming out of Konzhong is verifiable in western sources, so stuff like T-34-1, T-34-2, 112, 113... all these could theoretically be fake. They were given to Wargaming simply as a DVD with a bunch of drawings (no historical documents or anything, just drawings) with descriptions and designations.

The Type 59/Patton hybrid is exactly this case as well. It comes from Kongzhong without any photo or proof. According to the Chinese, this project didn't exist other than as a proposal - it was a product of the "thawing" of relations between USA and China and never went anywhere, as it was significantly flawed from early on (the turret rings don't match and there is no real reason to put a Patton turret on Type 59, it's not like it is better or anything). Chinese "favorite" method of explaining absence of any documents is that the "prototype was destroyed during nuclear trials", so if something like this appears in the description... well, we'll just have to see.