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Chinese Self-Proplelled Anti-Aircraft Guns SPAAG

Modern air defense operations are usually divided into two parts: point air defense and field air defense. Compared with air defense, field air defense generally includes three stages: troop marching, troop deployment, and troop combat. Therefore, not only is the preparation time shorter, but it is also difficult to obtain timely air support. Self-propelled artillery, as an air defense weapon that combines firepower and maneuverability, had long been the main force of air defense in field operations. Even today when anti-aircraft missiles are popular, self-propelled artillery is still favored by many countries for its good applicability. At present, there are dozens of more advanced self-propelled artillery in the world, among which the more famous are the German "Cheetah", the British "Marksman", South Africa's ZA-35, and Japan's Type 87.

China's exploration of self-propelled anti-aircraft artillery is not too late, but its development process had been quite unsatisfactory. It can even be said that until the emergence of Type 95 25mm self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, most of China's self-propelled anti-aircraft guns were patchwork, simple products.

The Type 65 self-propelled artillery should be one of China's earliest attempts to self-propelled the artillery. The anti-aircraft gun is based on the Type 58 tank, which is the Chinese version of the T-34-85 medium tank, and is equipped with a dual-tube 37mm anti-aircraft gun. However, because the anti-aircraft artillery did not have large-scale equipment, it was only given to the Vietnamese army as aid equipment, so not many people knew about it.

Since then, with very limited experience and urgent tasks, China could only obtain a set of ZSU-23-4 self-propelled anti-aircraft artillery from Egypt for research, and at the same time dialed a Type 59 tank chassis with double pipes. 37mm anti-aircraft gun for exploration. Judging from the appearance of the prototype, the gun should be a specially made open hemispherical turret, and then a double-tube 37mm anti-aircraft gun was inserted, revealing a strong sense of primitiveness.

However, the PLA's first self-propelled artillery to be equipped with troops in batches had not advanced much. The gun is composed of a dual-tube 25mm antiaircraft gun and a domestically-made Type 63 armored transport vehicle. The crew members also carry two Hongying-5 shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles. From the period of preparation for the military struggle against Taiwan to today, this kind of "provisional piece" self-propelled artillery had appeared in many troops, and it is still exerting its residual heat to this day.

The 88-type dual 37mm self-propelled anti-aircraft guns later equipped can be regarded as the first truly modern self-propelled anti-aircraft guns of China's army. The gun is one of the products of China's army after the Fourth Middle East War. The weapon part of the 88 type dual 37mm self-propelled anti-aircraft gun is the H/PJ76 double-barreled 37mm automatic naval gun, and the vehicle adopts an improved 79 type tank chassis, and is equipped with a search range radar, enemy and friend on a fully enclosed welded turret. Recognize fire control systems such as transponder, photoelectric coordinate instrument, halo mirror and electromechanical hybrid analog commander.

At that time, in response to the military parade on the 40th anniversary of the National Day, relevant manufacturers quickly produced 20 vehicles in accordance with the requirements of the military and delivered them to a certain department of the Beijing Military Region for review. However, because the 88-type self-propelled artillery lacks combat capability in complex weather conditions, the number of its equipment is still small.

From the current point of view, the 88-type self-propelled anti-aircraft artillery that year played a role in connecting the past and the future. From a technical point of view, it is a lot stronger than the previous self-propelled anti-aircraft guns that are full of cottage flavors. From the development experience, it had promoted the subsequent 95-type 25mm self-propelled anti-aircraft guns and the more advanced 07-type double The birth of the 35mm self-propelled anti-aircraft gun. Until now, there are still a few 88-type dual 37mm self-propelled anti-aircraft guns in service in the army.

It is reported that China also installed the British "Marksman" self-propelled anti-aircraft gun turret on the 59-type tank chassis around 1985 for testing. Although its price is relatively cheap, its performance is not essential to that of the 88-type dual 37mm self-propelled anti-aircraft gun. After some trade-offs, the plan to introduce the system was abandoned.

