In recent years, with the great improvement of traffic conditions in various countries in the world, the "truck gun", which has the dual attributes of high mobility and powerful firepower, has received more and more attention, compared with the general tracked self-propelled gun, the mobility advantage of the truck gun is unparalleled, especially in urban combat. Europe's current urbanization has been very high, traffic in all directions, once the outbreak of war again, whether it is field warfare or urban street warfare, will greatly rely on the developed transportation network, so truck guns in the European battlefield has a lot of room to play.
Europe's arms powers, France and the Czech Republic, started early on the development of modern truck guns, the French "Caesar" truck gun and the Czech Dana truck gun are very famous, and the Czech Dana 152mm truck gun is a device developed in the 1970s, so far its improvement potential has been squeezed dry. Czech defense company Excalibur Army decided to develop a new truck gun to replace the Dana 152mm truck gun, which launched the DITA 155mm truck gun in January this year and appeared at the IDEX 2021 International Defense Show in March.
DITA 155mm truck gun
The shape and overall layout of the DITA 155mm truck gun is very sci-fi, compared to the Dana 152mm its turret is larger, the DITA 155mm truck gun is 13.02 meters long, 3.08 meters wide, 3.12 meters high, and weighs 29 tons. The DITA 155mm truck gun is equipped with a NATO standard 45×diameter 155mm howitzer, the technology of this type of gun is currently very mature, the international use of a wide range, DITA 155mm truck gun is not only for the Czech army, its ultimate goal is still international customers. The DITA 155mm truck gun can use several types of 155mm shells, as well as guided shells, which have a maximum range of 39 km, a maximum range of 50 km using a guided shell, and can carry 40 rounds of shells themselves.
The DITA 155mm truck gun is also equipped with a new fire control system, and the truck gun has an automatic loader, the gun can reach a maximum rate of fire of six rounds per minute, if you want long-term fire support can guarantee a high rate of fire of five rounds per minute. The turret of the DITA 155mm truck gun adopts unmanned design, and the operator can complete the driving and firing tasks in the cockpit during use, but its turret is also designed with the operator's space, which is to allow the operator to manually control the turret after the electronic equipment fails. The operating system of the DITA 155mm truck gun is very simple, all the operation instructions can be completed on the operation screen in the cockpit, the recommended personnel configuration of this type of gun is 3 people, a commander, a driver, a gunner, but the gun has two operators can be used normally.
Cockpit of the DITA 155mm truck gun
The dita 155mm truck gun can be arranged for flat fire, close-range direct fire in crisis, and even anti-tank combat missions, but it is dangerous and easy to destroy, and long-range fire support is still its main task. In addition, this type of gun also adopts a modular design concept, its head structure can be installed on different types of chassis, the gun system can be adjusted according to the needs of future customers, can also be installed on the tracked chassis, versatility is still very good.
The DITA 155mm truck gun uses the Taituo 815 VP31M8×8 chassis, which is equipped with a typhoon-cooled Taituo T3C-928-90 eight-cylinder diesel engine, which can reach a maximum speed of 90 kilometers per hour on the road and an off-road speed of 25 kilometers per hour in complex terrain. The DITA 155mm truck gun has a state-of-the-art hoe aid system that allows for quick lifting and unloading. The DITA 155mm truck gun is equipped with a high-performance air conditioning system as well as a nuclear, biochemical (NBC) filtration system. It can be seen that the dita 155mm truck gun has very strong mobility and rapid reaction capability, which is very effective from the perspective of actual combat.
The Czech Republic has always been a military power, its foreign arms sales is also one of the country's important economic income, Eastern European countries purchase Czech military equipment at a high rate, especially Poland, so there is a high probability that the Polish army will be equipped with this type of artillery. The DITA 155mm truck gun is more like a combination of a truck gun and a self-propelled gun, wanting to have the high mobility of the truck gun and the powerful firepower of the self-propelled gun. The current DITA 155mm truck gun has also just come out, has not been tested in practice, and it is impossible to judge the quality of this equipment, it is certain that its price will not be cheap.