This article continues with the Japanese-made artillery used by the Volunteer Army.
may be different from everyone's traditional impression, the volunteer army uses a wide range of Japanese-made artillery, all kinds of calibers.
This is based on the captured **20mm Bofors air defense gun, the imitation of the 20mm machine gun, the Volunteer Army has a record of using it for air defense.
Unlike the general Japanese imitation**, which is often worse than the original, this 20mm machine gun is very good for the Japanese army. The original side-opening magazine was changed to the upper opening in the **, which solved the shortcomings of this machine gun** that it is easy to loosen the magazine. In the original version of this machine gun**, a person on the side needs to hold the magazine to avoid falling off.
The Japanese army has a mysterious division of artillery, artillery with a caliber of less than 90mm is classified as infantry**, and 90mm and above are classified as artillery**, so this 81mm mortar is called the 97-type curved infantry gun (1937, the Japanese Jimmu period 2597 finalized).
This artillery, which was copied from the French Blond mortar, was the most commonly equipped mortar for the Japanese infantry, and naturally it became an important piece of equipment for the people's army. Interestingly, it and the civilian 82mm mortar were both learned from the Brown mortar, but the ** imitation had an extra mind, and the caliber was changed to 1mm, making it difficult for the Japanese army to use the captured ** 82mm mortar shells, while the civilian 82mm mortars could smoothly use the shells of the Japanese-made 81mm mortars.
The Volunteer Army's Type 97 curved infantry artillery position.
Interestingly, in 1937, Japan also finalized another 90mm mortar, which is what we commonly call a small steel cannon - a 97-type 90mm light mortar.
This is the volunteer soldier is training the Type 97 90mm light mortar.
The two-type 120mm medium mortar was finalized and produced in 1942 (2602 in the Shenwu period), and it was used by the Volunteer Army. However, this kind of large-caliber mortar has a high demand for positions and is not suitable for tunnel operations, and its weight itself is very heavy and inconvenient to move, so the time when the volunteers can use it is very limited.
Type 94 37mm anti-tank gun, finalized in 1934 in 2594 in the Shenmu period, this anti-tank gun is copied from the German 37mm anti-tank gun (in fact, it is made in the Czech Republic). However, Japan was reluctant to use armor-piercing shells and insisted on using grenades, so this made the maximum penetration depth of this anti-tank gun 10mm lower than that of the German original!
However, in the Battle of Nomenkan in 1939, the Japanese army found that this anti-tank gun was difficult to effectively penetrate even the frontal armor of the Soviet BT fast tank, which weighed more than 10 tons.
Therefore, the Japanese army copied a 47mm anti-tank gun based on the Soviet 45mm anti-tank gun captured in the Battle of Nomenkan. This cannon was successfully trial-produced in 1940, but it was finalized in 1941, so according to the year 2601 of the Shenmu period in 1941, it was named Ichishiki.
However, this artillery has become outdated as soon as it appeared, and it is said that on the battlefield in Burma, this artillery once fired more than 70 armor-piercing shells at close range (more than 20 meters) into the flank of a British General Lee Zhongtan. The thin-skinned stuffed General Li, nicknamed the 'coffin of the six brothers' by the Soviet army, failed to penetrate the side armor of this old Zhongtan at such a close distance, but was finally taken away by General Li's tankmen who found a position and took it away.
These two types of anti-tank guns were used by the Volunteer Army on the Korean battlefield, but these two types of anti-tank guns were clearly outdated, so they did not perform brilliantly.
The 92 infantry gun (70mm) was finalized and mass-produced in 1932, and that year was 2592 in the Shenwu period.
This kind of gun, which weighs more than 200 kilograms and has a low barrel and can be disassembled and carried, is very suitable for the use of motorized troops.
Therefore, the volunteers who entered the war in Korea were equipped with a large number of this Type 92 infantry gun, and the Type 92 infantry gun should be a Type 97 90mm light mortar.
However, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea is also the last swan song of the Type 92 infantry artillery in the people's army.
Before the Soviet aid was in place, the lightweight 92 infantry gun was a rare fire support for the Volunteer Army**, and its large curved firing angle could also be used as a half mortar. The volunteers often pushed the 92 infantry artillery to the front of the position, and built anti-slope artillery positions to bombard the enemy troops on the opposite side.
According to records, by September 1951, the number of 92 infantry guns that had entered the war with the Volunteers had reached 122. However, compared with the 82mm mortar, the 92 rifle is still too heavy, and the range of the two is about the same, while the 82 mortar shell is more powerful; Compared with the recoilless guns and rocket launchers gradually popularized by the Volunteer Army, the 92 Infantry Artillery shells have less power and low muzzle velocity, and the deployment is not as mobile and flexible as the first two.
Therefore, when the Korean War turned into a positional warfare phase, the 92-step artillery was quickly eliminated.
The Volunteer Army was equipped with several 75mm Japanese mountain guns, field guns, and anti-aircraft guns, and they will be introduced one by one below.
This Type 94 mountain gun (75mm), which was finalized and produced in 1934, is a mountain gun commonly equipped by the Japanese army. The power of this artillery is much greater than that of the Type 92 infantry gun and the 81mm curved infantry gun. In the 1942 anti-May Day sweep in the Jizhong base area, it was with this kind of mountain artillery that the Japanese army repeatedly captured the fortified villages defended by the Eighth Route Army.
