Recently, Hebei Yanxing Machinery Co., Ltd. showed a photo of a new generation of recoilless guns that are being tested on its WeChat public account, although mosaicked, it can still be seen that it is a light recoilless gun similar to the Swedish "Gustav" M4.
The design and production is carried out by Hebei Yanxing Machinery Co., Ltd. (including the old 82 mm recoilless gun before all the recoilless guns in the mainland are developed in charge), and Nanjing University of Science and Technology (the so-called 'cannon of The Southern Polytechnic Institute', specializing in guns) is also involved in the research and development, which can be said to be a strong combination.
As a long-rumored weapon and equipment, the new recoilless gun was discussed with the new military uniform, a new generation of gun families and new anti-tank missiles appeared and had been installed in the troops, which can be said to be the last piece of the PLA's new generation of light weapons system.
A new generation of light weapons, represented by the QBZ-191 rifle, has been installed in the army and is gradually being reloaded.
In the past, the recoilless gun was one of the two important "82" of the PLA infantry unit, an 82-no (Type 65 82 mm recoilless gun, this new mortar may also be 82 mm caliber, but uncertain, it may also be 84 mm) an 82 mortar (Type 87 82 mm mortar, and now there are new 82 mm mortars). The artillery company, which was also subordinate to the infantry battalion, had two 82 mm mortar platoons and one recoilless artillery platoon, which was reinforced to the attacking troops in wartime and was the backbone of the PLA infantry.
Speaking of the Type 65 82 mm, it has to be said that it has repeatedly made great achievements in the counterattack against Vietnamese self-defense. Because the layout of the Vietnamese fire points was very hidden, it was difficult to know and destroy them in the reconnaissance and fire preparation before the attack of the troops, and the response speed of the suppressed artillery fire of the superiors was not enough. Therefore, there are often gunners who advance with the attack and interspersed troops, and in the face of the sudden appearance of enemy bunker fortifications, they quickly carry 82 nothing, and destroy them at a very close range, and there have been magical examples of sharp gunners firing 14 guns in a row to destroy 12 fire points in succession.
In the documentary literature "Wreath Under the Mountain" of the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, Jin Kailai served as the platoon leader of the artillery platoon, and the weapon that the combat backbone "Little Beijing", who temporarily joined the company before the war, was good at using the 82 none, just as mentioned above with the recoilless cannon to shoot closely, continuously knocking out multiple fire points of the Vietnamese army. Later, he was killed because he encountered two "stink bombs" in a row, resulting in too long exposure time.
82 The last well-known example of war was when the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, in order to speed up the discharge of the Tangjiashan Dammed Lake formed by the earthquake, officers and men of the armed police used 82mm recoilless cannons to bombard the reef.
The 82 is not because it is a cannon instead of a rocket, and there is a rifling inside the barrel, so the range and accuracy are relatively high. However, due to caliber limitations, its armor-piercing ability is not high (the armor-piercing power of the hollow charge principle of armor-piercing bullets is positively correlated with the caliber), and when the People's Liberation Army faces the powerful armored forces of the Northern Soviet Union, the anti-tank task is the first. In addition, limited to the technical conditions at that time, the weight of the Type 65/Type 78 was more than 25 kg (pure steel gun body). At that time, the degree of mechanization of the People's Liberation Army was not high, and it was inconvenient to carry it purely by manpower. Therefore, it was later replaced by the Type 98 120 mm rocket launcher of the two stages of the battalion company.
The Type 98 120 mm rocket launcher is also a controversial weapon now, and its initial purpose was only one: to penetrate the front of the T-72 tank, for which other indicators can be compromised. So there is a huge caliber of 120mm and the armor piercing ability that is among the best in the world bazooka family.
The battalion type Type 98 120 mm rocket launcher, whether from the mission positioning or equipment level, belongs to the direct successor of the 82 mm recoilless gun, next to the two rounds are multi-purpose shells and armor-breaking shells (long, there is a high stick), one long and one short, so you can see that the cartridge on the back of the 120 ammunition hand is also one long and one short.
Although the PF98 type is powerful, it also has some disadvantages, after all, the indicator has made trade-offs. One of the more prominent ones is sinking, not only the launch barrel sinks ammunition, the launch barrel weighs 10 kg (98A weight reduction to 7 kg), the weight of the armor-breaking bullet is 7.91 kg, and the weight of the multi-purpose bullet is 7.42 kg. After loading the ammunition, the PF98 type weighs about 16 kilograms, and the support rod is required for standing and kneeling shooting, and the ammunition hand is only two rounds, one armor-breaking bullet and one multi-purpose bullet, and it cannot be carried with the bullet.
The ammunition was so heavy that the ammunition man only carried two rounds, and also carried a rifle as a cover shooter, and a support rod for the shooter as a support.
In addition, the 120mm rocket launcher has a long length (the combat length in the case of ammunition loading is close to 1.2 meters), which is difficult to use in the vehicle. The 120 mm rocket body is too large to bring about a short range, the rocket flight speed is slow, and it is susceptible to wind deflection, resulting in low accuracy. But at a time when the PLA was lowly mechanized and ready to fight to the death with light infantry and Soviet tanks, these problems were acceptable.
Moreover, in the past, the 120 fire was equipment at the battalion company level, and several people "waited" for a bazooka.
