What is a self-propelled gun?

Self-propelled gun refers to the gun that can move by itself and be integrated with the vehicle chassis. Self-propelled artillery has good cross-country performance, fast speed in and out of positions, and most of them are armored units, with strong battlefield survivability, and some of them can float.

Self-propelled artillery is mainly composed of weapon system, chassis and armored vehicle body. Weapon system includes artillery, machine gun, fire control device and ammunition supply mechanism. In order to reduce the recoil of the gun, a more efficient muzzle brake is used; In order to reduce the gunpowder gas in the fighting chamber, the gun body is equipped with an air extraction device; In order to improve the firing rate and reduce the labor intensity of the loader, semi-automatic or full-automatic ammunition feeding and loading mechanism is often used. The chassis part includes power device, transmission device, action device and control device, usually using the chassis of tanks or armored vehicles, while others are specially designed. The armor materials of the car body are mainly steel and aluminum alloy, and the thickness is generally 10~50 mm, with thicker front armor and thinner other parts.

Traction artillery

Traction artillery refers to the artillery that moves through the traction of mechanical vehicles. Traction guns have moving bodies and traction devices, and some have front cars. The moving body comprises wheels, buffers and brakes, and the wheels are made of sponge tires or pneumatic tires. Some towed guns are equipped with auxiliary propulsion devices on the gun frame, which are used to drive the guns to enter and leave the position and travel in a short distance after removing traction, or to drive the artillery wheels to move with the tractor when passing through difficult areas. Some towed guns with long guns can be pulled back or rotated180 to shorten the length of the gun. During the First World War, with the use of automobiles and tractors, towed artillery appeared. During World War II, mechanical vehicle traction became a basic way of artillery movement. The towed gun has the advantages of simple structure, low cost, convenient operation and maintenance and good reliability. While developing self-propelled artillery, some countries still attach importance to the development of towed artillery.

Modern self-propelled artillery

At present, all types of towed artillery have corresponding self-propelled guns, which have the ability of three defenses, can quickly enter or exit the battle, and have high tactical and fire maneuverability, which are beyond the reach of towed artillery.

In modern warfare, when tanks are advancing, it is difficult to complete combat tasks without the fire support of artillery and the strong resistance of the enemy. In this case, self-propelled artillery has obvious advantages. It not only has good off-road performance, but also can effectively cooperate with tanks and mechanized troops. It can also destroy enemy tanks with its own powerful firepower. In addition, self-propelled anti-aircraft guns can also be used to deal with low-altitude attacks by enemy planes and effectively protect tanks and mechanized troops.

Self-propelled artillery can greatly shorten the conversion time between marching and fighting, so that it can be put into fierce fighting at any time, and it only takes 1 minute before and after.

The155mm self-propelled howitzer developed by China in the early 1990s has an initial velocity of 897m per second, a maximum range of 39,000m and a barrel length of 45 times the caliber.

Its maximum speed is 40 ~ 45km/h on the highway and 30 ~ 35km/h on the dirt road. The maximum driving distance is 450 kilometers, and you can pass through a vertical wall with a height of 700 mm and a trench with a width of 2700 mm during driving.

American crusader self-propelled artillery

Crusader artillery is a two-car system, one is XM200 1 self-propelled artillery, and the other is XM2002 armored ammunition supply vehicle. Both cars use the same chassis and have 60% parts. XM297E2 barrel with 54 times caliber length adopts integral middle wall refrigeration. The maximum range is 40 ~ 50km, and the firing rate is 10~ 12 rounds per minute. The ammunition supply vehicle is equipped with 60 shells and 60 charges, and can supply 60 shells to the artillery by remote control within 12 minutes. The off-road speed is 39 ~ 48km/h, and the highway speed is 67 ~ 78km/h, which can completely accompany the main battle tank. There are three gunners, and the gun weighs more than 50 tons. 1996 mid-term, "Crusader" artillery turned to the preliminary planning stage, and turned to the engineering manufacturing and development stage in early 2000. In August of the same year, the first sample gun was manufactured. In 2002, the 10 sample gun and 10 vehicle were manufactured, and the troops were equipped in 2005.

French Caesar155mm self-propelled gun.

The French "Caesar" 155 mm self-propelled gun uses a barrel 52 times longer, which makes the maximum range of the long-range full-bore bottom exhaust bomb reach 42 kilometers; The gun mount adopts the gun mount of 1 model 155 mm towed howitzer currently used by the French army. The gun is installed at the rear of the car body, with 18 projectile stored on the left side of the gun body and 18 charge stored on the right side. Due to the newly designed rapid ammunition supply device, three bullets were fired within 15 seconds after the start of shooting, and then the shooting continued at the speed of six bullets per minute. The directional shooting boundary of the gun is 30, and the high and low shooting boundary is 66. The "Caesar" aircraft carrier was modified from a German Mercedes-Benz U2450L six-wheeled truck. The total combat weight of the artillery is only 18.5 tons, which can be easily driven into the back cargo hold of 3- 130 transport aircraft for long-distance strategic transportation and put into use quickly.