Type 88C (125 mm)

Description

Type 88C is a smoothbore cannon manufactured by Factory 617, Norinco during the late 1980s; serving as PLAGF's early model of Warsaw Pact caliber equivalent cannon; with the sufficient velocity and the projectile's penetration, this gun can show its power through eliminating enemies with its subpar varied yet sufficient shells.

Vehicles equipped with this weapon

• ZTZ96
• ZTZ96A

General info

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

Available ammunition

The basis of this gun was Warsaw Pact's 2A46M-1 cannon, so it can theoretically firing most shells from them; while there are a few domestic options from DTP-1 HEATFS, DTB HEFS and later 125-I APFSDS.

Comparison with analogues

For the NATO equivalent Rh120 L/44 and its basis 2A46M-1, their Chinese competitor shines over in terms of the velocity of projectile at 1730 m/s; but considering the subpar reload speed at 7.5 second, this gun is somewhat average at its tier while still sufficient to handle most targets.

Usage in battles

Since the gun was based on 2A46M-1, players of Soviet tech tree might find themselves home using Type 88C cannon, they shared many traits and flaws, like its overall higher velocity and access to HEFS, as well as slow (albeit still faster than the former) traverse speed and subpar reload to NATO manual reloaded guns; but his Chinese cousin comes with a slower reload rate so be extra careful with your shots, also in current patches this gun doesn't have access to ATGMs.

Its velocity and penetration helps players to knock out most of the targets it may face thanks to the 125-I APFSDS, also DTB HEFS does worth mentioning with their bit more explosive mass and penetration which also makes enemies be extra caution not to over-pressured by this shell.

Overall the gun, aside from the reload time, is very similar, if not the same as 2A46M-1 found on many Soviet/Russian tanks and the playstyle should be similar as well.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• High velocity that makes it comfortable at sniping .
• 125-I found on this gun has enough penetration to stop most of its targets.
• Access to powerful HEFS that can over-pressure even the heaviest MBTs.
• Domestic autoloader that reloads even with loss of crewmembers

Cons:

• Even worse reload rate than his Soviet cousin at 7.5 seconds.
• Subpar traverse speed albeit still faster than his Soviet Cousin.
• Comes with no tube-launched ATGM.

History

The attempt of Chinese domestic smoothbore cannon can went back to late 1960s.

See also: PTZ89

During the 1980s, Mainland China has acquired a T-72U-1 "Ural" from Romania, in exchange to some industrial equipment; meanwhile there was the competition from Factory 447's 120mm smoothbore gun, Factory 617 had a better progress on reverse-engineering this gun alongside with its AZ-174 autoloader, eventually in 1986 this gun passed for state certifications and was used on a prototype of ZTZ85II-AP/M export tank and ZTZ90 as their main cannon; later with its official introduction into PLAGF service, it made its way becoming the main gun for ZTZ88C (later ZTZ96) and its upgrade ZTZ96A. Completed with NATO alloy technologies, this gun served as a more accurate and powerful option for PLAGF to handle any future tanks they may encounter.

Media

An excellent addition to the article would be a video guide, as well as screenshots from the game and photos.

See also

Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

• 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;
• encyclopedia page on the weapon;
• other literature.

China tank cannons
30 mm	ZPL02 · ZPZ02
73 mm	Type 86
76 mm	M32K1
85 mm	Type 56 · Type 63
100 mm	PTP86 · Type 59 · Type 69 · Type 69-II · ZPL04
105 mm	88B-105T · Type 83 · WMA301 · ZPL94 · ZPL98A
120 mm	122TM · PTZ89
125 mm	Type 88C · Type 99A · ZPT98
130 mm	PL59A Gai
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)