More than 20 years ago, "Wuhan Public Transport News" published my series of comic books "The History of Our Army's Light Weapons", a total of seven episodes. This is the sixth episode.
The History of Our Army's Light Weapons (6)
Hou Hongzhi text/photo
The manuscript of the history of light weapons of our army (6) is hand-drawn based on the military dress and weapon data in the late 90s, but I felt that the character portrayal was not good, so I felt dissatisfied at that time
The development and production of light weapons in our army has truly departed from the original model of the former Soviet Union, and the level of development on the mainland is embodied by the Type 81 7.62 mm gun family. On October 1, 1984, during the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Type 81 automatic rifle made its debut and attracted the attention of international military circles. The original basic equipment of our army's infantry squad was based on the Type 56 7.62 mm semi-automatic rifle. Since the gun could not be fired continuously, it was obvious that the firepower was insufficient during the battle, and the problem was even more conspicuous in the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam. In order to strengthen the firepower of our army's squad weapons and improve the basic equipment of individual soldiers, it is urgently necessary to design for our army a squad gun family with its own characteristics and automatic rifles as the main body; considering the use of the existing 7.62 mm guns, the caliber of the gun family was still selected as 7.62 mm. In the end, the automatic rifle developed by Comrade Wang Zhijun and the light machine gun developed by a certain factory constituted the first generation of guns on the mainland, the Type 81 7.62 mm gun family.
The Type 81 gun family includes two types of guns: automatic rifles and light machine guns. More than 60% of the parts of the two guns are interchangeable, such as automata, launcher, reentry machine, gas conduction system and ammunition feeder. The automatic rifle in the gun family can be divided into two forms: the Type 81 automatic rifle (Fig. 1) has a fixed stock, and the Type 81-1 automatic rifle (Fig. 2) is a modified version of the Type 81, and its stock is designed to fold to the right side, and other parts are the same as the Type 81.
Type 81 automatic rifle
Type 81 automatic rifle in the collection of the Military Museum Photo by Hou Hongzhi
The Type 81/Type 81-1 automatic rifle adopts the air conduction automatic mode, which can be used for single and continuous selective shooting, and can freely change the three states of single, continuous and safety with one hand. A stationary grenade launcher was also mounted in the front part of the barrel. The gun model is equipped with a detachable bayonet. The bayonet was usually inserted into the scabbard and hung on the belt, and was loaded onto the gun when needed. The bayonet doubles as a dagger and other purposes. The shooting accuracy of the Type 81/Type 81-1 automatic rifle is much better than that of the Soviet AK47-7.62 mm assault rifle due to the use of measures such as short piston stroke and shortening the distance between the movable parts and the axis of the barrel, and is comparable to the FNC 5.56 mm automatic rifle of the Belgium and the M16A2-5.56 mm rifle of the United States, and the life span is 2.5 times that of FNC and M16A2. The new gun of the Type 81/Type 81-1 automatic rifle is issued to the user, and it can play 9-10 rings (100 meters distance) without adjustment, and it can hit the bird at will at a distance of 70~80 meters. The point fire is easy to control, and the bullets are all on the target at a distance of 100 meters.
Type 81-1 automatic rifle
The automatic mode and locking mode of the Type 81 light machine gun (Fig. 3) can be used interchangeably with the main parts and ammunition feeders of the Type 81/Type 81-1 automatic rifle, thus enhancing the firepower in wartime and facilitating the timely replacement of broken parts in actual combat.
Type 81 light machine gun
Type 81 light machine gun in the Military Museum Photo by Hou Hongzhi
Although the Type 81 gun family is the best among firearms of the same caliber, it is recognized in the world today. The small-caliber use of firearms will be one of the main trends in the development of light weapons. At present, dozens of countries have developed and equipped small-caliber squad firearms, including the Soviet Union's 5.45-mm assault rifle and United States' 5.56-mm assault rifle. Here we can comfortably inform our readers that in 1997, our army was equipped with a new family of small-caliber squad guns. The emergence of this new weapon has further pushed the development and production of light weapons on the mainland to the forefront of the world. We'll talk more about that in the next issue.
"Wuhan Public Transport News" published "Our Army's Light Weapons History (6)"