PL59A Gai (130 mm)

Description

As the modified version for vehicular mounts, PL59A-130 (Previously Type 59-1; PL59A式130毫米加农炮) was an experimental attempt to mount the workhorse of PLAGF artillery corps onto the newly developed PLZ83 SPH solely for export purpose while retaining the recoil mechanism from 152 mm PL66 Gai. The base model, M1954 (M-46) and its Chinese licensed variant, PL59 have been the icon of the artillery corps since 1954/1959 as the replacement of previous 100 mm howitzer in Soviet Army; meanwhile, this gun would also be the longest range among any PLAGF artillery piece before the introduction of 155 mm GC-45 for more than 3 decades, which PL59 series proved their capabilities during the decade-long Sino-Vietnamese conflicts in 1980s.

Vehicles equipped with this weapon

• PLZ83-130

General info

Note: based on the information of towed PL59A

Specifications
Caliber	130 mm
Combat weight	6,100 kg
Barrel length	6,850 mm; L/52
Traverse limits	-5° to + 65° Vertical ± 180° Horizontal
Muzzle velocity	655 m/s

Available ammunition

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Comparison with analogues

130 mm C-70/S-70 and M-65: the trio shares same heritage from naval 130 mm; while the former shares identical penetration stats but at lower velocity, the latter achieves even higher penetration at 1000 m/s.

152 mm 2A33: Soviet 152 mm howitzer with HEAT and APHE for alternative ammunitions while having much lower velocity.

155 mm M185: NATO standard 155 mm howitzer with lower rate of fire and no AP shells.

155 mm CN98, JSW L/52, GCT F1: Korean, Japanese and French NATO standard 155 mm howitzer with modern 155 mm ammunition options.

Usage in battles

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Pros and cons

Pros:

• Very high muzzle velocity for long-range engagements
• Access to varieties of ammunition ranging from high-penetration APHE, smoke shell and up to HE-VT
• Faster reload than non-autoloaded NATO 155 mm/Warsaw-Pact 152 mm guns

Cons:

• HE lacks the firepower to overpressure heavy targets
• Rather long barrel that reveals the vehicle's existence
• Slow gun traverse

History

As part of the program to replace already obsolete Interwar and WWII artillery pieces in Red Army service, MOTZ (Factory 172) of Perm developed two artilleries based on the same mount: M-46 and M-47 with 130 mm/152 mm respectively. Thanks to its long range among fellow Soviet howitzers at similar or even larger calibers, the gun has been the main composition of long-range artillery strikes against hostile artillery installations; meanwhile, to further increase the range of PLAGF artillery corps and replacing previous captured US and Japanese-built artillery, PLAGF introduced the M-46 and its schematics likely during the First Five-year Plan and manufactured by Factory 127 (now NORINCO Qiqihar Heping Heavy Industries) by 1959 as the PL59. By 1960s, to address the suggestions from PLAGF and some flaws of PL59, Factory 127 revised the breech mechanism and utilized the mount of PL60-122 (122 mm D-74), later joining PLAGF as the PL59A as the main composition of the artillery corps; thanks to its long range and improvements of equipment with counter-battery radar, PL59 achieved exceptional efficiency during the Sino-Vietnamese conflicts where an artillery company claimed to wipe out an VPA artillery company with merely 24 shells, while serving as part of the army corps artillery with PL66-152 as the frontline fire support for PLAGF troops during the assault and the later standoffs on the borders.

There were plans to install PL59A-130 onto vehicles including the export solution of PLZ83-130 where the system retained the improved recoil mechanism for vehicular use but earned no export orders afterwards, as well as a possible candidate of PLAGF's new wheeled artillery systems; likely due to the final decisions for only 122 mm and 155 mm will be retained, PL59A is now very likely to be phrased out by new wheeled artillery by the 2020s.

Media

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See also

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• references to approximate analogues by other nations and research trees.

External links

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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)