The predecessor of this artillery was the 41-type mountain cannon (75mm), and in 1908 it was in Meiji 41, so it got its name because it was finalized in that year. It is also very likely that the 41 mountain cannon participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, but the volunteers should use this imitation of the Taiyuan Arsenal in Shanxi Province - the Jin-made 75mm mountain gun.
The Volunteers marched in the mountains of Korea with the dismantled Type 94 mountain guns on their backs.
The 38-type 75mm field gun was in service in the 38th year of the Meiji era, even in 1905.
Although this artillery is an antique from the Qing Dynasty, it has high shooting accuracy, a short range, and low production costs, so it is still the largest field gun in the Japanese army in World War II.
The Volunteer Army was also heavily equipped with this type of artillery.
The ninety-type 75mm field cannon and the ninety-five type 75mm field cannon are brothers, and what is more interesting is that these two guys, one was finalized in 1932 (Shenwu Chronicle 2592), and the other was finalized in 1936 (Shenwu Chronology 2596), but their naming is not according to the finalization year.
The Type 90 75mm field gun has a long barrel and a low barrel, so it is very suitable for use as an anti-tank gun, and the local Japanese army in Burma has converted a large number of Type 90 75mm field guns into anti-tank guns. However, what is confusing is that although the Type 90 75mm field gun was also used as an anti-tank gun in the Okinawa battle and achieved good results, the Japanese army did not change this gun to a special anti-tank gun, but only used it as the main gun of the Type 3 tank.
Probably because of Japan's lack of production capacity.
This kind of field artillery volunteers also put it into anti-tank operations, but in the early offensive operations, this bulky field gun could not keep up with the speed of the troops, and it still achieved a lot of results in the later position defense.
The Type 88 75mm anti-aircraft gun, according to some information, has been officially in service with the Japanese army since 1922. But judging from its 88-style naming, it should be in 1928, that is, the year 2588 of the Shenwu Period.
This anti-aircraft gun, which has been produced in the twenties of the last century, was obviously outdated in World War II, but at that time, Japan only had such a batch of medium-altitude anti-aircraft artillery, so it could only be used for air defense operations. Due to the limited firing height of Japan's anti-aircraft guns and the lack of night destroyers, Li Mei even dared to dismantle all the machine guns used for self-defense of the B-29 bombers when bombing Tokyo at night, so as to free up the load and load more incendiary bombs!
This old anti-aircraft gun was the only means of defense against hollowness in the early stage of the Volunteer Army, so it was deployed in Pyongyang and other cities. Although these anti-aircraft guns were also frequently attacked by US planes, they were not able to shoot down a single enemy plane.
With the Soviet-aided 85mm anti-aircraft guns in place, the Type 88 anti-aircraft guns also withdrew from the Korean battlefield.
It is not difficult to see from the few achievements of Japanese-made anti-aircraft guns and anti-tank guns in the hands of the volunteers that the performance of the most advanced equipment is becoming more and more important. No matter how hard the volunteer soldiers train bravely, they can't make up for the shortcomings of their backward performance.
Type 91 105mm field gun, this type of artillery was finalized in 1931, both in the year 2591 of the Shenwu period.
A total of 1,000 pieces of this artillery were produced, making it one of the largest caliber field artillery pieces in the Japanese field troops. It was also the largest caliber anti-tank gun of the Japanese army, and the Japanese army specially equipped it with Type 91 armor-piercing shells. Some of this artillery was captured by the people's army in the northeast, and the concrete fortress used to bombard ** in the Liberation War worked very well.
The volunteers mainly used it as support firepower, but because of the small number of participants, the results were not very brilliant.
Here is the number of field guns equipped by the three main armies of the Volunteer Army:
The 39th Army is equipped with 13 Type 38 field guns, 8 Type 90 field guns, and 3 Type 95 field guns.
The 40 Army was armed with 38 Type 32 field guns.
The 42nd Army was equipped with 44 Type 38 field guns, 5 Type 38 field guns, 9 Type 90 field guns, and 1 Type 95 field gunType 91 howitzers 8 pieces.
It seems that the fifth column from Siye is his own son, not only has many guns, but also is equipped with 8 105mm Type 91 howitzers.
The largest caliber of Japanese artillery equipped by the Volunteer Army is this Type 96 150mm field howitzer, which is named after it was finalized in 1936 in the year 2596 of the Shenwu period.
The disadvantage of this artillery is also the uniform disadvantage of Japanese artillery, which still uses iron wheels. This made it necessary for Japanese-made artillery to be mounted on vehicles when marching on complex ground, otherwise it was easy to damage the gun carriage when marching. But this undoubtedly significantly increased the time for the artillery to enter the position after reaching the destination.
Therefore, when Japanese artillery was used on the Korean battlefield, the Volunteer Army modified them with tires and replaced them with rubber tires from iron wheels, which greatly reduced the time for these guns to enter the position.
This 150mm large-caliber artillery belongs to the artillery division under the jurisdiction of the Volunteer Army Headquarters, and in the Battle of Shangganling, the Volunteer Army and the US Army launched a fierce artillery battle, and all types of artillery participated. The logistics unit of the Volunteer Army has a record of sending dozens of 150mm shells of this artillery to the front, which is the clearest record of the artillery's participation in the Korean War.
In addition, the Japanese army also has some heavy artillery with a caliber of more than 100mm, but the codeword has not found a record of its service in the Korean battlefield, so I will not list them one by one.
The Japanese system used by the Volunteer Army** is basically introduced here, if there is any omission, please point it out.