Yeah, I suppose you could laugh about this:
Chinese soldiers have become so much taller and fatter in recent years that they often find themselves cramped in tanks designed three decades ago, state media reported.
A survey found that People's Liberation Army troopers were on average two centimetres (0.8 inches) taller and five centimetres (two inches) fatter around the waist than 20 years ago, the military's official PLA Daily reported Tuesday.
As a result, it is harder for soldiers to squeeze into a tank designed for smaller personnel 30 years ago, it said.
But don't. Better nutrition is making Chinese soldiers larger, after all. So it is a sign of Chinese success.
Or are you going to boast of the success of North Korea for making their armored vehicles roomier for their shrinking (from malnutrition) troops?
Remember, too, that China has used Russian designs for their vehicles. The Russians achieved their low silhouettes by designing armored vehicles for shorter troops.
And by using fewer crew with an auto-loader rather than a human loader.
Both design considerations gave Russian tanks a lower profile that was often the envy of Westerners, but the price was that the Russian tanks had slower rates of fire, less ability for the crew to maintain them, and an inferior ability to go hull down (with just the turret showing) behind slopes because their main guns could not be depressed as much as the taller Western tanks.
So with vehicles requiring smaller soldiers than existed several decades ago, it is natural that troops who are bigger will have even more problems fitting in them.
UPDATE: Strategypage has my six on this.