Later, the Soviet Union collapsed, the armor threat from the north was greatly reduced, and the main problem of the PLA changed from anti-tank to increasing the infantry attack capability, which was used to fight street battles on an island in the southeast direction, in addition to a large number of disposable rocket launchers, the Type 98 rocket launcher was also sent to the infantry squad, and there were only two people in a rocket launcher team, and these shortcomings were obvious at once. Itself is designed according to company/battalion level weapons, and it is actually not appropriate to leave work. There is still less ammunition that can be carried, and even the ammunition man with the infantry fighting vehicle has only eight rounds (the standard is six rounds), which is easy to run out in combat (ammunition safety is not very good). After a range of 300 meters, accuracy begins to drop dramatically. This distance is difficult to protect the shooter under machine gun fire.
In the program "Real Man", Wang Baoqiang's experience of the PF98 type 120mm anti-tank bazooka shows a typical situation, and this sentence "real weight" comes from the heart.
Moreover, with the development of the People's Liberation Army, the anti-tank means of the People's Liberation Army have greatly increased, not to mention the coordination of multiple arms, the PLA Army itself, now there are advanced main battle tanks, helicopter gunships, a large number of rockets and barrel artillery that can fire precision ammunition, Red Arrow-10 anti-tank missiles and so on. Even in the hands of infantry, there are brand-new Red Arrow-12 and Red Arrow-16 missiles, and anti-tank firepower is no longer the same as before, and there is no need to hold a bazooka.
Although the Red Arrow 12 is often compared to the American Javelin anti-tank missile, it is actually more advanced than the Javelin
In fact, the traditional "bazooka" function has been subdivided by the recoilless gun and the special anti-tank anti-tank missile, and the Type 98 120 mm rocket artillery can not penetrate the armor of the new tanks of various countries, and the restrictions of the bazooka are still too large and too easy to be defended.
Let's not talk about the active defense system, but the large-scale popularization of reactive armor poses a great challenge to the single-soldier anti-tank weapon that adopts the principle of concentrated energy charge, and the old tank plus a layer of reactive armor can better resist the attack of the bazooka
Therefore, a long time ago, some people proposed to use a similar Swedish Gustav recoilless gun, specially attacked, and the anti-tank task was handed over to the Red Arrow series.
As a representative of the world's typical excellent recoilless gun, Gustav has a good reputation in the world, and the U.S. Army and Marine Corps also like Gustav, and the batch equipment is a lighter Gustav M4 (U.S. army number M3A1/M3E1), which weighs only about 6.7 kg when not reloaded. The current M3A1 team of the U.S. military is two people, shooter + deputy shooter (IBCT will also have ammunition soldiers shared with M240 and javelins), two people carrying an M3A1 recoilless gun and 6 rounds of ammunition (2 + 4), in addition to a self-defense M4A1 carbine for self-defense
U.S. Marine Corps instructors demonstrate the M3A1 recoilless gun during training, which can be lifted with one hand
If the Gustav M4 is used as a template for the PLA's new recoilless gun, its performance is undoubtedly very good. First of all, the weight is light, the launcher with sight weighs no more than 8 kg, according to different types of ammunition weight of 3-5 kg, a two-man team can carry six rounds (this is the full ammunition capacity of the Type 98), two shots for the shooter, four rounds for the ammunition hand (no need for poles). The length is short, less than one meter (Gustav 0.95 meters). There is rifling, playing is a traditional shell, fast flight speed, high precision, 400 meters do not need to be repaired, refers to which to fight, 700 meters micro-repair, the maximum range can reach 1500 meters. Combined with advanced sights and a variety of ammunition (even automatically fixed fuzes and elements), it can attack a variety of different targets.
Having a wide range of optional ammunition is one of Gustav's strengths
In this way, the PLA infantry squad had 9 people, a infantry fighting vehicle, six people off the bus, a recoilless gun, an ammunition man with a gun, a machine gun (no ammunition man), three riflemen with grenade launchers, and the fire was very fierce. In particular, the street fighting is very ferocious, and the firepower of the attack is extremely strong.
Disposable bazookas and recoilless guns are not in conflict, disposable bazookas belong to enhanced firepower, do not account for the establishment, how much can be taken. At present, the People's Liberation Army has a high degree of mechanization, and there are infantry fighting vehicles, which are randomly stuffed in the vehicles. If you understand it roughly, you can understand it as a direct-fire long-range grenade. Throw it away after playing, fiberglass cylinder, the weight is very light.
At present, the light weapons of the PLA infantry company are extremely rich, in addition to the rifles in the infantry squad, squad machine guns, precision shooter rifles, etc., just to say heavy weapons, there are new 12.7 heavy machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, 60 mm mortars, recoilless guns, Red Arrow-12 anti-tank missiles, new 12.7 mm sniper rifles and new 7.62 mm squad machine guns, and so on. It is very rich, so rich that the author is already wondering how the People's Liberation Army can put so many weapons in the company at the same time, and it is estimated that it is necessary to add a fire platoon? At present, the PLA has a high degree of mechanization, and the carrying and ammunition supply of infantry fighting vehicles is not a big problem, and all kinds of disposable rocket launchers are placed in the car and used as they go, which belongs to the enhanced firepower and does not conflict with the recoilless artillery. Technology determines tactics, with new weapons, the PLA infantry tactics and firepower preparation will be updated, wait and see.
New equipment for plauslance infantry is being gradually installed