Artillery, is an ancient weapon. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period in ancient China, the "cannon" weapon had already appeared, but the "cannon" at that time was to use the principle of leverage to throw stones or other hard projectiles, which were used to kill and injure the enemy or smash the city wall. The body barrel artillery that used gunpowder as a propellant had to wait until the Southern Song Dynasty, when the Song army used this artillery against the cavalry of the Northern Jin Dynasty. And today we're going to talk about antique artillery and shells from neighboring Pakistan.
Due to the dispute over the ownership of Kashmir, Pakistan and India broke out the first India-Pakistani war for Kashmir in the year of independence, and from 1947 to the present, there have been 3 large-scale wars between India and Pakistan on Kashmir, and mutual shelling in peacetime is commonplace, but it is surprising that Pakistan is still using shells from more than 60 years ago! In February 2019, after a small-scale air war between India and Pakistan, India launched a large-scale artillery bombardment against Pakistan in order to save face, which triggered an ongoing artillery battle between India and Pakistan.
When cleaning up the battlefield after the artillery battle, some people on the Indian side found that pakistan had fired a 105 mm shell without an explosion, but when they picked it up, it was impressively engraved with the words 1956, which was undoubtedly an American 105 mm howitzer shell, and it was produced in 1956, and by 2019, it had a history of 63 years! Why is pakistan still using these antique-grade shells after a nail? There are probably two reasons for this:
First of all, it is obvious that it is - poor! Pakistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, and at the same time it has to face India with a high intensity, even with some overseas support (many countries in the Middle East provide financial support for Pakistan), but its military budget is always limited, and the limited money can only be spent on the blade. During the Cold War, the united states and the Soviet union confrontation background, in order to curb the expansion of Soviet power, the United States provided a lot of preferential measures for Pakistan, so Pakistan purchased a large number of American artillery and artillery shells, of which the American 105 mm, 155 mm and 203 mm howitzers are equipped, and to this day these Us-made howitzers are still in service in the Pakistan Army. In order to cooperate with these artillery, the Pakistani army purchased a large number of shells, in the India-Pakistan confrontation, mutual shelling can be said to be a common thing, and although these artilleryes have become obsolete, there is still no problem in shelling India daily.
Secondly, in the decades since the Cold War, the artillery itself has not changed much, and technological progress is mainly reflected in the artillery sighting system, fire control system, and degree of automation, but the artillery and shells themselves have hardly changed. For example, our army is still equipped with a lot of Type 66 152 mm towed howitzers, which seem to be completely obsolete today, but through the supporting gun aiming radar, as well as the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to correct the projectile impact point, coupled with the use of digital automatic design command instruments, the old Type 66 howitzer has also obtained the same shooting accuracy as the new 155 mm howitzer.
The same is true in Pakistan, although the gun is still the same gun, the bullet is still the same bullet, but with the new fire control and sighting system, you can double the accuracy of the gun, thereby improving the efficiency of the gun. At the same time, allowing the old artillery to play the performance of the new artillery can also save a lot of money, which is indeed very attractive to the Pakistan Army. So, in the end, it comes down to the first one: poor!
But for now, Pakistan's Cold War-era stockpiles seem to be running out, because at the end of 2019, the Pakistan Army and China signed a contract to purchase 236 Chinese-made SH-15 155 mm truck guns at a unit price of $2.17 million, with a total contract amount of $512 million. After these truck guns are delivered to Pakistan, the old American artillery of the Pakistani army will probably be completely retired and "make way" for the new Chinese truck guns.