Type 69 (100 mm)

Description

The 100 mm Type 69 smoothbore tank cannon (1969年式100毫米滑膛坦克炮) was the first smoothbore cannon developed in Mainland China as the main cannon solely for Type 69 medium tank. Although the gun has a relatively slow traverse rate and the inferior APFSDS performance in terms of penetration hindered its performance, it is still a formidable gun and set the foundations for future cannons.

Vehicles equipped with this weapon

• Type 69

General info

Tell us about the tactical and technical characteristics of the cannon or machine gun.

Available ammunition

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
		10 m	100 m	500 m	1,000 m	1,500 m	2,000 m
Type 71 APDS-FS	APFSDS	219	213	194	170	147	126
Type 71 HE	HE	26	26	23	19	17	17
Type 1973 HEAT-FS	HEATFS	390	390	390	390	390	390

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile mass (kg)	Fuse delay (m)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (kg)	Ricochet
							0%	50%	100%
Type 71 APDS-FS	APFSDS	1,505	3.05	-	-	-	72°	76°	78°
Type 71 HE	HE	900	15	0.2	0.1	1.3	79°	80°	81°
Type 1973 HEAT-FS	HEATFS	1,000	10.05	0.05	0.1	1.18	65°	72°	77°

Comparison with analogues

• 115 mm U-5TS - Soviet counterpart; outperforms Type 69 in all aspects.
• 90 mm T208E9 - American counterpart; lacks stabilizer for fire-on-the-move or quick target acquisition.

Usage in battles

As the main gun of Type 69, players of previous D-10T/Type 59 rifled gun might need some time to get used to the new ballistics of a smoothbore gun; thanks to its unprecedented (in terms of PLAGF arsenal) high muzzle velocity, two-plane stabilizer and new FCS with automatic ballistic solution, it will not be too difficult to get used to the gun. But one thing that leaves an impression for the gun is the Type 71 APDS (sic; albeit an APFSDS) with surprising low flat penetration for such a gun at only 219 mm point-blank; while this is certainly a major problem against tanks with very thick armour plates, it has high enough sloped penetration to take down most NATO/Warsaw-Pact medium tanks it might face at closer ranges. If it happens to deal with long-range targets, depending on your playstyle or the protection of enemy vehicle, both APFSDS and HEAT can certainly end the game for enemy vehicles; but HEAT-FS can be said as an universal solution to targets without ERA or composite armour.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• The earliest tank to access both APFSDS and stabilizer
• Laser rangefinder and automatic ballistic solution for faster acquisition
• Sufficiently high velocity for long-range engagements with APFSDS

Cons:

• Infamous Type 71 APDS with abysmal flat penetration
• Relatively long reload time

History

Although PLAGF acquired a T-62 from Soviet Border Troops in 1969's Damansky (Zhenbao) Island conflicts, the Type 69 was in fact an earlier design based on the previous 100 mm Type 59 rifled cannon (D-10T) by the 2nd Machinery Works (now NORINCO Northern Heavy Industries Group) in 1966 in view of developing new tank cannon that can utilize APFSDS; there were also the technical drawings of prototype APFSDS with complicated sabot design that differs vastly from Soviet designs. Due to the inferior performance of the gun, PLAGF returned all 100 Type 69s to factory and halted the production of Type 69 series for almost a decade until more reliable Type 69-II was certified for export (meanwhile, further revisions for the Type 69 were fruitless after the production of Type 79 and ZTZ88). Some of the munitions are compatible with earlier Type 59 cannon while the experiences on making new APFSDS also gave it a chance to compete with the Royal Ordnance L7 before making the deal, where a prototype 100 mm APFSDS achieved similar penetration to 105 mm counterpart and earning discounts when purchasing the license for L7. The gun was also upgraded with new technologies from what-would-become PTP86 for higher bore pressure and velocity but the introduction of the 105 mm Royal Ordnance L7 gun halted further development of 100 mm smoothbore tank cannon.

Media

Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.

See also

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• reference to the article about the variant of the cannon/machine gun;
• references to approximate analogues by other nations and research trees.

External links

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• topic on the official game forum;
• other literature.

References

China tank cannons
30 mm	ZPL02 · ZPZ02
73 mm	Type 85
76 mm	M32K1
85 mm	Type-62-85-TC · Type 63
100 mm	PTP86 · Type 59 · Type 69 · Type 69-II · ZPL04
105 mm	Type 83 · WMA301 · ZPL94 · ZPL98A
120 mm	122TM · PTZ89
125 mm	Type 88C · Type 99A · ZPT98
152 mm	PL66 Gai
	Foreign:
20 mm	KwK30 (Germany)
37 mm	M6 (USA)
45 mm	20-K (USSR)
47 mm	Type 1 (Japan)
57 mm	Type 97 (Japan) · ZIS-2 (USSR)
75 mm	M2 Howitzer (USA) · M3 (USA) · M6 (USA)
76 mm	D-56T (USSR) · F-34 (USSR) · M1 (USA) · M7 (USA) · ZIS-3 (USSR)
85 mm	ZIS-S-53 (USSR)
90 mm	M3 (USA) · M41 (USA)
100 mm	D-10S (USSR)
105 mm	M68 (USA) · M68A1 (USA)
115 mm	U-5TS (USSR)
122 mm	A-19 (USSR) · D-25T (USSR)
152 mm	ML-20S (USSR)