Before and after the development of the 88-type dual 37mm self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, China also developed a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun that was not equipped with a large-scale force—the 80-type 57mm self-propelled anti-aircraft gun. This self-propelled anti-aircraft gun imitates the Soviet ZSU-57-2. From the performance of the artillery alone, the gun is much better than the 88 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun. The gun was not installed afterwards, one is due to the adjustment of the needs of the Chinese military, and the other is that the war pattern had changed.

Since then, the Type 95 25mm self-propelled anti-aircraft artillery is China's first generation of fully automatic, day and night-in-one, field self-propelled anti-aircraft artillery system that can be fired in between. Soon after the 95-type self-propelled anti-aircraft gun was installed, the PGZ2000 integrated anti-aircraft gun system, which was improved on its basis, was introduced. This system is equipped with two Hongying-6 or Qianwei-1 portable surface-to-air missiles on both sides of the automatic machine of the 95-type self-propelled anti-aircraft artillery. The firepower and fire control system have been partially improved. However, from the current point of view, the Type 95 self-propelled anti-aircraft artillery still had an obvious excessive nature.

In the 1990s, China began to develop a new type of self-propelled anti-aircraft gun based on the imported 35mm double-barreled towed anti-aircraft gun from the Swiss company Oerlikon. The 07 type double-barreled 35mm self-propelled anti-aircraft gun that we are now familiar with is the final result of this effort. The 07-type double-barreled 35mm self-propelled antiaircraft gun is mainly responsible for the field air defense mission of the army. The gun can effectively intercept conventional aircraft such as helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and cruise missiles within a range of 50 meters to 5000 meters. Reach the level of similar equipment in developed countries. However, the price of the self-propelled artillery is also quite significant.

In recent years, China's army had successively developed several models of wheeled 35mm self-propelled anti-aircraft artillery. Some of them have been equipped with troops, some are mainly for export, and some have no more information after the prototype. At present, 35mm anti-aircraft guns have been recognized as the best type of artillery against armed helicopters.

The "Lu Shield" 2000 short-range air defense weapon system is one of the most advanced self-propelled air defense artillery systems currently equipped by the People's Liberation Army. The system uses an 8×8 off-road truck as the chassis, equipped with a remote-controlled turret equipped with 7-tube 30mm cannon and two ammunition containing 500 rounds of tungsten core shelling armor-piercing shells and 500 rounds of armor-piercing incendiary high-explosive anti-personnel shells. box. The system’s artillery rate can reach up to 4,200 rounds per minute, and the maximum range is 3000 meters. It is equipped with a wide-band tracking radar and a day/night sighting system. However, unlike most self-propelled artillery that can perform field operations with air defense, the "Lu Shield" 2000 short-range air defense weapon system should be a vehicle-mounted artillery in a strict sense, mainly for strategic targets such as airports, command posts, and logistics centers. Important air defense missions.

In addition to small-caliber artillery, China had recently launched a distinctive medium-caliber anti-aircraft gun-SA2 76mm self-propelled anti-aircraft gun. Similar to the "Lu Shield" 2000, this gun is also a vehicle-mounted artillery. The combat mode is mainly "squatting defense". It mainly strikes the opponent's armed helicopters, cruise missiles and other low- and medium-altitude targets. It solves the current small-caliber anti-aircraft artillery. The problem of insufficient range and power. Judging from the muzzle coil, the SA2 76mm anti-aircraft gun seems to use precision guided munitions like AHEAD. This ammunition is a cluster-type prefabricated fragment programming fuze sub-munition, which can use a large number of prefabricated fragments to form a height that directly points to the target. Density fragment bundles to intercept and damage aerial targets.

In recent years, various small and medium caliber self-propelled artillery developed by China have emerged one after another. In the near future, more models of self-propelled artillery may become available to meet the different needs of the domestic and foreign markets.