"The sun is shining today, and the sun is smiling brightly. ”
With the advent of the new era, the armies of various countries have a new understanding of operational needs and have begun to upgrade their old artillery to improve their firepower performance, response speed, automation level, battlefield mobility and integrated information system, so as to take the lead on the battlefield in the new era.
The PLA is also following the trend and replacing the outdated PL-181 towed howitzer with the 155-mm PCL-66 vehicle-mounted self-propelled gun.
After the announcement of the PCL-181 vehicle-mounted self-propelled gun in 2019, official coverage of the PL-66 152mm towed howitzer gradually declined, but it still appeared on the screen when the PLA advertised its strength, showing the army's love for it.
The 152-mm towed howitzer PL-66 is an important achievement of our country on the road to independence. In 1959, China and the Soviet Union because"Combined Fleet"with"Longwave radio"The Soviet Union unilaterally withdrew all its experts on China's aid, and declared that without the support of the Soviet Union, China would not be able to survive.
In this difficult situation, the PL-66 152-mm gun came into being, showing the resilience and perseverance of the squadron.
The PL-66 152 mm towed howitzer is the first self-developed artillery of our army, which solves the problem of insufficient performance of the Type 56 152 mm artillery and ends the history of the PLA can only rely on American-made 155 mm howitzers.
The gun uses cartridge dispensing shells and is capable of dealing with various battlefield situations, including anti-personnel blasting grenades, smoke grenades and other ammunition. The weight of the whole gun is 56 tons, with a maximum range of 17 km, it is mainly used to suppress the enemy's living forces, armored forces, and destroy the enemy's strong fortifications.
Its power makes the commanders and fighters of the troops revered as the "Hammer of the God of War".
The PL-66 152-mm towed howitzer, born in 1966, was mass-produced and successfully equipped with troops, accumulatively several thousand units were produced. The reserve of artillery shells has reached hundreds of millions of rounds.
The inside of the shell is filled with 20 kilograms of high-** charge, and the power is so great that almost no battlefield target can withstand its direct hit. Even the American-made M1A1 tank, once hit by its 152-mm shells, will be destroyed in an instant.
With a radius of up to 50 meters, the explosive grenade is capable of creating a soccer field-sized killing area, which is incredibly powerful.
The PL-66 152mm towed howitzer is an important part of the war. In the 1979 counterattack against Vietnam and the Battle of Lao Son, this artillery played an important role and achieved a lot of results for our army.
According to statistics, nearly seventy percent of our army's victories against the Vietnamese army were caused by this artillery. In the battle of Laoshan, our artillery group created an astonishing record, killing more than 3,500 enemies in one day.
Although this is not the most miraculous record, it is enough to prove the power of this gun.
10,000 steps through Yang", witnessing the brilliant achievements of the Chinese artillery. In 1985, during the defense of Lao Son against Vietnam, the 152-mm howitzer of the PL-66 type of our artillery successfully completed a continuous single shot, hitting a bridge.
You know, conventional howitzers usually produce a discrete impact error of several meters or even tens of meters at a shelling distance of ten kilometers, but our artillery did it.
This is the legendary artillery battle of our artillery, the 152 howitzer company shelled the Ge Peng Bridge. Let us feel this irreproducible feat and feel the bravery and wisdom of the Chinese artillery.
The Kerb Bridge, located at the junction of Hoang Lien Son Province and Ha Xuan Province in Vietnam, spans the Chay River and is 43 kilometers away from the main battlefield of Lao Son. Although the Gepeng Bridge seems to have nothing to do with the Laoshan battlefield in terms of distance, its importance cannot be described in a few words from a global perspective.
At that time, the situation on the Lao Son battlefield was complicated, and the Vietnamese army posed a serious threat to the western flank of our army in Ku Lam Mountain, so our army shelled the 152-mm howitzer shelling the Ge Peng Bridge to eliminate this threat.
Destroy the Gol Swing Bridge and cut off the Vietnamese army's logistical supply lines. If this plan is realized, the Vietnamese army near Luo Jiaping will face an even more difficult situation. After all, the Gol Swing Bridge is the only cross-river junction in the Chay River area, connecting northwestern Vietnam to transportation, and is the only route for the supply of several troops on the Vietnamese front, with ten large trucks passing through every day.
