As we all know, the Chinese 155 truck gun is a single soldier **, capable of completing the shelling by one person. China's PCL181 155mm vehicle-mounted howitzer ** system is known as "the world's first truck gun" by industry insiders. Many advantages, like a "treasure boy", are worth digging into.
Not long ago, CCTV's "Military Fan Eye" broadcast an interview program with the PCL181 155mm vehicle-mounted howitzer, in which it showed a lot of magic about this truck gun.
For example, for the first time, the PCL181 155 mm vehicle-mounted howitzer applied a liftable oil and gas suspension technology, which lowered the height of the chassis and lowered the height of the line of fire when firing. It also adopts China's original "squatting" recoil structure, which directly transmits the recoil of the truck gun to the ground and improves the stability of shooting. Therefore, it is known as "squatting and shooting, the accuracy is the first in the world".
The design of the PCL181 155 mm vehicle-mounted howitzer is very compact, very low, the center of gravity is close to the ground, and the height of the fire line of the gun body is very low, so the attitude of the gun loading is very ergonomic, and the gunner of the gun squad only needs to stand on the ground to operate the semi-automatic loader at the tail of the gun to load the shells and cartridges. Even if it is operated by a single man, it can be fired smoothly.
In addition, the 181 truck gun is designed to have automatic combat capabilities, and it only takes 1 minute to switch between peacetime and wartime.
The PCL181 155 mm vehicle-mounted howitzer can complete the work of marching and combat conversion and retraction in one minute, and the gap with the tracked self-propelled gun is already very small. You can adjust the gun with one key, aim with one key, and semi-automatic reloading, and you can do it by one person.
The traditional towed artillery needs to be towed by the transport vehicle to the side of the position, and then the entire artillery squad opens an artillery position, which needs to be pushed into place with great effort, and then the first cannon is deployed, the hoe pit is excavated, and the hoe is fixed. Even for the best towed guns, it takes almost 4 minutes to complete the combat transition. In the case of old-fashioned towed guns, the deployment time will even exceed 10 minutes.
And the abundant power is the main advantage of the truck gun. All manual and laborious operations of towing artillery can be assisted by the power system of the truck gun. In order to dig hoe pits in hard and frozen ground, the PCL-181 155mm vehicle-mounted howitzer is very intimate, and even equipped with a set of air picks and equipment, as long as it is connected to the power system, it can easily dig pits.
In fact, the PCL181 155mm vehicle-mounted howitzer comes with a set of hydraulic stationary hoes, which can be directly inserted into the ground, and there is no need to dig hoe pits. However, the official explanation is that even if it is a vehicle-mounted howitzer, in order to hit more accurately, it can also dig a cantonal hoe pit. If it is on soft ground, the gun can shoot directly without digging a cane pit, and it is also accurate. However, if the ground is extremely hard in rocky or frozen ground, it is difficult for a large hoe to rely on hydraulic pressure and gravity to quickly enter the ground, and if you want to maintain sufficient shooting accuracy at this time, you need to manually excavate the hoe pit.
The CCL181 155mm vehicle-mounted howitzer comes with a pickaxe equipment, which also provides assistance for the excavation of bunker fortifications. Those who have been soldiers, especially those who have been tank soldiers and artillerymen, will definitely be deeply impressed by the excavation of ** equipment bunkers in the field. The infantry is better, the most tiring digging bunker fortifications are artillery and tank crews, especially some tanks and self-propelled guns that are not equipped with bulldozer blades, manual excavation is standard physical hard work, especially in the cold weather in winter, or when encountering hard frozen soil, relying on manual excavation of a tank or artillery bunker can tire several people off the skin.
Towing artillery is very uncomfortable in winter operations, for example, the American-made M777 howitzer of the Ukrainian army slips when fired from the tundra. Due to the fact that the ground in Ukraine is now frozen and hard, it is impossible to dig hoe pits, so the Ukrainian army's M777 howitzer has to be fired directly on the frozen ground, which looks like a bronze cannon more than a hundred years ago.
Under normal circumstances, the towed artillery will be temporarily equipped with excavators, air picks and blasting and pit opening equipment during winter operations in order to carry out earthwork in the frozen ground. However, this will result in the artillery positions being exposed for too long and being counterattacked by enemy artillery.
If you really can't dig a pit, then shoot it directly, anyway, the M777 H-shaped four-legged frame can also be on flat ground**, and aim again after fighting.
The Chinese PCL-181 Type 155-mm vehicle-mounted howitzer can fire at about 30 ° to the left and right of the hull axis. For example, the left and right firing range of the French "Caesar" 155mm truck gun is only 17°.
From the perspective of the UAV, it is clear that the opening angle of the open frame at the rear of the PCL-181 hull is about the left and right firing range of the artillery.
At present, which truck gun is the most sold in the world?
Chinese PCL181 155mm vehicle-mounted howitzer hugs a fist: exactly under it!
Let's assume that our PLA averages each artillery brigade of each army group equipped with 15 or 2 battalions of Type 181 truck guns, each battalion has 18 guns, then 13 group armies + ** Xinjiang Marine Corps, the whole army can be equipped with about 500 guns.
In terms of export sales, Pakistan Railway purchased 236 SCL181 foreign trade model SH15 truck guns. In addition, Ethiopia and Nigeria have purchased SH15 truck guns, and will be exported to several countries such as Algeria. If you add other foreign trade SH series truck guns, the number is even more.
The PCL181 and SH15 155mm truck-mounted howitzers are already one of the strongest truck guns in the world, with a total sales of at least 800 units, which is currently the world's most sold large-caliber truck gun, far ahead of the French Caesar and other truck gun models.