In order to guard against the attack of our army, the Vietnamese army specially arranged a reinforced company here, and built a complete trench position at the north and south bridgeheads.
According to intelligence, the Frontline Observation Post said that the bridge was built in 1976 and is about 120 meters long and 6 meters wide5 meters. The south pier is the cornerstone, the north pier is earth, the bridge deck is made of reinforced concrete, and the steel plate is laid at the bottom of the bridge as a structural reinforcement, with a maximum load of 30 tons.
Taking into account the escalation of the scale of the war and the risk of easy mission failure in close combat, our army decided to use the seemingly most unreliable option: the artillery directly destroys the bridge.
However, some people have calculated that the firing deviation of conventional artillery is about 1 300, and the deviation of direction is also about 1 dense. In fact, the first shelling operation of the PLA did not achieve the desired results.
152-mm howitzer: shelling operations, long distances, poor visibility, failed to destroy the bridge. The commander of the 12th Frontier Regiment personally led the reconnaissance of the team, selected the positions for shelling, and formulated an effective plan.
On December 5, the 2nd Company of howitzers of the 3rd Regiment of the 1st Garrison Division participated in the operation, using 40 rounds of ammunition to fire a single shot at the bridge, successfully destroying the bridge.
The 152-mm howitzer accurately hit the north and south piers, followed by the north pier, causing the bridge deck to shake significantly. The commander took decisive measures to shoot at the middle of the bridge deck using a short delay fuse, and except for the fourteenth miss, the remaining three shelling hits all hit the bridge deck**, causing the bridge to collapse instantly.
Anticipating the possibility that the enemy could repair the bridge, the artillery group was ready to attack again. Sure enough, on December 10, the enemy troops came to build a bridge, and our artillery unit carried out another artillery bombardment, destroying the enemy's temporary bridge and sinking the enemy's wooden boats.
By December 29, the Vietnamese army was still determined to use mules and horses to transport supplies. Our artillery units launched another artillery bombardment, and the enemy dropped their supplies and retreated directly, without returning fire.
In this fierce battle, our soldiers cheered and successfully routed the Vietnamese army in the Zhai River area, depriving it of stable supplies and greatly suppressing its activities, thus ensuring the stability of the flank front in the Lao Son area.
In this battle, the 1st Squad of the 1st Howitzer Company of the 3rd Regiment of the 152nd Garrison Division was awarded the honorary title of "Divine Artillery Squad" by the Chengdu Military Region for its outstanding performance in the use of PL-66 152mm howitzers.
This victory once again proved the importance of the PL-66 152mm howitzer in the equipment of our army, and became the first choice of fire strikes for our army in the following decades**.
With the rapid development of military technology and the emergence of long-range howitzers, the positioning of the PL-66 152mm howitzer has become more and more embarrassing. Despite the fact that in the eighties our country developed the "Red Earth" guided artillery shell and rocket range extender for it, it still could not keep up with the times.
Therefore, China in the new era has developed the PCL-181 vehicle-mounted self-propelled howitzer, which is mounted directly on a 6x6 truck chassis, with a high degree of digitization and a semi-automatic loader, with an estimated rate of fire of 6 rounds per minute.
Its launch range is very good, with a range of 40 kilometers for ordinary grenades and 75 kilometers for rocket extender ranges, which is far superior to the M777 howitzer of the US military.
The PCL-181 vehicle-mounted self-propelled howitzer is an important part of the modernization of China's leading forces, and its key feature is that it can meet the requirements of modern warfare for high-mobility, long-distance rapid deployment.
In May 2020, China's PCL-181 vehicle-mounted self-propelled howitzer began to enter service with a unit in the Eastern Theater of the People's Liberation Army, marking the upgrading of our army's fire support equipment, and the PL-66 152 mm towed gun and the 59-1 130 mm towed gun will also gradually withdraw from the historical stage.
Although the current production of 155-mm artillery in our country is not enough to meet the needs of the troops, some units still use old 152-mm howitzers. This not only ensured the firepower requirements of the troops, but also maintained the original establishment, avoided the situation of personnel waiting for shells, and also made rational use of a large number of 152-mm shells left over from the last century.
In the future, the PL-66 artillery may be transferred to the second line for artillery simulation training. At any time, a new era is quietly approaching, and a powerful and brand-new PLA artillery unit is rising step by step, contributing valuable firepower support to the peace of the motherland and the peaceful future of the people.